Simultaneous turns

[[to_xp]Gekko]

would it be possible to have simultaneous turns available also in single player? I think this would make the end-game A LOT more enjoyable as you would no longer have to wait a minute or so inbetween turns, which tends to kill the fun imho :\

 

[MaxAstro]

That would be a nice option...

Simultaneous turns also has it's drawbacks, however. It messes up the Civ4lerts (they all display a turn too late), it can make battles into a clickwar, and certain spells (most notably entangle, and any other spell that affects an enemy for 1 turn) are very hard to use because to have any effect you have to cast them before the enemy moves.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sure, it does have drawbacks. I'm pretty sure that the civ4lerts issue CAN be fixed though, and tweaking those spells so that they work a little differently if the option is selected should also be doable ( of course I'm not a modder so I'm not 100% sure here ) . the benefits would greatly overweight the issues imho

 

[xienwolf]

It is all fixable. There is a thread in the forums somewhere that details the precise differences involved. Mostly it is just that you have the ::doTurn functions happening at different times in the course of the turn. Would actually be kinda nice to be forced to work on balancing everything to account for the changes involved in swapping to this system and helping balance MP in the process.


BTW, it is a nice idea, I am compiling a nice simple approach right now to see how well it works.

 

[xienwolf]

No crashes so far using the Simultaneous turns in Single Player, but it also doesn't appear to be making things much faster, but this is from a guy who hasn't played a game himself in ages, so all I can do is run an autoplay game up to turn 600 or so and play a few rounds to see how long I have to wait. There is still a delay, but it isn't that long. Might have made it faster, so I'll work it into the official code sometime and let people playtest it. If feedback says that there was no performance boost, it'll get removed just to avoid complications.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

wow, that was a lot quicker than I expected. thanx a lot xienwolf, I'm really looking forward to trying this option out. hopefully this will result in shorter pauses between turns

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Does that mean the option may be added in the next version of FF?

 

[hbar]

Won't this just take the "minute or so wait between turns" and place it in the middle of the player's turn? I mean, the pause is due to many AI routines, pathfinding, optimization, etc. that run as an integral part of the AI. Moving the execution of the code won't cut down on the number of processor calls or memory use, but it will make the GUI less responsive, and will probably cut performance significantly.

That said, I have been continually amazed at what Xienwolf has done so far, so I guess I should just shut my yap and wait.

 

[xienwolf]

It is like you say hbar, the AI still needs to process their turn, and does it "lightning quick" compred to a human, plus uses all of your processor speed when doing so. Pretty sure it still does the AI each individually as well, but it MIGHT process them in a skightly more efficient "mesh manner"

The only improvement I expect might occur is that occasionally the AI barbarian Giant Spider you just found (who hasn't moved yet) will "wake up" and eat you instantly (mid-turn for you, possibly even midmove if you were on a road or using a Divided Soul). Same for Lairs I imagine. Spawn a spectre and he'll attack or move away before you see the result message from exploring.

Play MP and see how quickly after you start a new turn the AI all show (*) for turn completion. Should always happen before you make your first move. But if an MP game with 20 AI has quicker between turn time than a SP game with 12 AI, could be worth it (note: I don't know if that is true, I am giving an example)

 

[MaxAstro]

Wow, simultaneous turns in single player plus fixed simultaneous turns bugs would be awesome. Thanks, xienwolf.

 

[Vehem]

Does that mean the option may be added in the next version of FF?

It was just merged into the internal version.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I imagine that there are people in the Mod Components forum that would really like to see a non-FfH version released.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, but then they might read what else we have done and request a LOT more My code rocks


More seriously though, this is a VERY simple mod, all I did was search for every case of MP_OPTION_SIMULTANEOUS_TURNS and change it to (MP option or New Option) check. Plus we do not know if this will help anything at all until we get feedback on some playtesting (preferably a nice lategame save that seems to be quicker which is turned into a worldbuilder save to disable that option and reloaded to prove that the between turn time changes significantly)

 

[Blakmane]

Yes, but then they might read what else we have done and request a LOT more My code rocks


More seriously though, this is a VERY simple mod, all I did was search for every case of MP_OPTION_SIMULTANEOUS_TURNS and change it to (MP option or New Option) check. Plus we do not know if this will help anything at all until we get feedback on some playtesting (preferably a nice lategame save that seems to be quicker which is turned into a worldbuilder save to disable that option and reloaded to prove that the between turn time changes significantly)

I'm happy to try this test. Are the changes to the dll or just XML? If it's dll link me the file, if XML just tell me where to look

 

[xienwolf]

It is both DLL & minor supporting XML. File will be available fairly soonish.

 

[Blakmane]

awesome, whenever you're ready.