Potential problem playing with PitBoss

[Robi D]

I've a lot of experience playing MP games of the net where simultaneous moves are the order of the day, in fact the Civ3 MTDG was the first PBEM i've ever played. Now i did not realise until DaveShack set up the PitBoss game as an experiment that it to would be played under simultaneous moves, which could present a bit of a problem. In MP games with simultaneous moves a classic strategy is the virtual double move. This is where one player places their troops just outside the visual range of a new city using fast moving units (ie 2MP's) then on the next turn they wait until the very last moment to move their units 2 space right next to the city, then when it switch over to the next turn they immediatly attack, giving them a virtual double move and the defender no chance to re enforce the city. This is shown in the diagram i've done (apologies for the crudeness). Now this is a pretty devastating tactic in MP games where everyones on line at the same time and the turn time is a few minutes.

Now just imaging the same thing in a PitBoss game with 48hr turns and not everyone is online at the same time. Let say its the same situation as in the diagram, Team B place a stack of horses outside Team A city, just out of visual range. Now Team A come in and play their turn with 12hrs to go in the turn, and their player then signs off. Now Team B wait until their is a few minutes to go before the turn ends to take their turn and move their horses. Team B player then stays online and as soon as the new turn begins attacks the city and razes it. The next day Team A log in and find their city no longer there and with no idea what happened.

Now some people might think thats just part of the game and are happy to live with it, but this tactic might not be the cup of tea for all those PBEMers who have not played MP games. I have brought this up as i thought that everyone should have the chance to make the decision on whether to go with PBEM or PitBoss based on all the facts.

I hope this has helped

 

[robboo]

Sounds like a good reason to go with PBEM. It takes the "engine" out of the game and allows those with more MP experince to sneak around.

Thanks for the heads up.--I know I will be looking for this if its pitboss.

 

[Robi D]

I have probably worded the title wrong, as its not so much a problem but an issue. There are way to counter act the double move strategy (as well as some others that come up when playing simultaneous moves) but you have to be aware of the potential of these stategies coming up and playing accordingly

 

[grahamiam]

I do believe that you can setup pitboss to not do simultaneous moves, right? set it up initially as pbem/turnbased, enter the team's email addy's and the save goes from team to team. if the teams are online at the same time (like we setup an official play time once or twice very early in the game), we can crank thru the very early game (1st 20 turns or so) pretty quickly, even in turnbased mode, right?

edit:

check "turn timer" instead of simultaneous, and set the turn timer to 24 or 48hrs (whatever we agree upon). Also my understanding is that it cannot send email notices with rev1.52. Yet another reason to wait for the next patch.

 

[DaveShack]

Let's put this potential issue on hold for a day or two, and then run an experiment.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

But, grah, if you are going to do it turnbased, why not do it PBEM style? There's less hassle, it's much more stable, multiple people can view the save at once...but yes, I agree, turnbased is the way to go, as Simul. moves would get exploitish...I hope the teams choose PBEM.

 

[robboo]

I think one more PBEM vote cinches that GA...

 

[grahamiam]

all teams can be logged in at the same time for turnbased as well, which will drastically reduce the wait time. in a strickly pbem game, the early turns can take 2 to 3 days each with 5 players.

It's my understanding (and tubby/whomp, pls correct me if I'm wrong), that turnbased pitboss plays very fast, especially at the beginning, if all players are logged in at the same time. After your teams' turn is done, one can still look at all the cities, MM citizens, look around the map, check your sliders, do basically everything but move units.

I am advocating that we do this via agreed-upon pitboss powersessions (maybe 10 turns at a time so we don't lose the demo part of the game) for the early game, then revert back to pbem (if it's possible) once things get complicated (say turn 50 or so). Early in the game, the team gives the turnplayer general directions (say, research mining 1st, build warrior 1st, worker 2nd, etc) before the powersession. Perhaps, using this method, we can do the 1st 50 turns in the 1st 5 weeks, rather than only 17 turns that a typical pbem with 5 players would take.

 

[Whomp]

That is exactly what I'd envision Graham. If we can play 10 turns in a power session, say 1 day a week in the early game, that would be fantastic and then have pbem the rest of the week. As the game gets to an agreed upon point where it's too much to handle in one Pitboss session we can go 100% PBEM.

 

[grahamiam]

thanks whomp

Just as a reference, it took the 4 team C3C demogame 86 days to play the 1st 50 turns. I'm just trying to look for a way to knock out the relatively early, simple turns in a more efficient manner. I hope I'm not being a pest

 

[Ginger_Ale]

You're not - it's just I think PBEM is MUCH more stable...PitBoss still has some kinks to be worked out, as has been seen in the other PitBoss game thread in this forum with connection issues. People can still do a PowerSession for PBEM...sure it'll take a bit more time to load the save and all, but you can still probably get about 2 turns/hour done...which is pretty good (around 6 minutes for each team). Anyhow, I'm not a fan of the quick session anyway...discussion is always needed!

 

[GeorgeOP]

Yes, we can use the extra time to create aliances we have no intention of keeping.

 

[Robi D]

That is exactly what I'd envision Graham. If we can play 10 turns in a power session, say 1 day a week in the early game, that would be fantastic and then have pbem the rest of the week. As the game gets to an agreed upon point where it's too much to handle in one Pitboss session we can go 100% PBEM.

The problem with that is would you be able to get 5 players from all of the teams living in different time zone and different work comitment in the one spot at the same time to play 5 or 10 turns. And even if you could manage that then other issues come up, because while teams may do some preplanning for 10 turns so the turnplayer has a general set of instructions to follow, it is possible 2 turns into the session a team comes across something completely unexpected and you have to stop while they discuss it.

 

[Whomp]

All good points. I guess we'll just have to deal with the slow grind of a PBEM. If there's any way to speed the process I, for one, would be appreciative. Especially at the outset.

 

[Robi D]

All good points. I guess we'll just have to deal with the slow grind of a PBEM. If there's any way to speed the process I, for one, would be appreciative. Especially at the outset.

The early turns did take too long in the civ3 MTDG, but i think thats was more because of inexperience playing this style of game, plus we did have a few hold ups over some issues which also slowed us down. Since every team in this MTDG game has some people from the civ3 one, they will already have an idea as how to go about making the decision process quicker and smoother so we can get throught the early turns with minimal fuss, but we can always explore ideas about making the game go quicker still

 

[General_W]

As appealing as it would be to knock out the first 50 turns out in a more expedient manner (pitboss) – There's also something to be said for the team-building and "work-out-the-kinks" time that can happen in the threads while not much is happening in the game (PBEM).

Also – with some solid Civ3MTDG experience behind us, I'm optimistic that this will go much faster anyway.

But I'm a glass half-full person – so take the above with a grain of salt.

Just my 2 cents!

 

[DaveShack]

The pre-release hype suggested the ability to play a PBEM style game under Pitboss. Not being able to transfer saves back and forth between the two modes is currently seen as a bug, so maybe we should have hope.