Would simultaneous turns only for people who aren't as war work?

[Peng Qi]

I'm trying to think of any possible problems with implementing an "simultaneous turns only for people not at war" option in Civ. Not that I could code it or anything.

I was just curious if anyone could think of a problem with such an option other than "war's the part that takes the longest so simultaneous turns turning off for it would be way longer than having it on during it."

 

[LDiCesare]

What's the point of it? Simultaneous turns are mostly interesting during war, although it wasn't well implemented in Civ IV mp imo (I prefer an 'everyone to give orders and then they are resolved' system).

 

[TheDS]

The problem is that anyone can go to war at any time. When you're all spread apart, that's when simultaneous turns work out okay.

But like LDiCesare says, what we need is a simultaneous resolution system. That would allow us slow humans to input all our moves and send out all our diplomacy requests and whatnot, and the fast AIs can do their turns a lot faster, so no time gets wasted. Then, when we're all ready, the moves are all played out at the same time.

I'm not proposing a perfectly simultaneous resolution system. All moves are resolved one at a time, but in random order. There will also have to be a little tweaking for when you're trying to attack an enemy unit that doesn't want to be attacked. In perfectly simultaneous resolution systems, it can be a real PITA to chase down enemy units because they're moving. You have to guess where they're going. This may seem like a neato idea, but trust me, it's a royal PITA.

Instead, a unit needs to be able to have an "attitude". If you want to attack an enemy unit, and that unit moves sideways, your unit should be able to still attack it instead of blindly moving to the place where it used to be. And if that unit is suddenly boosted by a fortification or something, maybe you don't want to attack afterall. OTOH, if you're just moving along and someone else moved into your destination hex, should an attack take place?

You determine the answers by giving your units an "attitude". Always attack, never attack, and attack so long as we have the odds.

Sometimes things will still happen that you didn't intend, but that's okay because that kind of thing happens in real life too.

The downside to this approach is that with a lot of units it can add a lot of tedium to set a movement order AND an attitude. Setting the third option as the default attitude for enemies and the second as default for non-enemies will go a long way to alleviating most of it.

 

[Peng Qi]

Well, if we're going to use a simultaneous resolution system, i.e. re-code the entire game (again, not like I even have the skill to mod any of this, haha), then you might as well separate moving and attacking into separate phases, and therefore eliminate the whole "chasing enemies all over the place" thing. After moving, if an enemy is next to you, you can attack him.

 

[LDiCesare]

Chasing enemies is intrinsic to simultaneous turn resolution.
The only ways I know to compound the problem are:
-Few provinces/places to go.
It's much harder to run around in cricles when there's no room.
-Give initiative to attackers, which requires saying they want to attack.

If you split move/attack like you propose, the only result is people will fllee when they are 2 tiles away instead of 1, but it won't essentially change the issue.

 

[TheDS]

Perhaps, but it doesn't HAVE TO BE intrinsic. A unit may want to attack a specific unit, in which case he selects to move on the unit. Or he may want to move to the place the other unit is, in which case he clicks on the space. But what if he clicks on a space and then another unit moves there? Would he want to attack or just move there? Or would he want to run away? Sometimes he doesn't even see that other unit before the order is issued, other times he doesn't know the unit is going to move there, or just hopes it won't.

This situation comes up A LOT. By setting an "attitude", we can resolve these questions very easily most of the time. With an aggressive attitude, an attack will take place (assuming they're at war). With a passive attitude, an attack will not take place. With a normal attitude, an attack will take place only if your unit is stronger; if he's not, he runs.

Defense too could benefit from attitudes. WHen an enemy unit tries to occupy your unit's space, an aggressive defender will stay to the last man, but hopefully inflict extra damage. A passive defender will run away first chance they get, hopefully taking no damage. And a normal defender will stay until say half its strength is gone, at which point it will try to run.

Because we don't want to bog down combat by stopping it and asking for input (and indeed, there are plenty of times in Civ where I would've LOVED to give some input into a combat to save an important unit), we have to give them orders to carry out, and hope the situation doesn't overwhelm those orders.

Because OMFG, chasing down units sucks! There's this little game called Power you can find at the Underdogs that uses simultaneous movement, and you have to chase guys down with much larger forces because if you don't, they capture yours. The only thing that saves you is the thing that annoys you the most - you can only make 5 moves per turn.