What is the general multiplayer experience like?

[E66man]

So I've been trying to do some multiplayer games to try and earn my 'Inconceivable' achievement. Hey, how hard can it be to lose a game, right?

Of course, to make the game enjoyable for the other players, I do try and make some effort to win. I'm only an average RTS player, I can beat the people who aren't really trying to win but usually lose to the people who really know what they are doing and can handle the aggressive multitasking required.

So the first thing I notice is that on a Saturday night there doesn't seem to be much of anybody around- only a couple of games hosted. Since there doesn't seem to be a shortage of people here discussing multiplayer, I was a little surprised.

I get into my first 5 player game. I see that my starting area is heavily forested with no food bonuses, so I think to myself I shouldn't have much trouble getting wiped out since my growth will be slow...

So my starting Warrior is out farming barbs, and I'm following a plan where I get a small army out of Warriors out to try and attack the first person I find. While I'm exploring I see another player's Warrior get damaged by barbs so I attack it to finish it off. Why turn down free experience and give me a change to get a hammer edge on my closest opponent? My attack leads to this conversation:
[John Doe]: That was a mistake buddy
[Me]: Sorry, I thought we were here to fight each other
[John Doe]: You have to pick your battles

Nothing happens for a few minutes, I just quietly build up my army and keep them in a good defensible position until I get my first Horseman out. Long story short, I then proceed to wipe out this guy who has been spending his time building Workers and founding cities and not building an army as his smack talk would have implied. After I defeat them the other players either drop or quit.

I finally get another game started, and I again follow the same plan. I attack the nearest player with my army and see this dialogue:
[John Doe]: What happened? Did Fred just lose his Capital to barbarians? How embarrassing if so...
[Jack Doe]: Well, unless E66man took him out
[John Doe]: Kinda early for that though...

Meanwhile I'm laughing since my 'early' attack came much later than I wanted since the terrain made it harder to get my entire army to arrive at the same time to score the death blow.

Is this what normally goes on? Are people just not defending themselves for some reason? I'm starting to think that if I see people in the lobby picking civs that don't have early era UUs that they just aren't taking things seriously. I'm also a little confused by people going with quick vs standard speed. It seems like people are playing quick just to avoid Ancient Era battles. If so, then why not just start in a later Era? It makes me suspicious that people are expecting the game to revolve around just quickly teching up for a while and then not having any fights at all until you hit Rifles or something. Am I just playing this game 'wrong' or are other people having the same kind of experience?

And don't get me started on the constant crashing...

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well the fact is that most new MP players just playing random open games play MP just as badly as they played SP They played a few SP games on easy settings, ran over the AI civs and figure they are good enough for human players.

Obviously you have seen this first hand!

Unfortunately the Civ5 games list is regional so were ever you live is going to determine who is displayed in your games list as Steam will only display games low ping to you.

That and the lack of chat makes networking MP players together very problematic.

To solve this CivPlayers Leagues has created a Steam chat room for all MP players to use. It has been very active, though the bugs in Civ5 MP have hurt the number of players recently, and of course not having a main lobby to advertise in is not making life easy for anyone.

But please feel free to come and find a game with us and invite your friends too.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/civplayers

steam://friends/joinchat/103582791431089902

And if you chose to join the league you will find the caliber of games much better in general than what you have experienced to date.

CS

 

[E66man]

Well I just had another round of more of the same. I guess it's just too hard to think outside of the single-player box when most people give multiplayer a shot. Maybe they should be forced to play Deity or Immortal a few times to get a feel for what they should expect .

The last game had the usual... people building too many Workers and improving more tiles than their cities can possibly use in the early game. It also looks like a lot of people have problems with Barbarians... but if they stopped making so many Workers they wouldn't need to worry so much about what the Barbarians are up to. I've been pretty much ignoring the wandering ones and letting my cities deal with them via potshots. I almost felt sorry for two of the players in the last game I was in, they were clearly struggling with being pillaged right when my troops showed up. Of course getting sacked was no help either...

In the chit-chat for that game, one of the guys was saying he was in a nuke duel with another player... I can't imagine what was going on that a game went to the Modern Era. Do people just wave politely when they see another rival civ walking by?

 

[E66man]

Well just had another shot at it... this time I tried to be more incompetent. I didn't found my initial city until I found one of my opponents, so I ended up placing my capital 10 tiles away from theirs. I turtled up and didn't make any more cities, and after nearly 1 hour 45 minutes of constant warfare with me on defense only the neighbor still can't finish me off. He gives up and leaves and then the other player in the game offers to come by and kill me, but sends over one Swordsman and one Caravel. I don't know what that guy was doing for the last 2 hours, since my neighbor was occupied he pretty much had the whole place to himself.

I guess I'm literally down to just making a city and doing nothing at all, which I can't imagine will be any fun...

 

[bossconian]

I tell you what it's like - i spend 20 hours playing civ V of which i spend about 18 in lobby trying to connect to / start the game or having people disconnecting and game hanging for no reason. Since then I came back to civ IV and never palyed the civ V alpha again. If anybody know how to claim the money back please let me know.

Btw - I play civ IV multiplayer games regulary every week.

 

[E66man]

I tell you what it's like - i spend 20 hours playing civ V of which i spend about 18 in lobby trying to connect to / start the game or having people disconnecting and game hanging for no reason.

Yeah this is definitely one of the weakest 'lobby' systems in any mulitplayer game I've seen. I log on to Canuck's recommended chat room and I see some people discussing a game and setting it up... oops, but they're on the East Coast so I can't play with them. Meanwhile I'm sitting here on the West Coast server with *no* games being hosted...

Nice.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Yeah this is definitely one of the weakest 'lobby' systems in any mulitplayer game I've seen. I log on to Canuck's recommended chat room and I see some people discussing a game and setting it up... oops, but they're on the East Coast so I can't play with them. Meanwhile I'm sitting here on the West Coast server with *no* games being hosted...

Nice.

What do you mean you can not play with them? We don't use the regional games lists. When players host games you join by clicking on their name in the player list and click "Join Game". I'm sorry if no one explained that to you :-/

That is one of the major benifits of the chat room, that we can avoid using the flawed server lists.

CS

 

[E66man]

When players host games you join by clicking on their name in the player list and click "Join Game".

Ok, I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

 

[tommynt]

E66man - maybe u should just stop playing complete noobs?

U might f.e. "test" people in lobby with questions like "how many shields is a worker?"
95% of people wont know and u can savly assume it just better not to play them.

Or u might join league and get your ass kicked ...

U can savely assume that 99% of nonleague players ARE incompetent dudes - as every guy who got some talent ll make same experiences as u have done and WILL look for a place where u dont have autowins only

 

[boehj]

 

[E66man]

Or u might join league and get your ass kicked ...

Sounds tempting since I won't learn anything new in the games I've been playing so far, but I'm probably just going to hang up my multiplayer hat until some patch comes out. I'm getting too frustrated with the lag... and frankly I've seen more lag in this product than in any RTS or MMO game I've played so far. I also get doubly angry that the turn timer still runs out even when lag prevents me from making a move.

In my last game I decided to avoid an early rush and beeline for Rifles so my opponents would have more time to build up some kind of defense. When I was ready I had to bulb a Great Scientist for Gunpowder, then pick Social Policies to get to Scientific Revolution, then pick my two free techs. I wasn't able to complete this process before the timer ran out! This made me mad enough I told my one remaining opponent (the other two either dropped or quit, is there a way to tell which?) I was leaving the game since I couldn't deal with the lag anymore.

Interface items like the tech tree should never be running more slowly in multi-player than in single-player, yet they do. I suspect the game is spending too much time doing pointless updates because there are many venues for a player action to change the stats of units or tiles on the board. If this is the case then maybe in multi-player the setup should be changed so that effects of Social Policies or promotions can't take place until the turn following when they get activated. Some players might get annoyed that they can do less tactical tricks, but it might solve some of the 'click fest' complaints and I'm happy to take that trade-off if I don't have to spend my whole turn just trying to click on a technology in the tree.

 

[E66man]

E66man - maybe u should just stop playing complete noobs?

I did manage to squeeze in one game that might have given me a run for my money. I got Aztecs as a random leader and ended up on a small area that could only hold 3 cities tops, and it was all forest/jungle so growth was painfully slow due to lack of food. The only way out of my area was via a long isthmus that was also all forest & hills and required my men to walk single file. At the end of the isthmus is a city state so my expansion is blocked that way...

I take out the city state with heavy losses and then another player founds a city next to it and shows up with lots of spears, so I'm thinking I finally have a challenge coming, but of course, everybody gets dropped soon after.

The weird twist to this story is that in the game immediately following I recognize that person's name in the list of players, so I'm starting to get excited at having a 'rematch' of sorts. However, after I rush the first player that person types 'game over' into the chat window, and even though they end up being the 3rd and last player I have to eliminate, they *still* have no army to speak of when I get over there to launch the death blow . Maybe they just stopped putting in any effort after the first player died? Who knows...

 

[Kyp Durron]

Games having issues like lag and dropping is a problem, but with our league rehosting is much easier. Also skill level is very high for some players in the league. If you want some competition come on in.

(kyp durron)

 

[boehj]

I'm gonna fire up MP tonight. I worry about my net connection but we'll see.

I'm interested to see whether my experience mirrors E66man's.

 

[jbadams]

When Firaxis announced (or leaked) that GameSpy would not be used for Civ5, I assumed immediately that multiplayer would be much better "out of the box" than it was in Civ4. Boy, was I wrong.

I still have not bought the game; I plan to do so once multiplayer is functional.

 

[jbadams]

I tell you what it's like - i spend 20 hours playing civ V of which i spend about 18 in lobby trying to connect to / start the game or having people disconnecting and game hanging for no reason. Since then I came back to civ IV and never palyed the civ V alpha again. If anybody know how to claim the money back please let me know.

Btw - I play civ IV multiplayer games regulary every week.

That's exactly how Civ4 multiplayer was, for more than two years.

 

[E66man]

I'm interested to see whether my experience mirrors E66man's.

What I've been doing so far is cranking out nothing but military units and not more than two Settlers. All of my cities get founded directly on a resource so I don't have to use a Worker to set them up and I'm immune to pillage. So typically city #2 gets planted on Horses and I save city #3 for when I discover Iron. When I have 4-5 military units out I send them to attack my closest neighbor (note that this usually happens before I've founded city #3). I don't build Workers but steal them from the nearest City State or the closest player. Typically I won't ever build my own Worker unless it gets vital to pop one out to hook up a luxury or something and it seems obvious it will take to long too steal one since the people producing them are too far away.

Note that I make *no* claims that I think this is any kind of a brilliant strategy... if my closest neighbor has just enough troops that I take some losses and they don't lose a city as soon as I show up, I would expect that their greater expansion would allow them to swing the advantage to their side, especially if they were running a full library and going for the Rifle rush. The typical player I've faced though usually has made 3 - 4 cities with a Worker for each by the time I arrive, and as a consequence, perhaps only a couple of military units that haven't been concentrated together because they are scattered all over dealing with barbarian invasion.

Also note that I typically pick 'Random Leader' and these same steps have worked no matter who I get. If I picked civs that I knew would enhance this battle plan even more (like Greece, France, obviously) things would be even more lopsided than they have been.

I also want to apologize if I inadvertently offend anybody who might recognize themselves as my opponent in any of my game descriptions: if you're playing the game in a manner that provides the most fun for you then by all means continue to do so. Posting about all my facile victories probably makes it sound like I think I'm God's gift to civ gaming but I'm well aware I can't be the guy at the top of that totem pole (and I'd be happy enough just being in the middle).

In fact, if anybody wants to discuss their typical openings with regards to how I would end up completely stymied by it I'd love to hear it!

 

[Blitz47]

I have "played" 3 MP games so far. What I mean is I played a game long enough or all players in the game want to quit due to need to sleep, or whatever. I too, was looking for the MP game loss achievement and it has eluded me so far.

1 game was finished, my first ever MP game, I lost my capital. I didn't focus on 100% military units and that was the problem. I did not want to appear throw the game, so I fought on, after I lost my 1st city, my opponent, who was teaching me how to play MP, slowed down a bit, I used that respite to rebuild my troops, got more iron and tried to counter attack. I think I had more cities than him but he found his city at a nice choking point (around Iraq/Iran on a small earthlike map, I started in Egypt position, he was Russia, once he built a city at Iran/Iraq, I had to "ford" mediterrean to build a city with access to iron in Europe, alas, he captured my city there and according to him, gained his first iron access. I have 3 or 4 cities in Africa by then but when I lost my capital and didn't get the losing MP game achievement, combined with the fact I need to eat, the game ended with mutual agreement)

Game 2 lasted for a couple hours, all of us were tired and need to sleep. We added each other to friend's list and I played my 3rd MP game with one of the person on the list.

Game 3 didn't last long. My opponent was Persian, I was China. The interesting thing was when our units first met, I immediately attacked, he cussed, I apologized because I told him due to my past MP game experience, I assume a 2 player MP game is by default, war and no peace. I found my 2nd city on horse, my opponent and I traded blows, while he was destroying my scout + warrior with his immortals, I built my 2 horseman and harassed him. We played inland sea map and our main battle field was up north, closer to his border but roughly in the middle where we were trying to control 2 tiny hill passages, he ended up controlling them both but I managed to get around that problem eventually by getting optics and sail through the inland sea, where he did not build a navy. While his victorious army was marching towards my 2nd city from the north, I sneaked a settler down south and found my 3rd city, on a horse or iron resource, directly below his 2 cities. He was not happy when he found out about it, especially I am slowly massing up an army there, after dealt enough damage to his northern army around my 2nd city. Since I was looking for a loss, I told him he can sack my 2nd city, he didn't and in the end, we both quit as he built mostly military and I managed to capture 2 workers from him (1 was actually his settler so he was pretty upset). If the game had continued, I should win, assume lag does not play a factor.

I have pretty much given up on MP Civ 5 play. Every single game, there is lag, they range from acceptable to unbearable. This is what I can't handle.

My unit -> barbarian
I click right, sending my units to attack barbarian, turn updates, then this is the situation

old position | my unit new position
Barbarian

In more than one MP game, I have watched barbarians rampage through my improvements while I'm powerless to destroy it due to lag. It's one thing if I neglect to build troops and let this happen. It's another when I have a unit right there but unable to actually attack it as enemy unit seem to teleport and my own units arrive to face air.

This problem is amplified when I'm fighting another human player, my units just disappear. Civ 5 MP does seem to be about skill (unless you meet mismatched skill level players), it seems to be about who has least lag when skills are not too far apart.

 

[E66man]

I have pretty much given up on MP Civ 5 play. Every single game, there is lag, they range from acceptable to unbearable. This is what I can't handle.

Same here. And the really enraging part is that it seems to affect *all* aspects of the game, not just unit movement. I would never expect to see lag simply trying to open the Tech Tree, but it happens anyway.

Sounds like you had some good games there, though (discounting lag issues).

 

[Blitz47]

Same here. And the really enraging part is that it seems to affect *all* aspects of the game, not just unit movement. I would never expect to see lag simply trying to open the Tech Tree, but it happens anyway.

Sounds like you had some good games there, though (discounting lag issues).

yeah, I think I got lucky, we actually fought from beginning to end in 2 games out of 3. The 2nd game was on a standard size map or something and I came to agreement with my closest neighbor to cooperate (I was looking for a loss so I proposed generous terms as I didn't care, he reciprocated). However, there are players who quit, complaining not meeting anyone, alone on an island. Since we were playing continents, that's possible. the irony is later, both my neighbor and I met that quitting player's army. We later speculate he probably quit due to barbarian loss or simply did not build enough troops. I always build troops, just how much. Even in that "peaceful" 2nd game, I fought with my neighbor briefly but I told him it's a lose-lose situation for both of us in a game where diplomacy is not prohibited (according to host). Both of us have units and fighting will slow both of us down, allow others to eclipse us. He agreed and we peaced out and settled our border with a river as our boundary.

I think Civ5 MP has potential, but until they fix all the problems, it is simply potential. Right now, I believe it's whomever hosts, has faster computer, has better connection should win, unless skill level difference is too great to overcome this huge huge advantage. In one game, I couldn't do anything for like 2-3 turns, I watch the turn timer goes down and not able to do much, then turn ends, repeat, rinse.....oh joy