Is Multiplayer neglected?

[Kordanor]

Heya,

as further the game is moving towards the release the more I get the impression that everything is fine BUT the multiplayer part.

I have read in several threads here that some of you think that Civ is mainly a singleplayer game and multiplayer is only a small feature. Well, I have to say that multiplayer is a huge thing for me and I guess it is for lots of people. Otherwise there would not have been a Civnet and a multiplayer mode in most of the games (somehow I think there was one without which made me play Alpha Centauri instead, cant remember)

Anyways: The Multiplayer previews I saw were very basic or not covering multiplayer mechanics at all.
During the live coverage it was said "This coverage is singleplayer only, no mp questions". Well, I doubt there will be a MP coverage, its only 7 days left where it would have a meaning. Sounds to me that they don't want to face these questions while having audience.

Simultaneous rounds will be the only mode available at release as stated in the manual:

A multiplayer game is a “simultaneous turns game.” In this style of game, you and your opponents take their turns simultaneously. Everybody moves units, conducts diplomacy, maintains their cities all at the same time. When everybody’s done everything they want to do, the turn ends and another begins. You can use a Turn Timer when playing in this format as well. Simultaneous Turns games can be a whole lot of fun, but they’re not for everybody. We recommend that you get a bunch of practice in turn-based Civ V before you jump into a simultaneous game.

He also states at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=379928 that
-Multiplayer games cant be saved manually, but it is possible to autosave it every turn
-There are no animations (I guess fight animations) in Multiplayer

How will simultaneous rounds work with the new combat system? Was already kinda bad in Civ4 where you could move around your enemy, and attacking a city faster than your opponent could place another military unit into it. With the new combat system I see tons of situations like: You have two units, enemy has two units facing each other. Both players wait for their opponent to attack first, so that they can finish the unit which attacked and withdraw the hurt one - sounds really stupid.
Well playing together with a friend you can still make "rules of honor" like one player always has to do all military actions before the other starts with it, but this is far from optimum.
Update: In the review at http://www.destructoid.com/civ-v-multiplayer-makes-turn-based-pick-up-the-pace-183931.phtml the reviewer shares these doubts saying:

Getting your scout or unit to move first in a given round can make a real difference, allowing you to gain the one-time benefits of discovering a natural wonder or claiming an ancient ruin before your opponents. The game gives priority to commands in the order it receives them from all players.
...
The implications for combat, however, are many. Acting faster and smarter than your opponents should allow you to grab advantageous terrain or choke points more often. Giving priority to moving units that are stronger on offense than defense will probably become standard strategy to maximize combat effectiveness. There may even be occasions where you will want to intentionally act slowly as a lure to draw units within striking distance of your cities or ranged units.

I also see a big potential in balancing issues with the Civ abilities as I mentioned in the other thread. Some Civ abilities seem to be huge, like getting Culture for every fight. Other ones seem to kinda suck, like the German one (or at least its limited to early game PLUS being situational).
Well, in a Singleplayer experience it probably doesnt matter that much, but once you play multiplayer and the only reason you lost is because "I took Germans but only found one babarian unit" to your superior Japan player this is going to suck hard.

Together with unit imbalances in Civ4 (the naval unit strength developelemt was terrible imho) I see a big potential for problems there.
No official talk about it just makes it worse.

Update:
Fortunately at least the features "handling" savegames from Civ 4 persist, as Brian Leahy states in his Review at http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=65623 (comments):
- Games can be reloaded and continued. Players can be replaced by AI or different players.
- Crashed/disconnected players can be re-invited/re-join through Steam interface without having to rollback (they will be played by an AI until they return).

Of course it's not an e-Sports game like SC2 which needed lots of months of balancing, but it would be great if the core mechanics for MP would be working fine and the game being roughly balanced.

So what do you think about it? Do I miss anything here?

 

[SevenSpirits]

While I share your concerns about multiplayer, be more careful about listening to speculating forum users. The only multiplayer previews we've seen used SEQUENTIAL turns.

 

[Kordanor]

While I share your concerns about multiplayer, be more careful about listening to speculating forum users. The only multiplayer previews we've seen used SEQUENTIAL turns.

Well, the review from http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65521 states the following:

Civ V will support simultaneous-turn multiplayer out of the box, though other multiplayer modes will be added later.

In general, the simultaneous turns system works well, but as the game progresses it will begin to take longer and longer for each player's computer to process turns. Throw networking into the mix and you're looking at a lot of added time in between turns as the player count increases. If you can deal with that, you'll likely have a good time, but games even on the quickest settings will take many hours to complete.

Which...makes absolutely no sense, if he didnt meant Sequential instead of Simultaneous (you are probably right). Still there is still no official statement about multiplayer modes, is there?

 

[krunsh]

Some of the multiplayer preview were played turn by turn. It was said that you could see whom turn it was by looking at the player list on the side of the screen, and you could queue building order (I don't know about military) while waiting for other player to play their turn.

I was also said that there was a lot of custumization for turn timer (the exemple for one of the preview was 40 sec to play at the ancien era, but more after that. and unlimited time for the Turn by Turn preview.

I'll try to find the source, shouldn't be to hard. But until then, trust me... I was very happy when reading this because I don't realy like simultaneous turn when playing with friend (even more worried with one unit per tile).

 

[SevenSpirits]

Fair point, I guess I missed that one! And it's possible the ones I remember were wrongly described, too. (I consider this possible because I haven't simultaneous/sequential as an option in the multiplayer setup screen.)

I don't think there's any official information yet. I tried to ask about this in the stream today, but they said they would preview it later and keep today's demo to single player.

 

[Mr_Wonka]

multiplayer sucks for civ anyways.

 

[krunsh]

There you go!

http://kotaku.com/5633827/how-to-beat-three-people-at-civilization-v-multiplayer

 

[SevenSpirits]

multiplayer sucks for civ anyways.

You're right, we are all really dumb for being interested in Civ V multiplayer and in particular, trying to have a discussion about it was the pinnacle of stupidity. I don't know what I was thinking.

 

[Kordanor]

multiplayer sucks for civ anyways.

Everyone who has friends also playing Civ might want to play together or against them in multiplayer in one way or another.

So if you are serious you either have no friends like that, or depend on loading/saving to heavily that you cant live without it (which imho is a terrible type of gameplay for Civ once you have seen the alternative. Yeah played like that myself back in the days of Colonization1).

The only reason for multiplayer to suck is a bad implementation.

 

[Kordanor]

There you go!

http://kotaku.com/5633827/how-to-beat-three-people-at-civilization-v-multiplayer

Thanks. I knew that one already though (and for me as non native English speaker reading it was pain in the ass, well probably same for natives ^^)

The only interesting part was:

You can only type in the chat when it's your turn. But another player doesn't have this problem, and you can still chat through Steam. A resolvable bit of weirdness, you hope. Not that these rival players would offer much advice.

Which means:
-It IS Sequential as SevenSpirits said.
-During this build it seems like it was rather buggy/untested, might have been a newly implemented bug of course.

 

[krunsh]

Thanks. I knew that one already though (and for me as non native English speaker reading it was pain in the ass, well probably same for natives ^^)

The only interesting part was:


Which means:
-It IS Sequential as SevenSpirits said.
-During this build it seems like it was rather buggy/untested, might have been a newly implemented bug of course.

Other multiplayer preview were simultaneous. And maybe I don't get the meaning of sequential (as a non native english speaker ). But this game was played turn by turn wich is a good thing for me.

 

[12agnar0k]

I don't share your misconceptions about multiplayer, I think it will be fine, you can play with or without simultaneous turns I believe, and with or without turn timers, really, it doesn't have to differ much from the singleplayer but obviously games will take longer if players don't take turns simultaneously.

 

[krunsh]

I don't share your misconceptions about multiplayer, I think it will be fine, you can play with or without simultaneous turns I believe, and with or without turn timers, really, it doesn't have to differ much from the singleplayer but obviously games will take longer if players don't take turns simultaneously.

That's exactly what I think.

As anyone played hotseat? was it fun? it is not a bit bothering to have the other player watching your civ on your turn? or does most people organize it so they don't watch the other player?

I'm wondering because one of my friend wich I use to play Civ 4 online with won't have a good enough computer for Civ 5.

 

[Kordanor]

Other multiplayer preview were simultaneous. And maybe I don't get the meaning of sequential (as a non native english speaker ). But this game was played turn by turn wich is a good thing for me.

(From wikipedia): In mathematics, a sequence is an ordered list of objects (or events)
equals turn by turn
And I think I only know about two other multiplayer previews (3 total). The one already linked here which messes up simultaneous (as it's describing sequential) and the other one presented a nice story but nothing game mechanic related.

 

[krunsh]

This one is also Turn by Turn: http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1119474p1.html

This one is simultaneous: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=378632

 

[Kordanor]

That's exactly what I think.

As anyone played hotseat? was it fun? it is not a bit bothering to have the other player watching your civ on your turn? or does most people organize it so they don't watch the other player?

I'm wondering because one of my friend wich I use to play Civ 4 online with won't have a good enough computer for Civ 5.

I think I played hotseat about 10 years ago with Alpha Centauri. We watched each others turn.
Leaving the room every time (or something similar) would take out the nice flair it gives.
Hot seat is attractive as you basically have always something to do: Watch and annoy your friend or make your own turn.

Otherwise (in LAN/Internet) sequential turns almost require a second monitor/pc to not get bored during the 5 Minute turns of your opponent (yes, there is a timer, but I guess 5 minutes are more than realistic). Luckily I got both, but the friends I play with haven't and if they are bored my setup doesnt help much. In this case I would definitely prefer hot-seat if it's possible (locationwise) and if it is implemented right!
I remember that in Civ4 or maybe even Alpha Centauri only the first player (after the computer) was able to see enemy movements, which kinda sucked.

I think a mixture in between would be cool.
Something like simultaneous for non-enemies and as soon as war starts between two players an automatic switch to sequential.
Or having "sub-turns" in a simultaneous game for the military units.

 

[Kordanor]

This one is also Turn by Turn: http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1119474p1.html

This one is simultaneous: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=378632

Maybe you are right. Anyways, the second review is kinda confusing and in addition also very open for discussion:

The simultaneous system should create some exciting moments, but it could all fall apart during large battles. I can easily see honor rules being created amongst friends to take turns during wars to ensure the combat plays out fairly for each player and not for the one with the fastest mouse hand. This multiplayer mode is probably best used in cooperative games against AI opponents, honestly.

 

[krunsh]

I'm satisfied with being able queue order while other player are making their turn

 

[Kordanor]

I'm satisfied with being able queue order while other player are making their turn

Yep, would also be a good option imho.

Edit, just to quote something from your first link:

Between turns you can survey your territory and then when it's your turn to move, it'll let you go at it, moving troops, setting up research and production queues, building mines and roads and whatever else you need to do to gain the upper hand.

This basically means that currently you are most probably NOT "being able to queue order while other player are making their turn".

 

[krunsh]

From the same link

You will have rejoiced in other successful moves. You learned that, while it wasn't your turn, you could queue land purchases — gold spent to hurry city expansion rather than waiting for organic, natural growth.

I must say you had me worried I was wrong for a minute.