Mini Q&A About the Expansion Pack w/ Jeff Morris

[Hurin]

As a CivNet Veteran, here's my thoughts. . .

Someone above mentions that simultaneous movement will be a problem. I'd have to assert that simultaneous movement is a fair trade for shorther games.

When I used to play CivNet, 3 players in the modern era would take *weeks* to finish a game. I remember one game where we all sat there all weekend, all day for four weekends straight. . . just building our armies and waiting for the other one to attack. Finally, I attacked. It took me five hours just to get my tanks loaded on the transports, and across the strait to his continent (about 7 squares). When I finally did land, I took his entire continent in one turn (thank you railroads!). He quit in a huff. . . and the other guy didn't show up the next weekend.

So, there went a month's worth of weekends.

In CivNet, you could turn off simultaneous movement and most people elected to do so when combat started because the hosting computer had an advantage (faster moving, no lag). But if they find a way to equalize that, I think simultaneous movement is the only way to go. Sometimes you'll be beaten to a city spot, sometimes you won't. . . that's a fair trade for having a game that is actually *feasible* as multiplayer.

Just FYI, I tried Civ2 MP, but I'm no longer a student and didn't have the eight hours/day it would apparently need to finish a game.

Just my 2 cents,

Hurin

 

[arkammler]

What I think this turnless mode. As of now turns are done in two parts (city mant. and army movement), I think the city mant. can be done at the same time for all players, then a worker only phase. After that your army moves player by player.

 

[Selous]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
Just curious, where are you getting the 4 star fan site about?

down the bottom of the unedited version of the Q&NA

and this turnless mode is siunding quite bandwidth intencive ... anyone play fallout tactics online? (doesnt seem like to many people played fallout tactics?)

 

[American80]

I sort of wish that I wouldn't ever find out about something cool until the day or so before it came out, but it is still pretty cool jsut thinking about it.

I also agree strongly that it should be Q&NA...

 

[mwernecke]

A lot of people seem to be saying that simultaneous play would turn the game into a race... but isn't that what goto's for? Then again, what would happen if two people used goto to a square?

 

[Craterus22]

I played Fallout Tactics online with a friend a couple of months ago - there was no one online except us and the game was a disappointment (compared to FO and FO2) so I returned it.

If I recall correctly we could move freely until units got within sight of each other -

If I were to guess how they would apply it to civ3 - I would suspect that they would let everyone move freely (with turns clicking by at an agreed upon rate - 1/1min to 10min) until war was declared.

just a guess


btw- QnA should be turned down if they aren't going to provide answers - a simple we can't talk about that now

 

[damunzy]

Give Jeff Morris some leeway guys. He answered as far as he is allowed to. It is better than nothing.

 

[demonbug]

Nice Q&NA.

Didn't anyone but me play multiplayer in Alpha Centauri? You had simultaneous turns in that, which for the most part worked great. Sure it was a little buggy (I don't think I ever played more than a couple turns in a game with more than two human players before it crashed) but it was a lot of fun. Why couldn't they just have stuck that in Civ3 instead of making me shell out another $30 for an expansion with apparently nothing I want EXCEPT MP? Aaargh, ah well. My guess is that this continuous turn based system or whatever will be pretty much the same as simultaneous moves in AC, except you will be able to que up moves for your next turn while waiting for other players to finish their current turn.

 

[Thunderfall]

When Firaxis is more willing to talk about the expansion, we can do a longer and more detailed Q&A. Send me your questions.

But for now, that's as much info Firaxis is willing to provide. Asking them more questions at this time wouldn't help.