Multiplayer ruined Civ 5 for me...

[brento1138]

So a buddy and I tried playing Civ 5. Wow, it sucked bigtime. Here's why:

- No animations when units kill other units, so things happen fast and sudden, and you can't even see the attack happen
- Simultaneous turns - Yes, this is the worst of all. My friend would attack with a chariot and I would target it with my city's targeting system. Then his unit would move out just in time! I'd target his unit with an archer, and suddenly his unit would move out of my targeting area. So annoying! I cannot play civ, and do other stuff while I wait for my friend's turn, or risk losing out militarily. So Civ 5 has turned into "who can click the fastest". While this works for certain games, IT DOES NOT WORK FOR CIV. Civ is supposed to be turn-based, and that is how good strategy forms
- No sound FX when my friend 'chats' to me, so he'll say something and I won't notice it unless I am constantly checking the text message area for his messages
- Cannot connect via IP: this is a minor annoyance, I liked the simplicity of just typing in an IP and connecting. Why remove this option? It doesn't make sense. Now we play over steam, which seems to go fine, but still, I just don't understand why we must play through steam.
- No saving games in options menu!? - do they seriously expect us to sit for 24 hours playing a game???? With Civ 4 we would save it after a good 2 or 3 hours, then play the rest out a day or two later, as we have lives, work, etc.

Overall, the multiplayer option has pretty much ruined the experience for me. Terribly disappointed.

On the positive side, I still like the "no stacking units" rule. But that is ALL I enjoy... pretty much nothing else.

 

[niksunorz]

Just wait for the official patches. I'm sure the game will be playable in a short while. These days every game you buy comes with bunches of bugs.

 

[Teejvan]

In the options menu you can set the frequency of autosaves. When me and a friend play it saves every turns and keeps 10 autosaves.

I can't understand wanting to connect with an I.P. address? All I do is invite my friend via Steam which I find to be the easiest method but to each his own.

As for simultaneous turns, yeah, that needs to change to turn based!

 

[Rince]

With all these deficiencies I wonder why Firaxis didn't leave out MP all together, especially since they plan to release working MP later.

 

[OG_Pieps]

Isnt it possible to save via Strg+S in MP ?

 

[OMG Hexes]

Simultaneous turns is is a good thing. It lets players decide if they want a particular move to happen at the beginning of their turn or at the end of it. And those choices are very important (as you discovered). It also allows players to try to sneak forces into position by making their move at the very end of a turn, giving them the ability to move those units at the very beginning of the next turn without the defending civ being able to react.

I think this kind of strategic depth is very important for multiplayer civ. It forces each player to have many units out actively scouting their opponents. It requires players to look around the map and think in terms of the larger strategic whole before beginning to move units and also at the end of their turn before ending their turn.

Pro Tip: Don't end your turn prematurely. You don't want to be caught with your pants down.

You can't just expect to tunnel vision your way through a game and have everything work out for you. Playing against real people can be difficult and frustrating if you aren't vigilant about scouting and of course just simply paying attention to what you have scouted.

I hope you try MP again with the mindset that it's a competitive game. Try to think outside the box about how to fool your human opponent. Try to win the game by beating your opponent, not by a achieving a conventional 'win' objective.

 

[Zelig]

Multiplayer ruined singleplayer for me, since I can't find any way of turning on the awesome fast movement in singleplayer.

 

[Nunya]

Multiplayer ruined singleplayer for me, since I can't find any way of turning on the awesome fast movement in singleplayer.

When you're seting up a new game go into "advanced setup" (the button is just to the left of "start game") and enable "quick combat".

Advanced setup will also allow you to pick from additional map types, disable certain victory conditions, give yourself specific opponents and more.

 

[cdcuase]

Pro Tip: Don't end your turn prematurely. You don't want to be caught with your pants down.

Good tip but that eventually results in EVERYONE waiting for the turn timer to reach near the end before moving, prolonging the game even further. Simul moves was put in to speed up multiplayer and it in fact does the opposite once people wise up to timings. It's better just to have people take their moves one person at a time the same way it happens in single player so that people don't abuse the whole "last mover is superior" problem.

 

[Ricci]

...
These days every game you buy comes with bunches of bugs.

Incredibly bad timing of yours to have said this these days, as Starcraft II was released just a couple of months ago!

 

[dfn]

....especially since they plan to release working MP later.

Is there a source for this? Just curious, because I'd really like to get into multiplayer.

 

[Ricci]

In the options menu you can set the frequency of autosaves. When me and a friend play it saves every turns and keeps 10 autosaves.

So you are telling me that your saving precision is a whole turn, you really can't save on the spot???
And if you happen to start another game you must off game go to the directory where the save is and change it's name to avoid it being over-written???
Gosh!! I heard MP was crap but this is ridiculous.

I can't understand wanting to connect with an I.P. address? All I do is invite my friend via Steam which I find to be the easiest method but to each his own.

I'll try to broaden your understanding if I may. The IP protocol is much more fundamental and embedded to the internet than a lousy application, so independence is the why I would say.

 

[Zelig]

When you're seting up a new game go into "advanced setup" (the button is just to the left of "start game") and enable "quick combat".

Advanced setup will also allow you to pick from additional map types, disable certain victory conditions, give yourself specific opponents and more.

That's only quick combat, not quick movement, which is only available in multiplayer.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

It's going to take a long time for patches. It is not that Firaxis have many quality assurance people, and just plain enough manpower to quickly send us customers quick fixes. Thank 2K for that. Where's 2K Greg? lol

 

[Biz_]

Good tip but that eventually results in EVERYONE waiting for the turn timer to reach near the end before moving, prolonging the game even further. Simul moves was put in to speed up multiplayer and it in fact does the opposite once people wise up to timings. It's better just to have people take their moves one person at a time the same way it happens in single player so that people don't abuse the whole "last mover is superior" problem.

in civ4 you could make moves after you ended your turn

there is only 1 alternative to simultaneous turns and that is team simultaneous so that quick moves don't work

 

[Bill Bisco]

Simultaneous turns is a good thing, but it should be an option rather than forced for all games.

 

[AySteve]

Simultaneous turns is a good thing, but it should be an option rather than forced for all games.

Agreed

I can see the benefit of simultaneous turns when there are 6 people, but if its just 2 of us then I dont mind waiting (in the later eras a players turn might even end up being faster than the AI!)

 

[SuperJay]

Steam voice chat works a lot better than in-game text chat for Multiplayer games, too.