Towards a multiplayer-focused CIV --- PLZ READ THIS FIRAXIS

[aod]

Dear Firaxis,

Although CIV4 "single player mode" is a great game, we usually play it in the beggining, to learn, and later to try new mods. But with pervasive internet nowadays, 70% of all our game time on the PC is spent online. So I think the most desirable feature of any sequel should be: BETTER ONLINE EXPERIENCE. Here is a list of bugs and features requests I think thould be present on the multiplayer code of the next version:


1- Better netcode:

We want less OOS and disconnects.

We want better central servers: Sometimes GameSpy bugs and more than 2 players cannont enter a game. Several times GamesSpy is down and we dont even get listings.

We need more anti-cheat. We want things as VAC (from Steam), that will ban cheating players. We can even pay for a unique CDKEY
and this will imply less piracy for Firaxis Games.

Plz make it faster to select units! It takes too long to select a stack sometimes, this should be much faster!

Fix the RETIREMENT BUG. Sometimes it happens the game will freeze when someone retires.


2- Majority and host should have power::

We dont have to wait for all to vote on vote screens. 80% is good enough.

Players could votekick another player (both for vote and host)
Players should be able to ban players from reconnecting (both for vote and host)

Also, when a voting ends and the game asks to write over save game, DONT MAKE ALL WAIT FOR HIM TO CLICK OK, and give an option for that always rewrite and dont ask anymore.



3- Dedicated server:

Although a peer to peer game is ultra cool, we would like to see an option of a dedicated server, much like FreeCiv does, and virtually ALL other games with multiplayer do. The world is full of dedicated server boxes willing to run civ4. This way we can run civ in others game servers on the net, and get more stability, and virtually no OOS problem. Much like pitboss, BUT it should run on servers


4-GUI changes:

We can (optional) receive and pm to the lobby when playing (no need for C4F)

We want more information in the lobby:
Who is the host of a game listed
Number of turns already played in games running
Settings of all games (maybe showing with mouse over)

We want basic players stats:
Is he a QUITTER?
Many people BANNED him?
How many times he played, is him a NOOB?
Civ4Players (C4P) should not exist, we dont need that detail stats, just basic ones. Geez, even BF2 has better stats and its a simple FPS!


We want to choose a default difficulty for players and a different difficulty for AIs, in the game.

OOS messages should not blink! Actually the game should choose those who need to rejoin (perhaps the smallest OOS group) and proceed the rejoin.

Geez, we dont want to type our PW all the time, plz save the password in login.

Print a message downloading map to x,y peers when game is launched

We need a "must have map to join" option for the host. Lets force joiners download it on civfanatics before joining.

Change the "in context" floating sized unit order menu! Though very nice, its not good for faster multiplayer gaming. Usually we click the wrong option when we are in a hurry. Instead of change the size of the menu, light only what can click, but maintain fixed positions (This may need more space for unit menu on the screen, but it will be better).

We want to select the units directly under the mouse pointer! Some times CIV4 forces us to move units that are not important right now.


People should have AUTOMATICALY disabled/enabled when playing online:
Quick moves
Quick combat
Stack attack
Show friendly moves
Minimize Pop-ups: This one has to improve too! We dont want to talk to Aztecs when we are about to have a city razed.

There should be no need to restart civ after map download

Every turn the first units in the unit selection queue shoud be those near the war


5- A new movement system. Dont you hate when someone moves before you just because he clicked faster? Civ should adopt the DIPLOMACY boardgame movement system, where all orders are given, but NONE moves till end of all turns. This way there would me no LAG problem affecting moves. The future movement could be drawn in the board, as well as the last move, so we could see then, but all conflicts whould be solved on the movement phase. This would also make the moves more strategic.





I thank your for our attention Firaxis, and would like to hear about this post from other people in the forum as well.

 

[vsipinen]

Dear Firaxis,

Although CIV4 "single player mode" is a great game, we usually play it in the beggining, to learn, and later to try new mods. But with pervasive internet nowadays, 70% of all our game time on the PC is spent online. So I think the most desirable feature of any sequel should be: BETTER ONLINE EXPERIENCE.

I strongly disagree. I don't intend to deny the possible merits of the online gaming, but I would like to suggest that you would speak for yourself. I am sure there are lot of people like me who have never played multiplayer Civilization and still enjoyes the single player game after many many games. I admit that the multiplayer game could be interesting experience, but I doubt that I will never have enough time and devotion to commit myself to play, when certain other players would like to play - and as long as they would (at least very often).

Therefore my opinion is quite opposite. I would like that more emphasis would be put to single player game.

 

[Shiggs713]

1- Better netcode:

We want less OOS and disconnects.

We want better central servers: Sometimes GameSpy bugs and more than 2 players cannont enter a game. Several times GamesSpy is down and we dont even get listings.

We need more anti-cheat. We want things as VAC (from Steam), that will ban cheating players. We can even pay for a unique CDKEY
and this will imply less piracy for Firaxis Games.

Plz make it faster to select units! It takes too long to select a stack sometimes, this should be much faster!

Fix the RETIREMENT BUG. Sometimes it happens the game will freeze when someone retires.

I agree completly with you on the OOS and disconnect issues. Really i agree with most of this to a certain point. Most players use the single player to learn the basics and then move on to multiplayer after the computer has proven itself to be approximately half as smart as a human. When I first started, I put it on noble and lost a few rounds, and eventually now even monarch and emperor are quite boring. Really turning up the difficulty has nothing to do with actuall difficulty, thats one area I would like to see improved. Even on Diety, the AI marches in units like a ****** and lets me pick em off 1 by 1. Obviously Diety, is very difficult (some might say impossible) but its not because of the programmed artificial inteligence, its just because of production and research bonuses, so the AI can "overwhelm" you.

In my honest opinion, I think Fireaxis and 2k games and/or anyone else involved in the design of this game, kinda rushed it. There are plenty of flaws, historically and balance wise that should have been fixed prior to release (or in a patch). For example, the persian immortal, it was not a mounted unit historically, what were they thinking? Also I think they could have found some more historically important civilizations to use than Korea or Inca, or Zulu.

Also im not sure why anyone would ever build some of the Unique Buildings or Wonders, some of them are especially useless on Earth Scenarios, and some are just about useless anyways; The whole point of adding new flavor to the game is to have some importance. The Russian laboratory and the Egyptian Obelisk I would basically have to say are useless in most cases, Im sure there are more. Also, if your attempting to make a geopolitical strategy game where you are basically managing an empire, i think that there should be more realistic factors in the game (no not goody huts). Im talking about natural disasters, countries allying together (AI will basically never help in a war in any way or declare war unless you have been "Friendly" for quite sometime), and possibly increase the discovery rate of "new" minerals, i.e. finding gems on a hill where there was formerly no resource).

The AI doesn't play to win, this is a critical flaw. It does not realize that if you take its iron away it will not be able to build a unit that requires iron, in the precedding turns. It does not strike you when you are weak, only when it "doesn't like you". Most people realize that this is not how any wars were ever fought (at least by good generals and leaders). Most smart military leaders attack weak points, get good strategic position, take away the enemies resources, keeps in good form as to not get destroyed out in the open (i.e. moving towards you on hills or forrest, and stay in a stack to stay as protected as possible), and other various things that make it easy to beat a seemingly overwhelming force with smaller numbers.

I would highly suggest making the AI smarter in its decision making, and not "increasing" some production and science bonus on harder difficulty settings. Mixed with more historically accurate depictions of Civilizations we are playing as, new unique units and buildings, and public units and buildings, smoother online play/ and single player play would lead to a much better experience

THANKS

 

[Shiggs713]

OH and BTW, I am currently working on a mod to to add a few things which include 3 traits per civ, custom great people (actually a mod component i integrated into my mod), and a few other things. This is another point i wanted to make really fast. Why is Isaac Newton born in Shanghai or Benjamin Franklin born in Thebes? These are very simple issues that weekend warriors like me can even fix! Why did Fireaxis not address these issues prior to release!?!?! Also I have been adjustin the xml's to make the AI's "lean" towards building smarter things. As far as I know, the AI's get their personalized decision making factors from the xml. Some of them vary quite a bit, which can lead, for example to rome having a huge army and mali basically having a couple skirmishers to protect itself. This is just not realistic. The AI should be able to see the graphs and evaluate them at least somewhat like a human can. If it sees that one of its neighbors is 2x powerful than him he should start building military, but it shouldn't even get to that point, the AI really just has no direction or ability to plan ahead.

PLEASE IMPROVE THIS ON ANY FUTURE PATCHES OR RELEASES FOR CIVILIZATION GAMES!!! I think it would truly turn this series of games into one of the best ever!!! (if its already not )

 

[vsipinen]

Most players use the single player to learn the basics and then move on to multiplayer ...

Is this really true ? I remember a discussion about some other topic, where many writers agreed that majority of the players play only single player games. So which one claims is true.

Anyway I am not actually against improving the multiplayer game as long as the single player game gets sufficient attention - and nothing is taken away from it in order to enable multiplayer.

 

[doronron]

OP: Please speak for yourself and don't assume others are exactly like you. I do no online gaming of any kind. I would rather Sid's team focus on refining the game mechanics and making them run smoothly. I would rather Sid's team work on improving the overall AI.

 

[Shiggs713]

OP: Please speak for yourself and don't assume others are exactly like you. I do no online gaming of any kind. I would rather Sid's team focus on refining the game mechanics and making them run smoothly. I would rather Sid's team work on improving the overall AI.

Read my entire post dude.

 

[Shiggs713]

oh and to get back to the subject, Im not trying to say dont improve the single player functions of any new releases. Obviously fixing the entire AI for both single and multi play is 1 deal. Its not like you add new features to one and not the other. I was just ranting on about the AI anyways. What AOD addressed that I was mainly aggreeing with was;
A) The pathetic (compared to other gaming standards) connection and and OOS problems,

B) The in game retards that cheat and lag out games

C) The retirement bug (and especially the retirement during vote screen bug)

 

[snikch13]

I Like Pie

 

[Shiggs713]

well Im not sure, but it appears all you people have completly missed the point. Anyways, i seriously doubt we "speak" for ourselves considering there are literally thousands of people that play multiplayer only, because no matter what level the AI is on, its boring. Those of us that need a little human creativity and imagination to deal with, because the AI is simply ******** compared to us. This is another reason I would like to see the Ai improved.... simply because its is so stupid compared to me that its not even a challenge.

 

[Fuzzz]

...Why is Isaac Newton born in Shanghai or Benjamin Franklin born in Thebes? These are very simple issues that weekend warriors like me can even fix! Why did Fireaxis not address these issues prior to release!?!?! ...

My guess is so you don't know from the beginning which AI-civs are your opponents when it says for instance: "Benjamin Franklin has been born in a far away country".

 

[Shiggs713]

My guess is so you don't know from the beginning which AI-civs are your opponents when it says for instance: "Benjamin Franklin has been born in a far away country".

I do agree with that, to a certain extent. Possibly just get rid of the message that goes out to other civs or delay it a bit. I still prefer having custom great people whom are all civ-specific though.