Multiplayer hybrid and sequential

[dagriggstar]

So this has little chance of being implemented however....

Okay lets say we have a 4 player game and (for simplicity) everyone is at war with each other. What currently happens is
Player one completes their entire move
Player two completes their entire move
Player three completes their entire move
Player four completes their entire move

The way I believe it should work is
Player one initially is forced to move all of their military units. During this time all other players may make economic choices about their civs. Examples would include deciding research, government civics/types, city production etc.
Player one clicks a button to indicate finishing moving their military units
Player two is now forced to move all of their military units. During this time all other players (including player one) may make economic choices about their civs. Examples would include deciding research, government civics/types, city production etc. Player one can now fully end their turn at any time at their leisure (But is locked out of moving their units)
Player two clicks a button to indicate finishing moving their military units
And so on
The turn is fully completed when each player fully ends their turn.

I think this would cut down a lot on turn times as it essentially lets people make more decisions at once than the current hybrid (during wartime) and sequential systems.

 

[Amrunril]

Civilization is designed as a turn based game, and I think it should keep that underlying framework. What you should be able to do, however, is queue up actions during other players' turns. This would likely look a lot like your suggestion in practice, with players planning out their economic moves (and potentially some of their military moves, depending on turn order) during other players turns and focusing on combat during their own. However, nothing would finalize until your turn, allowing you to respond to other players moves and preventing ties when it comes to founding religions, claiming ruins, etc. This would actually be quite relevant to single player as well, as it would allow you to do something other than watching during extended late game AI turns.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

Personally I'm also mostly of the opinion that most computer turn based games should explore ways to make turns simultaneous. It's a real challenge and it doesn't look like Civ VI is heading that way, rather a shorter type of games in multiplayer in a different way. But I think there is way more to do in a turn based computer game than a turn based board game, but it's not necessarily interesting to spend all the time that you wait for others to finish doing their turn to really think about what you're going to do. So what do you do then, waste time? ALT+TAB?? big problem I think. I'll still likely try some MP game of Civ VI, but I doubt I'd play a lot.

A famous example is HOMM games. A lot of people really like them, but very few actually play them in multiplayer. It's fun, you engage in it anyway, but its always too long..

 

[Binkov]

simultaneus turns are implemented in civ v, if i am faster to click, i can move and attack with my unit before you can act with yours. Turn itself lasts as long as slowest person plays through their turn.

the OP's mechanic would solve the clickfest issue above. it would also provide for simultaneous plays of everything but moving the military units. it's still far from a good solution but it's an interesting idea.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

Ah I didn't know that.

There was an old strategy game with simultaneous turns called Battle Isle. In this game there were also two phases pretty much like OP described.

It's possible that making a really good simultaneous turns system would require actually designing the very system of the game itself around the idea of simultaneous turns.. (rather than applying a simultaneous turns system on top of a game first designed without it in mind)

 

[Binkov]

Oh, I agree. Simultaneous turns is a great solution, but a very complicated one to implement. And even if one managed to solve all the possible conflicting situations, there's always the fact that either very small empires will have nothing to do most of the turn duration (as they had just 2 cities and 5 units to manage) or that large empires will be penalized by having a time limit inside which they'll have to manage their 24 cities and 154 units.