Multiplayer turn based model » Forum Post by Innocentia

One problem I see with multiplayer is constructors camping near claimed resources. If the starbase is destroyed, who gets to claim the resource? What if the civ responsible for the destruction of the starbase doesn't have any nearby constructors?

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

I would like to add that even though it is turn based each player can take their turn at the same time.

I would like to see where the players can use the same species. U would have to pick different names. I would like to see a map BEing able to compute the number of planets and stuff based on how many players the game has. Where we can have a lot of players on multiplayer. This could then be way more than whats allowed on the normal game.

Is this game going to allow modded stuff. Anything besides customized, renamed, or stock species as customized species other modded options would be based on who hosts the game.

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Quoting jim_viebke,

reply 1

If the starbase is destroyed, who gets to claim the resource? What if the civ responsible for the destruction of the starbase doesn't have any nearby constructors?

Changing to a simultaneous execution model means tweaking the way certain features, ie. captures, work. Still it's worth it to build the ultimate turn based multiplayer game.

Quoting michaelwhittaker,

reply 2

I would like to add that even though it is turn based each player can take their turn at the same time.

That's sounds like 'real time turn based', a model with several flaws.

First off, it means I can effectively make two moves right after another - one right before I end my turn, and then again right after the next turn starts. Reaction time should never be part of a turn based model.

Secondly, real time turn based usually requires all players to be online at the same time. While this is somewhat possible for smaller local groups, try coordinating a gaming sessions with more than 6 players across several timezones, with more than half the players having real life obligations and family life to attend to

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting ,

quoting post

As GC3 is the first multiplayer GC incarnation, it's crucial to switch to a multiplayer-friendly game model, rather than sticking with the traditional turn based model where people wait for each other to finish.

For the perfect multiplayer experience, the model needs to support the following:

Game hosted on central server at Stardock
Player can create new game, control turn deadlines (10 minutes? 2 days?) and pause game, ie. for when vacations get in the way
Players will plan their actions and submit their turn. Once turn deadline has been reached a new turn is calculated with all player actions being carried out simultaneously (ie. noone "goes first")
Players need not be online at the same time. Turns can be planned and submitted individually.
Game scales without adding delay, ie. whether you're just 2 players, 50 or more the delay is the same.
Players missing turn deadlines or dropping out wont halt the game.
Long term planning (order queue). Unfinished orders, ie. long flights, carry over to next turn.

Stars! employed a fairly similar simultaneous turn based model, although without a central Internet host.

I believe Endless Space does too to some extent, although as far as I know it does requires all players to be online at the same time.

Endless Space doesn't work anything like that. It uses simultaneous turns, in the sense that everyone is going at the same time, in realtime. It's turn based on that the next turn doesn't happen until everyone is ready, but you don't lock in actions and then execute them. You do stuff and it happens immediately.

The biggest problem with this type of model is that SP GalCiv 3 doesn't work that way. So you're talking about a significantly different turn model for MP, which will drive up the cost of creating MP dramatically. Far simpler to get async MP play by using the old standby: Play By Email (or a server hosted similar model). You take your turn, finish it, and notify me when it's done. I take my turn whenever, and notify you when it's done.

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To be honest, it would not surprise me if multiplayer were not included at release. If you design a game with single player first and multiplayer as an addon, you're going to have a bad time.

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Quoting Tridus,

reply 4

Endless Space doesn't work anything like that. It uses simultaneous turns, in the sense that everyone is going at the same time, in realtime. It's turn based on that the next turn doesn't happen until everyone is ready, but you don't lock in actions and then execute them. You do stuff and it happens immediately.

I see, so that's the real time simultaneous as I criticised a few posts up. Bad model indeed.

The biggest problem with this type of model is that SP GalCiv 3 doesn't work that way. So you're talking about a significantly different turn model for MP, which will drive up the cost of creating MP dramatically

No, the same turn model is perfectly usable for single player too, least it was with Stars! Also they are coding GC3 from the ground up right? So there's every reason to consider a much better turn based model.

Far simpler to get async MP play by using the old standby: Play By Email (or a server hosted similar model). You take your turn, finish it, and notify me when it's done. I take my turn whenever, and notify you when it's done.

Simpler, yes. Good for gameplay no... terrible in fact.

If each player takes let's say one day to do their turn, each extra players adds a day of delay. So with two player each whole turn would take two days. Just seven players would take a whole week.

Now consider what happens when one or two players suddently stop responding to mail for days - or even drop our without a word. That would break the turn chain and halt the game entirely, while you try to figure out what's wrong and how to move along, ie. skipping the player.

Both of these problems are nonexistant in the aforementioned turn based simultaneous execution model, it's actually in the list:

Game scales without adding delay, ie. whether you're just 2 players, 50 or more the delay is the same.
Players missing turn deadlines or dropping out wont halt the game.

Remember: This it's some new turn based model I recently invented. It's proven and has been around for decades. Heck, Laser Squad Nemesis written by Julian Gollop (the one who invented X-COM) uses this turn based model.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting Innocentia,

reply 6

No, the same turn model is perfectly usable for single player too, least it was with Stars! Also they are coding GC3 from the ground up right? So there's every reason to consider a much better turn based model.

There has been absolutely nothing to suggest that they're changing the turn model from how it worked in the previous games in the series. At this point it seems pretty unlikely.

I'm not sure I'd want them to, anyway. In a large game I don't want to have to give 40 sets of orders without seeing the results until the end.

Simpler, yes. Good for gameplay no... terrible in fact.

If each player takes let's say one day to do their turn, each extra players adds a day of delay. So with two player each whole turn would take two days. Just seven players would take a whole week.

That's fairly unlikely, but yes, async multiplayer tends to be slower. It's managed to work successfully in games for quite a long time.

Both of these problems are nonexistant in the aforementioned turn based simultaneous execution model, it's actually in the list:

Game scales without adding delay, ie. whether you're just 2 players, 50 or more the delay is the same.
Players missing turn deadlines or dropping out wont halt the game.

Remember: This it's some new turn based model I recently invented. It's proven and has been around for decades. Heck, Laser Squad Nemesis written by Julian Gollop (the one who invented X-COM) uses this turn based model.

You missed one: Someone misses a couple of turns because life happend and they're busy. Now they're behind and quit the game in frustration at stuff happening when they weren't around to deal with it.

It still has the problem of being a fundamentally different thing from how it works in SP and thus being more complicated to set up. I really don't expect they're going to go for it. As SP is the focus, expect MP to behave functionally the same as SP, only with some of the AIs replaced with humans.

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Quoting Tridus,

reply 7

You missed one: Someone misses a couple of turns because life happend and they're busy. Now they're behind and quit the game in frustration at stuff happening when they weren't around to deal with it.

Actually the last point in the list sort of makes up for this problem

Long term planning (order queue). Unfinished orders, ie. long flights, carry over to next turn.

It's wont help in a tight spot though. Still my point is that no one player will ever drag the game to a halt. And if you need to leave for vacation, all you need to do is as the host for a pause.

It still has the problem of being a fundamentally different thing from how it works in SP and thus being more complicated to set up.

As I wrote, this model IS used in SP in Stars! It's different from the CURRENT SP CG model yes, but if noone suggest improvement nothing will get improved.

I really don't expect they're going to go for it. As SP is the focus, expect MP to behave functionally the same as SP, only with some of the AIs replaced with humans.

Did they actually say SP was the focus? They wrote this would be the first multiplayer capable GalCiv, so I figured that means they'd design the game around this, not as an afterthought.

I'm not holding my breath but I often think it's scary how conservative communities can be. There's a reason Apple is the king of consumer technology, and it's NOT because they stuck with what they knew.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting Innocentia,

reply 8

Did they actually say SP was the focus? They wrote this would be the first multiplayer capable GalCiv, so I figured that means they'd design the game around this, not as an afterthought.

I'm not holding my breath but I often think it's scary how conservative communities can be. There's a reason Apple is the king of consumer technology, and it's NOT because they stuck with what they knew.

They did say that SP is the focus. MP will be present, but the game is SP first and that won't be compromised for MP. Their words, im paraphrasing. On a tablet right now, not easy to find the exact quote.

So however the game works in SP, you can expect the same gameplay in MP. And given how turns worked in previous games in the franchise, I don't see any of this happening. That's not being conservative, it's just reality. You don't change stuff as fundamental as how turns work very often in a sequel.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

As far as Iunderstood is they were referring to how the game worked, and in reference to what the focus was. For instance if the tech tree set was really good for single player, but causing the species to have a mediocre tech tree in multiplayer. As far as the invisible mechanics on how the game plays it would not make a difference, so I would go ahead and suggest a model. On how the species is played though the most important thing is single player, and I agree with this. What is this post about. I keep rereading it all I can ascertain is that you are telling us how multiplayer works, and you are not asking anything. So can you clarify what this post is about please.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

Quoting Innocentia,

reply 8

Did they actually say SP was the focus? They wrote this would be the first multiplayer capable GalCiv, so I figured that means they'd design the game around this, not as an afterthought.
I'm not holding my breath but I often think it's scary how conservative communities can be. There's a reason Apple is the king of consumer technology, and it's NOT because they stuck with what they knew.

It was stated pretty bluntly that MP is going to get secondary status. It's there, it will be polished as much as possible, but no aspect of SP will be compromised to improve the MP. It's not an afterthought but fundamentals like turn mechanics aren't going to be screwed with to benefit the miniscule handful of people that will play year-long MP games. Stardock knows they're catering to a 99% SP crowd and they'd have to be fools to do anything to jeopardize that.

Beyond that, Stardock has also confirmed MP will include hotseat mode. Hotseat works well with sequential turns, but how well would hotseat work in your setup?

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

Quoting Tridus,

reply 9

They did say that SP is the focus. MP will be present, but the game is SP first and that won't be compromised for MP. Their words, im paraphrasing. On a tablet right now, not easy to find the exact quote.

Here you are:

"I mean it’s a single-player game first. We’re not making any promises to have some kind of multiplayer balance or anything like that. If one race is better than the other in multiplayer, well, that’s too bad! We’re not going to sacrifice the single-player."

Quoting WIllythemailboy,

reply 11

Beyond that, Stardock has also confirmed MP will include hotseat mode.

They've also confirmed a form of asynchronous play, but haven't yet provided any information about how it's going to work.

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Quoting WIllythemailboy,

reply 11

turn mechanics aren't going to be screwed with to benefit the miniscule handful of people that will play year-long MP games. Stardock knows they're catering to a 99% SP crowd and they'd have to be fools to do anything to jeopardize that.

Fair enough, guess it'd be better not to mess with what people are used to in the GC series.

how well would hotseat work in your setup?[/quote]

It'd work just fine, but it wouldn't be worth it: Players cannot plan turns simultaneously on one computer, so they wouldn't get the speed benefit the model provides.

[quote who="michaelwhittaker" reply="10" id="3419669"]

So can you clarify what this post is about please.

Basically it was a suggestion on how to implement the perfect turn based model for multiplayer in GCIII. Seeing as how the game was only recently announced, and knowing they'd decided to finally implement multiplayer, I found it logical for Stardock to rethink the turn based model.

Alas it seems this isn't the case - at all

Several edits: Sorry, messed up the quote-tags and can't seem to fix them

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So many narrowminded views when it comes to multiplayer in this forum. Test Civilization4 and 5 MP and see how it should be done. Works as a charm. Simultaneous is the way to go.

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Simultaneous turns are way to go. They do have some drawbacks. But it makes up for it with speed.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

I think both Galactic civilizations and civilizations are good games.

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Yes, the simultaneous turns are way to go. I plan do not play this game without multiplayer system.

Stars! was a extremely good example but have a few poor points. Mechanics of GalCiv may cure it:

1) All games are provided by central host which keep all game informations,

2) Turn are solved simultaneously, with initiative order (the fleets with higher initiative move first). If the initiative is equal, smaller fleet is first. If equals - random,

3) Server saves (!) player's construction (designs) and based of their efficiency in game copy it into next AI matches with auto-updates,

4) Server follow the general strategy and races types of players (hyper-growth, hyper-production) and copy it into next AI matches with auto-updates.

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Just do it like Dominions.

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Actually Dominions use the same model as Stars!

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Lucky_Jack

Join Date 01/2002

+62

I hate to spoil all your fun but multiplayer looks to me to be an effort that requires early design work, so I think they already have the overall design for how they will do MP cast in concrete.

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Quoting andrev_msl,

reply 17

1) All games are provided by central host which keep all game informations,

3) Server saves (!) player's construction (designs) and based of their efficiency in game copy it into next AI matches with auto-updates,

4) Server follow the general strategy and races types of players (hyper-growth, hyper-production) and copy it into next AI matches with auto-updates.

This would require dedicated servers, which would cost money to maintain and be localized to Stardock's HQ. It's also not necessary as client servers would work almost as well and be available all over the world for no cost at all to Stardock. It would be better to simply use Stardock's servers for the ship and strategy sharing mechanics and nothing else in my opinion.

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I rather hope they have a few different types of multi-player game modes. I think I am hearing two broad categories being proposed, one a more fast paced few hours or less game; two a long multiple hour, multiple day version. Perhaps both can be added wherein there is the same time turn mode for a faster paced game and the rank order static mode as well. I do trust stardock to balance them out, they do really good work so I am hopeful.

One thing I would love to see is the ability to create a custom faction (with personal logos and ship templates) and import it to multiple player games.

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Games should play the same way regardless number of players and intended length of turns. Anything else would greatly confuse players and complicate turn generation.

And yes, changing the turn based model would have to be thought in from the beginning, and judging from statements here Stardock is not rewriting the game, rather expanding on GalCiv. A shame really but quite understandable.

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Lucky_Jack

Join Date 01/2002

+62

Quoting Innocentia,

reply 23

judging from statements here Stardock is not rewriting the game, rather expanding on GalCiv. A shame really but quite understandable.

Depends on what you mean by rewriting the game. Stardock said the story and back story remain and is extended, but they have a new 64 bit addressing mode engine, are rewriting all the code, and are writing it in 64 bit addressing mode.

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Point taken - I'm not trying to diminish Stardocks work. I guess 'redesigning/rethinking' would be more correct.

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