The Biggest Problem with Multiplayer Combat: First Moves

[CPL_Yoshi]

For a game that prides itself on being such a strategic game, many of the wars and combat in Civ 6 are defined by the player with the better computer and/or connection. I'll define "first moves" as the moves that the player with a better computer/connection will make at the beginning of the turn.

If we look at two players of equal skill and equal land, things should, for the most part, be a stalemate. However, if one player has a much superior computer he/she can potentially pull off 5+ first moves on the other player. Things could range from killing half health units that could have been otherwise saved or taking a city before he/she could react.

I'm not complaining that the simultaneous turns are the problem. I do think that they are better than the dynamic turns (especially for time's sake), but the fact that many war moves early on in the turn are defined by the better computer is just ridiculous.

Thoughts?

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Taking moves without interruption is part of the normal flow of the game. It's called having your turn.

The culprit is the meta of chaining moves from the end of one turn into the start of the next, being able to get two turns worth of action.

 

[CPL_Yoshi]

I guess in theory, having a dynamic turn mode would be more option, but this can extremely slow down the game, especially when Persia is in the game.

In our multiplayer community, we often play with a base 150 turn timer, but even then late game wars will take much longer, so some players vote for 185 to 210 second turn timer. With the dynamic turn mode, I could see a potential for a 10 hour game. We try to play in one sitting, with the occasional 5 minute breaks here and there.

If there were some way a mod could delay the start of each turn so every player could properly load in, that would fix the problem of wars coming down to "who has the better computer" that I spoke about earlier. But I have no clue how to even implement such a thing or even if that is possible.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Civ4 had a solution for end turn moves, it was a 6 sec unit timer, if you moved a unit within 6 sec of the end turn, you could not move that unit for the first 6 sec of the next turn. This worked really well, I'm not sure why they didn't keep that for Civ5/6...

CS

 

[Tabarnak]

Civ4 had a solution for end turn moves, it was a 6 sec unit timer, if you moved a unit within 6 sec of the end turn, you could not move that unit for the first 6 sec of the next turn. This worked really well, I'm not sure why they didn't keep that for Civ5/6...

CS

I might have a response: 1UPT

How can you identify everything? Maybe with colors? i dunno. Quite a mess to know exactly which units are ready to attack? A timer for each of them maybe?

 

[CanuckSoldier]

They did a timer for each unit in Civ4....so I'm sure its possible. But yes some UI element would have to tell you if a unit can not be moved...I;m sure a red glow or something would work

CS

 

[king of nowhere]

in civ4 there was nothing to indicate a unit could not be moved, simply you could not select it no matter how much you click, not for 8 seconds.
And there really is no need to change the UI. it's just an 8-second delay. if you are tying to fastmove, you should know which units you moved last, and if not, 8 seconds are not a problem. I say, why remove a feature that worked so fine? why not learn from the past?

speaking of turn timer, i don't know how it works here, but in civ4 the time for a turn increased progressively, so that turns lasted 23 seconds at the beginning and over a couple minutes by the time people got nukes. it also worked well. mostly well. sometimes in the middle age to industrial age people had fully worked their land and werent waging war so they could all pass turns in 10 seconds, and sometimes there was just somebody sleeping or trolling who let the timer go to 0 all the times, but really, it didn't happen that often, and when there was real action, those two minutes weren't that much time to move many units.

 

[CPL_Yoshi]

@king of nowhere
In civ 6, players will sometime wait until the end of the turn to last move, especially during war. Doesn't give the other player anytime to react. This is especially important because that same player, if they had a better computer/connection, could also get off 10+ first moves on the same person the next turn.

To me that could be considered as bad mannered. You're simply exploiting the fact that you have a better computer/connection. It's not fair that they can simply get 2 moves in on you before you even have any chance to react.

 

[king of nowhere]

@king of nowhere
In civ 6, players will sometime wait until the end of the turn to last move, especially during war. Doesn't give the other player anytime to react. This is especially important because that same player, if they had a better computer/connection, could also get off 10+ first moves on the same person the next turn.

To me that could be considered as bad mannered. You're simply exploiting the fact that you have a better computer/connection. It's not fair that they can simply get 2 moves in on you before you even have any chance to react.

yes, I fully agree with that stance. As I said, in civ4 they found a practical solution for it. they should implement it for civ6 too.