Simultaneous turns?

[Loppan Torkel]

All movements made simultaneously and independently and then played out at the same time at "endturn".
Will we see, could we see it, would you like to see it?

It could be pretty good if you could set the amount of actionpoints in mp-games.

 

[Sqwerlpunk]

I've thought about this myself, mainly because I think player turns in single player should move all units simultaneously at the end of the players turn, and the multiplayer mode expanding off that is an easy step to make ^_^ even made a thread like 15 minutes ago explaining the idea.

 

[thungrim]

I think that would certainly make conquest and empire defense more interesting. If two armies meet in a bottleneck, they must fight, rather than you watching them move a square away, and you deciding weather or not to go for the kill.

It would also put a premium on mobility and patrolling to ensure units don't zip by your border defenses and travel uncontested to your softer interior targets.

 

[axi]

If you like simul-turns, try out Aaargh! The Pirate Game!, an old abandonware game.

google: "lost shaker productions" aargh, it somewhere on that list.

A helluva game, that one.

 

[Earthling]

It would be cool but ultimately too complex/inpractical I think. Probably require an absolute ton of processing time per turn to resolve simultaneous everything. Of course there needing an entirely new and overhauled combat system is one thing, like not having attack/defense modifiers work the same way, but I think the change would go deeper and even require more changes to basic gameplay. Like resources, cities, etc... - in a "simultaneous turns mode" like this you'd have tons of confusion over attacking and defending them, so you'd have to have new commands like "defend this resource" or "hunt down this unit, wherever he goes" and so on. It would be cool again and certainly is a good mechanic for various boardgames/other games I've heard of but might not work for civ.

One thing they could do though is standardize unit/building production, healing, etc... The way things go in civ IV turns can be unbalancing with who gets what built/healed at the end or start of their turns (currently in civ IV skews heavily towards attacker in some situations, defender in others with the way healing up, collateral, etc.. work. But new adjustments for those in a new system are minor compared to the OP suggestion)

 

[Cashew]

Simultaneous turns work well enough in MP as it is. What you're saying is somewhat interesting because it introduces more mind-games to the core strategy, but it is pretty complex to implement. There needs to be separate ways of handling being attacked, attacking, 2 different stacks going for the same new tile, 2 or more stacks going for each other's current tile, etc.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Simultaneous turns work well enough in MP as it is. What you're saying is somewhat interesting because it introduces more mind-games to the core strategy, but it is pretty complex to implement. There needs to be separate ways of handling being attacked, attacking, 2 different stacks going for the same new tile, 2 or more stacks going for each other's current tile, etc.

If there's a possibility you're facing a battle, you'd have to set the behavior before "endturn"... drawback in case of battle, defend in case of battle, attack any opposition etc. Also, stacks are out.
I'm sure it's complex to implement, but it doesn't seem impossible they're going this route with civ5 at the moment. It must be easier with no stacks and hexes, and they seem to go a different way than before with combat...

 

[chongli]

It would be cool but ultimately too complex/inpractical I think. Probably require an absolute ton of processing time per turn

Processing time is not an issue. The main problem is that the results of hitting "end turn" would be almost completely unpredictable. You'd end up fighting units you'd never even expect to see. The whole thing would be a mess.

More practical would be to allow all players to perform tasks outside of their turn. You could include almost every task with the exception of moving units.

 

[spammikone]

Simultaneous turns is the holy grail for almost any turn-based empire management game. There are plenty or reasons - like the mentioned unpredictableness, added strategy elements and more careful planning among others.

But ultimately there is one aspect which makes this vastly superior to IGOUGO in these type of games:

Wait times between turns would be almost non-existant compared to current system, because the calculations are done (unless the coders are idiots) while the player is actually playing the game.

There could be a problem if they have intentions to shove their ugly graphics down our throats by modelling every rabbit and tree and and sphincter and fireworks going off at the same time and looping their animations endlessly when "end turn" button is pressed. That could eat memory and processing power.
But there are dozens of ways to counter it - not making stuff graphic intensive, teleporting units, using info screens and turn summaries, priority systems where movement is shown if it's enemies or near your cities or it's battle for example.

Essentially in normal circumstances this system would mean that when player presses "end turn", next turn begins almost immediately because the AI players have done their turns already, leaving waiting time only for calculations for city growths, production, movement and such.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Am I the only one that dislikes the whole idea?
Simultaneous turns are a bad thing from many perspectives.
The greatest of them is that you can see what every other person/ai did in his turn and make a desision based on that.

Essentialy, CIV is like a game of chess. Each player makes his moves and pauses to think.
If you removed that to create some insanity with randomnes and instant reaction time than it would no longer be a turn based strategy game but a real time strategy. Don't make civ into things it is not.

 

[spammikone]

you can see what every other person/ai did in his turn and make a desision based on that.

What?

create some insanity with randomnes and instant reaction time than it would no longer be a turn based strategy game but a real time strategy.

What?

 

[r_rolo1]

Simultaneous turns is the holy grail for almost any turn-based empire management game. There are plenty or reasons - like the mentioned unpredictableness, added strategy elements and more careful planning among others.

But ultimately there is one aspect which makes this vastly superior to IGOUGO in these type of games:

Wait times between turns would be almost non-existant compared to current system, because the calculations are done (unless the coders are idiots) while the player is actually playing the game.

There could be a problem if they have intentions to shove their ugly graphics down our throats by modelling every rabbit and tree and and sphincter and fireworks going off at the same time and looping their animations endlessly when "end turn" button is pressed. That could eat memory and processing power.
But there are dozens of ways to counter it - not making stuff graphic intensive, teleporting units, using info screens and turn summaries, priority systems where movement is shown if it's enemies or near your cities or it's battle for example.

Essentially in normal circumstances this system would mean that when player presses "end turn", next turn begins almost immediately because the AI players have done their turns already, leaving waiting time only for calculations for city growths, production, movement and such.

You are forgetting a tiny little detail: the AI would need to recalculate everything from the start everytime you moved a unit , because the situation would not be the same This would make all this equivalent to making the calcs in the end of the human turn

 

[LDiCesare]

Wait times between turns would be almost non-existant compared to current system, because the calculations are done (unless the coders are idiots) while the player is actually playing the game.

On the contrary. AI's would think when you think too, so ai computation wouldn't drag you along indeed. But then you must resolve all movements and fights at once. And that would take a lot of time, so you would end up waiting between turns. The ai would probably have more time to think, though, so it could be better, but I don't think it would change much.
The current (Civ IV MP) implementation would probably be kept. It sometimes forces players to wait rather than move, when you don't know where an enemy stack will go, but if they move first then you know where your own stack should go, which leads to silly waits (if you press end turn or move, the opponent will move based on your decision, so your best move is to wait for the time to run out and not move or move at the last second). I think it is quite awkward, but at least you see what you're doing. I'd like simultaneous movements, but not getting feedback can be a pain.

 

[Ramesses]

Essentialy, CIV is like a game of chess. Each player makes his moves and pauses to think.

I dislike chess.

If you removed that to create some insanity with randomnes and instant reaction time

Instant reaction time? I think you're confused. There's no reaction time required, you just decide where your units will go, end turn, sit back, watch every player's moves play out simultaneously, and then start the next turn.

Anyway, to deal with the problem of running blindly into enemy units, I would have spies play a more active military role. They can't fight enemy units, but they can go on ahead of your attack force and scout out the opposition.

 

[Cashew]

If there's a possibility you're facing a battle, you'd have to set the behavior before "endturn"... drawback in case of battle, defend in case of battle, attack any opposition etc. Also, stacks are out.
I'm sure it's complex to implement, but it doesn't seem impossible they're going this route with civ5 at the moment. It must be easier with no stacks and hexes, and they seem to go a different way than before with combat...

I was talking about Civ IV, and his criticisms on why it wasn't used in IV. I agree that in V it's a whole new game, but I think how they do things will be so drastically different because of the 1 unit per tile rule that a lot of this discussion is hypothetical at best.

Am I the only one that dislikes the whole idea?
Simultaneous turns are a bad thing from many perspectives.

Well, first of all, in Civ IV there's already simultaneous turns and it's the only thing used in multiplayer games. No one plays the I-go-u-go way.

Second, the original poster was merely suggesting that we modify how that's done in multiplayer so that instead of moves having a give and take they just happen together.

 

[Yakk]

The first problem I see is the lack of feedback.

When you tell a unit to move, it doesn't move. It just ... has an arrow saying where it wants to go, and maybe a ghostly version of itself there? I dunno.

That makes moving, say, a thick line rather annoying -- you have ghostly versions of units where they where and where they are going overlapping, with arrows all over the place.

I guess you could just put the 'ghosted' version in the destination square, and force the unit that is there to move ... but that leads to "oops, I set up an impossible set of moves over here, now I have to roll them all back" problems.

As noted, the AI doesn't get to see what you are doing -- so the AI has to play based on what the state of the world was at the start of your turn.

The "execute turn" button would be interesting. How much do you show? In civ currently, showing enemy moves gets tedious -- it could get ridiculous, as you are showing both your moves and enemy moves...

 

[LDiCesare]

The "execute turn" button would be interesting. How much do you show?

That is the main problem. How do you provide feedback about what happened in the turn?
Most games which do something like that provide you with a report panel saying wheere there were battles this turn, and shows some marks on the map so you know what happened. You can check how we did in Clash, or how it's done in Dominions or Birth of America for instance.
This makes for a slower-paced game, where hitting end-turn is really significant, and you review your current orders a bit before deciding to let things happen. It also requires more tactical thinking than Civ IV's throwing one unit after another at the opponent, since you aren't able to react to a bad die roll during the turn it happens.

 

[Souron]

I donno. The Total War series had a larger turn done phase than civ, and it always made me apprehensive about pressing the turn end button because I may have forgotten something. That might just be it's lack of auto cycling through units as in Civ though.

I agree it could add realism, but it may be too big a gameplay change; perhaps enough to make it feel too different.

 

[cardgame]

Hell no...

Did you ever play Sid Meier's Gettysburg? Fire your cannons and the simulturns means they fire at empty space, because the enemy moves their men. Same thing would apply here: Try to bombard the enemy with your artillery and you'll miss...

 

[Sqwerlpunk]

Having all your actions carried out simultaneously at the "end turn" is an idea I really want to see in ciV, or at least in a mod at some point.

Feedback of what moves are planned is done by the use of arrows, it isn't too hard to make arrows easy to distinguish from a convergence, and as a just in case, have any selected unit "highlight" it's arrow, and bring it to the top so it' easily seen if there's a mass of troops moving. With the exception of if they make Rails or something similar that's a "0" movement cost, 1 unit per hex makes it so there's not too many units crossing on any single hex too badly, except in extremely well developed areas, and only then if there's a huge mass of troops around a city moving all at once or something.

As for player ease of use, when setting movements for units, players should be able to freely set arrows and points with no prompts or interrupts from the game about "impossible" moves, due to multi unit convergence or something silly like that in similar, unless they go for end turn whilst a situation like that exists, in which case it should pop a notifier of what moves need to be edited. If you have a unit "trapped" in an impossible move... why did you set your moves like that? It's not hard to plan ahead on this, jesus.

As for finding out how your attacks went, in an IGOUGO stance, once your turn ends you should get a map pop up of all battles that resulted from your moves, or after an opponents turn any battles you participated in or witnessed/knew of happening (obviously less detailed results for something you're not in) for you to review and find out specifics of during your off turn/the computer doing it's AI work. In a simultaneous set-up, the turn should be multi-tiered, with all players getting a certain amount of time of review for battles and the last turns proceedings, then have a "planning" phase where you plan out the moves/actions for that turn, then another "end turn" where all moves are carried out (dunno how to handle friendly or not warring factions trying to move onto the same hex fairly yet, but i'll have an idea eventually). Having real time decisions play out for a simultaneous game is... a bad idea, I think, hence this idea.


Opens up a lot of options for players having this sort of system, also (like I said, I really want to see simultaneous movement for a player in an IGOUGO set up, not convinced on all players moving at once yet though).