If you can’t do something well. Don’t do it.
That’s been my philosophy on game development from the beginning. In Galactic Civilizations, it meant not having any multiplayer. We didn’t have the budget and resources to do multiplayer well. So we didn’t do it.
In Elemental, single-player is our focus. But we have decided to have multiplayer and that means we are going to do make sure it is done right.
Real-Time strategy games do well in multiplayer because the game continuously moves forward. Players don’t have to wait for other players. In turn based, players inevitably have to wait and that makes them less ideal.
From a design perspective, having lots of different options for handling turns is going to be our focus. From a sheer budget point of view, we cannot justify the resources required to do multiplayer if only hard-core grognards are playing it online.
So let’s look at the different options and then we can discuss your ideas on how we can make a turn-based strategy game fun in online multiplayer.
Elemental will be able to support multiple different turn options so we don’t have to pick one (though we will ultimately *default* to one).
Option #1: Traditional Turn-Base
This is where each player gets their turn. They hit the turn button and then the next person is able to move. There is typically a time limit on turns.
Option #2: Simultaneous turns.
This is where all players move at the same time. When done, they hit the turn button. There is typically a time limit involved on turns or a timer that starts when the first person hits the turn button.
So what are some things we can play around with here? What are some other OPTIONS we could have?
I like the idea of a time bank. You get N seconds per turn. If you finish your turn early, you get to add those seconds to your time bank. If you run out of time, it starts to cost you gold. Like 10 gold per second. If you run out of gold, the turn goes automatically.
There could be city improvements that give players additional time to take turns.
Example:
The default time you get would be based on what “League” you were in. 5 seconds for the “gold” league. “10 seconds for the “silver” league and 15 seconds for the “bronze” league. We’ll talk about these leagues more at GDC.
Player could build a Time Bank improvement that adds 1 second to what they get.
Each second they don’t use, goes into their global time pool. Players could “cash in” seconds at a rate of 5 gold per second they want to exchange for.
Obviously, the above would be for experienced online players of the game. Players could choose a variety of options here but what we are looking for is a way to satisfy players who know the game and want to play online with other people and not have it be a long slog.
Certain things would need to stop the clock. Namely, battles. We are inclined to have tactical battles turned OFF by default for online but players can turn it on depending on their setup.
Tactical Battle Options would include:
We will also have a Tactical Battle Threshold for minimum battle rating necessary to turn it into a tactical battle (ranging from 0 to 1000). You may not want a tactical battle of two soldiers but you might want a tactical battle when it’s two grand armies.
A lot of you, like me, have tried to play turn-based games multiplayer. And a lot of you, like me, found them very tedious and not fun because of the pacing.
I like playing mulitplayer RTS games and FPS’s but multiplayer turn based just has never made the cut. So, what do you think would make it something that would be compelling to a larger audience that you would enjoy?
I thought about ways of improving turn based as well. I had ideas like bonuses for finishing turn early. Small ones but they would add up. Like +5 gold or something. There should be no penalty for taking your time however.
I like timed turns also, like in civ4. Turn ends no matter what after X seconds. Youc an only speed this turn end up, you cant slow it down. Unless u pause, or change game speed you know how long the game will last. Thou the time per turn scales with the length of the game, since empires grow.
Another game with timed turns as an option is Sword of the Stars. There too turn ends after x seconds. However the turns don't take up most of the game time. Since it's a Realtime Turn based hybrid. the combat is in real time and it takes up msot of the game time.
Now in Elemtal if you end turn early, I hope you can still do things like design units, or set research. Anything not involving changing production or moving units. This would be a desirable feature.
And also the timer for your game bank should scale with how many cities you have. You mentioned making a city improvement, but I think that each city should give certain tiem to your bank for free, improvement or not.
My preference would be to have a traditional turn-based system that allows the other players to "do" something while the other players are doing their stuff.
For instance, if the "non-active" players could start staging certain moves for their next turn ahead of time. Or if non-active players could engage in espionage while other players are moving (i.e. spending money to mess with the outcomes of other player actions). If non-active players who had sufficient magic points could cast spells to affect the outcomes of rival battles, etc.
The main problem with traditional turn-based games is boredom. As long as there are fun "screw your neighbor" things you can do while you wait, it becomes more bearable.
Simultaneous turn-based has never hit the mark for me personally. Also it just seems like a QA nightmare, trying to iron out all of the different contentions that can result.
*NEW IDEA*
Stream porn while waiting for other player(s) to end their turn!
OK, more seriously - how about a cumulative bonus to research for the player that ends faster. Instead of being bored with how much longer the other guy is taking you are cheering him on to take all the time he wants!
or a combination of the above ideas: increase the probability that the waiting player generates offsping, with the odds increasing the longer he has to wait "something along the lines of, I was waiting so long for you to finish your turn that I went and boinked my significant other while I waited."
Not sure I like the timebank idea. By the end of the game people will either have a huge amount of time horded or a lot of gold. However if you've been playing well more gold really doesn't mean a whole lot.
The biggest problem with turns is finding ways to alliviate the waiting player's boredom. Even during simultaneous turns (with time limits) you'll almost ALWAYS have that one player who simply forgets to click the turn button. Leaving everyone to wait until the timer runs out to go again.
Bottom line is no matter how much you may be rewarded for ending your turn quickly, you're still waiting for the spaced out player to end his turn.
I suggest certain features be kept unlocked once you've ended your turn. Such as Designing / equiping units, diplomacy or city queues (which I think someone mentioned). Also With Tatical battles, they get dull when you're stuck watching them. Or your screen is locked up till they're done. I think players should have the ability check in on the battle or read up on their empire at will as TBs are going on. (similar to Lord of the Realms 3) I remember reading that Elemental has a huge amount of lore somewhere too. Perhaps having a Codex similar to Dragon Age, that gives players something to read while they wait, that's at the same time pertinent to the game at the same time. Embellished spell descriptions with tips nestled inside them. Things like that.
//edited for english butchery
I don't like rewarding people for being faster than others. Some people are just slower and/or can have turns that require lots of attention due to manny different things in different fronts happening at once. It may sound weird but I prefer to "punish" the slower player with a timer.
Sorry for the off-topic and not offering alternatives.
Example: your attacking unit has movement=1, and is moving along a road (halves movement cost). Your town defending foe has a unit entering with movement=1, and is moving through normal terrain (normal movement cost). Both units start adjacent to town so will reach the tonw this turn. Result -- the attacker gets there first (half movement vs full movement of the incoming defender) and the battle occurs without the incoming defender. The incoming defender then moves into the city during this movement phase -- if the attacker won the battle then there's a new battle (incoming defender is now attacking any remaining victorious units in the city), if the defender won the battle there's no new battle and the incoming defender is added to any surviving defending units in the city.
Let's assume both units start in adjacent hexes. Let's also assume there's a 'follow' order (you can have your unit follow a unit it can see at the start of the planned movement phase -- without a 'follow' option then you'd have to guess the route of the unit you're pursuing, which would be interesting but it's logical given the pursuer is close enough to see the other unit at turn's start). Now, if both units have the same movement rate, the pursuing unit doesn't catch up, and they end movement still adjacent. If the pursuer is faster then at some point they end up in the same hex and a battle is possible. If the pursuer is slower then there is increased distance between them at the end of the turn.
The non-twitch version provides a greater fog-of-war which changes the complexion of the game considerably, which accounts for why some believe the increased cost/complexity is worth it.
The 'rules' determining who 'wins' the simultaneous non-twitch race are pretty logical (determined by when in a turn an event occurs, which is based upon known factors like unit movement speed, terrain movement costs, etc.). It gives fast movement but weaker strength units their proper role, etc., makes leadership more realistic (IRL we don't have the luxury of stopping time for other units while one unit moves/fights, then seeing how the move/fight goes, before committing the other units).
I understand how twitch is simpler in some ways, and that many enjoy it, and so would like to see the option to go either way. That increases dev time and so is a big cost, but I'm hoping Elemental has legs like the Civ series (19 years and 8M copies so far) and so it'll be worth it.
I also believe a true simultaneous feature adds a new layer of strategy/tactics, and increases strategic 'realism' considerably (as explained in my above posts).
I really like this idea from Greyghost. It solves the #1 problems with MP TBS which is a bog down waiting for someone else to take a long turn.
My experience with this is that most turns go by quick until you get a certain new tech or something that causes a long turn doing a design of a unit, or queueing up the new building in all towns, etc. It gets bad when each player hits a critical moment like this sequentially, rather than on the same turn (you spend a long turn, then you have to wait on your next turn while the other guy takes a long turn).
Or this occurs with tactical battles:
I don't think you should get to see any battles you aren't involved in (or at a minimum one that takes place in an unexplored area). This really undermines the Fog of War, is unrealistic, and gives the watching players unfair insight into the fighting players' tactics. Instead, the inactive players should be allowed to design units, examine cities, or some other useful activity while waiting.
I'm not a big fan of the time bank involving any money or mana or resource other than time. To easy to abuse. I liken it to a reverse speed chess timer. You can't set a total time, like speed chess, but you should be able to bank extended turns for later when you'll need it more. If you have a bunch of extra time at the end of the game, it should factor into your victory points, but not be used as an alternate source of some other game resource (like money).
Another idea is to use the simultaneous turns with a few differences that I think will make it work better:
Players simultaneously queue up plans and orders then hit 'end turn'. Resolution is done by the computer during the between turns time. Initiative of each unit is calculated based on speed, movement, whatever, AND a tiebreaking arbitrary player turn order in the background (seen by all players, so you know who wins a tiebreaker). Units then move in order, maybe even long movements broken up into multiple moves (I.E. unit A moves 1 square, unit B moves 1 square, unit A moves another square, etc). This solves the 2 units simultaneously attacking and they both trade squares scenario.
Also when clicking on an occupied square the movement order should be 'attack this unit' not 'move to this square'. I think the game does this, as I've seen my unit persue a spider across the map.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You'd probably want a tiebreaker in the event that their movement scores are equal, in which case you could say that movement is faster then attack, so the defenders get to arrive first, or something like that.
Either way, I stand corrected.
This is pretty cool in compeative. However I think I will express my utter disapointment to support ANY KIND OF COOP WHAT SO EVER in Empire: Total War (Beta) or Napoleon.
Their original press relese stated coop support but it seams they were either lieing or dropped the plans as there seems to be no mention of it anymore.
No vision sharing, no cooperative unit interactions (like soldiers on boats), no coop battles (reinforcments is an ugly system for coop and too hard to use properly). Leaving you with compeative (why would I want that in a coop game?) or auto resolve 95% of battles - yeah "total war" - riiiiiight....
No, Im not bitter.
Not at ALL.
Anyway, back to the thread about Elemental.
Obviously, downtime has to be minimized, because downtime is no fun, and sitting around waiting for others is not why we play games. In a game as big as elemental, I imagine turns can start to get pretty long. Worse, if someone is losing they can just maximize the downtime until the other side quits in disgust.
To minimize downtime, I'm thinking the game should be designed around simultaneous turns, particularly if it is there be more than two people playing. As long as both players are using their turn, each can take as long as they want. In the beginning turns will tend to be short (I am guessing), and as the game progresses turns will get longer, so simultaneous turns would self-correct for that.
When one is done, they hit the "end turn" button. So then, the question is how to get the other player to hurry up and finish. I'd say give the second player one minute after the first player to finish up, else suffer a penalty, like losing gold, and after two minutes the turn automatically advances.
If both or all sides are in communication, turn length can be handled in a gentlemanly way, like saying in chat: "I'm done, how much more time do you need?" before hitting the end-turn button.
Or something like that
This does get relatively complicated compared to the 'twitch' option, raising questions such as -- when someone arrives late to the initial battle, is there automatically another battle (assuming there's someone left to fight at the battle site) or does the late arriver get the option to demur?
(about "serially give orders, then simultaneously resolve them")
Not a problem--or rather, just a transformation of the problem. That problem ("which happens first?") still exists in traditional "simultaneous turn" multiplayer; the difference is the answer is decided by rapid button mashing. The advantage to a "give orders, then simultaneously resolve them" mechanic is that now there can be predictable, deterministic rules to resolve those conflicts and they can be resolved consistently by the game engine--to me a huge advantage!
Another person had the valid criticism that it "distances" you from your units because you don't have the "map exploration" feel, but I don't think that's a problem; you could still reveal the map from the last turn as you move the target location (representing advance scouts or some such).
I'm still in favor of that mechanic. I think as many conflicts as possible should be resolved by the game engine rather than the order players move, so having the game resolve "simultaneous moves" is much better than just letting players flail.
I think you could even do tactical combat this way, perhaps with the earlier-mentioned "all units have standing orders, but you can only change X number of these per round" to keep the combat moving forward quickly. Sure, in a really combat-heavy game this would bog down a bit, but it would be a shame to completely exclude tactical combat from multiplayer.
I likle the "move as you order" mechanic better, cause then your first moves can determine the moves of the rest of your army. Additionally, people with fewer units/armies are not hindered by having to wait on people with multiple armies moving about ... because they will have already finished moving, and will be doing other things, like tactical battles, or managing an empire.
Imagine someone is carefully inspecting 7 cities and 20 settlements, while someone with 3 large cities and 5 settlements is just trying to fight a war. The "smaller" (but perhaps more populous) nation is able to move and then start their tactical battles vs AI while the other player is still moving units, and inspecting their cities.
Do it this way:
multiplayer games simultaneous email ala Dominions 3
you do your turn and send it to the 'server' (whomever created the game) once all the palyer files are in, OR the time limit is reached for next turn, the turn is resovled by the 'server pc'.
Those who did not send in a turn either have nothing happen, react to attacks or go along pre-determind moves and build orders). ETC. Check out Dominion 3 the awakening for more. The tactical battle mode is good for turn-based battle between human players as well: LINK
OR as a 2nd option:
Email game: ala Age of wonders
1 player creates game with races/empires and the associated email address of player. starts game and sends to 1st player. ETC.
I hope either of the above are in (OR BOTH!). I prefer this type of multiplayer gaming rather than RTS online as my schedule is quite hectic and play at very odd hours. At the best of times.
Okay!
Well, here's mine.
Simultaneous turns in the style of Diplomacy (the board game).
In Diplomacy, each turn is divided into two phases. During the first phase, players can discuss and negotiate with each other, and everybody secretly writes down what movements they're going to make. During the second phase, every player reveals what they've written down, and the movement actually gets resolved. It's even easier to do with a computer game.
In pretty much any turn-based strategy game that I've played, I can queue up commands for my cities are units. During my turn, I can immediately move a unit to any space within its range, but if I want to move it beyond that range it will stop until the next turn. If there's a movement queued up, it will move when I click the 'end turn' button.
So why can't all commands work that way? Just do away with the bit where each unit moves instantly after the command is issued, and make the 'action over multiple turns' behavior into the default. The player issues orders, which are not carried out until the end of turn.
This would have a couple of good effects:
The one problem I can see would be if I tell my unit to attack an enemy unit, and the enemy unit is told to move, where do the two units end up? Probably the attacking unit intercepts the moving unit halfway, though of course depending on exact positions.
In other words, +1 to what they said.
The timed turns might make sense for tactical battles, though, since you want to hurry those along and get them resolved, and in the middle of a fight you don't necessarily have the ability to stop and leisurely consider every option.
Ok, here are the couple of ideas that I have thought up.
Be able to take MULTIPLE turns before the other player.
Ok, so when you hit "end turn", the button doesn't just go away and leave you waiting. It gets prices added to it. So, for a cost, you can take another turn before the other player. Depending on how many turns apart you are the price changes (by quite a lot, we wouldnt want someone being in the modern age while the other players are still in the stone).
Scenarios this could allow.
- Chasing the enemy army. They just keep running and you can't catch them. So, take your turn really quickly, and then, for a cost, take another turn so that your army can catch theirs.
- The enemy army is at your gates. You need just two more turns to get "volcano". You quickly take your turn, then another, and then another. Oh, you probably sold your mithril mine in order to have enough money for the 3rd turn, but you got it. Volcano to the face!
Have a way (spy, spell, political domination, something) that lowers the amount of time the other player has.
This would probably work best in the "Time Bank" Mode, but I think that not only being able to lengthen your turn time but being able to shorten others time would be really cool.
"Time Bank" mode is a very cool, original idea.
Time Bank mode sounds so awesome to me. I think that it could succeed in keeping the game fast paced, and making all of your decisions count. You have to think and do what is really important, because you might not have time to do everything you want to do. To me, it adds another level of thinking to the game. Very cool idea Frogboy, keep it up.
Anyways, these are just the thoughts that I have had. Hope that they can be useful.
^ What Seaneng said!
Futhermore you could have the option to set a limit to the time spent in the first phase.
In the second phase units would all move at the same time, and if they got to close they would interrupt eachother and enter combat. You might have to make the aggro zone large so people don't passby eachother. You should be able to see ally movement plans.
To further reduce wasted time combat would only start after all units completed their movements. Then all battles would resolve at the same time. Players who aren't in a fight or are done can scroll around the map, tinker with their cities, plan, and chat.
Well, if we are doing "Simultaneous Orders" as well (or even if not) we should probably have a "Zone of Control" for armies. If two armies' Zones of Control intersect, some type of interaction commences. (if Neutral or Friendly, diplomacy ensues) (If Hostile, Combat ensues ... after you select wether to Auto-resolve, Tactical-map-fight, or Retreat)
if both armies that are hostile select Retreat, then they both move back towards the nearest friendly city for remnant of movement points. If one army selects retreat, the army with most movement points remaining gets to decide, or its a tad RNG, weighted towards the decision of the faster army.
That might be a good idea for any version of Simul Turns, come to think of it.
Just like another poster said above, one of the major goals of making mutiplayer TBS game is to minimize the downtime, the wait for other players to finish their turns.
With some minor issues as evident in AOW2SM, simultaneous turns with Tactical Combat OFF achieve this goal. The cruz however is how to put have TC ON AND minimize downtime.
I am proposing a a 3 phases systemthat should achieve these 2 goals. It is basically a 3phased simu turn system.
Phase 1: Issue order to units simultaneously amongst all players. The movement orders will be represented as an arrow.
Waypoints are used to fine tune complicated marching order. The waypoints must allow me to order my units for multiple turns.
The movement order can also include attacking a specific (moving) enemy unit within LOS/city and or any static location.
This Phase 1 is completed when all players hit the END turn button (or via a timer)
Phase 2: the AI execute the marching order by moving each unit step by steps. No player involvement here, the game displays the marching.
During this phase, your unit may discover enemy units coming into its Line of Sight (LOS). This unit halts marching immediately. Player will be given the an opportunity to choose whether it attacks or evades in this Phase 2.
The enemy being seen (usually having a lower "Sight" statistic, at low elevation) does not receive an opportunity to react. Only the one that has better LOS will be given such opportunity.
Phase 3: Queuing of Tactical Combat
Inevitably, there will be encounters that requires TC. The game will sort the TC queue by placing the biggest battle at the top of the list. Players will fight the TCs starting from the top of the list, simultaneously. After the first is done, the 2nd battle follows.
And there can be a threshold that after X number of TCs are fought, the remaining ones are auto-resolved.
(Optional) Tactical Battle Threshold (described in OP) can be used.
(Optional) During this Phase 3 when TCs are playing out, players can start NEXT TURN's phase 1 as long as the units are not involved in the TC Queue.
Hopefully this 3 phased simultaneous turn will resolve the main problem involved.
Well, the Order of TC's is nice, but I think if Battle A is between players X and Y, and Battle C is between Players Q and Z, then the X-Y battle and the Q-Z battle should be able to be fought simultaneously .... and all other players can choose to watch either X-Y or Q-Z.
I definitely think multiple TCs should be able to be fought simultaneously (if no overlap in player involvement)
Well, the Order of TC's is nice, but I think if Battle A is between players X and Y, and Battle C is between Players Q and Z, then the X-Y battle and the Q-Z battle should be able to be fought simultaneously .... and all other players can choose to watch either X-Y or Q-Z
Of course, this is what I meant in my Queue post. Let the game handle it, simultaneously
Disclamier
I have not played the beta, and I have never played most of the older games mentioned here, I have however played some TBS games like HOMM 3 and some of the Civ games, on PC. What I am about to say might make no sense when it comes to this game. I am however planning on buy this game when I have enough funds so I decided to put an idea out there. Hope I don't get looked at like an idiot.
I was wondering if maybe there could be an option to play mp with a TBS system like some of the Final Fantasy games. Each unit has a speed attribute that determines how quickly there next turn comes, and if a unit does not move the maximum distance possible there next turns comes sooner. This way it’s not like one person taking their whole turn at once while I wait. Instead we are moving small parts of our army one at a time. Maybe if a unit's speed attribute is fast enough they can perform two actions in one turn. Well tell me what you think.
Whichever system(s) you choose to use, sequential or simultaneous or whatever, there are some things the game really needs to smooth the MP process out (I realize most of this has been mentioned already, just emphasizing my support for these options):
As far as sequential vs. simultaneous, I really want to see the simultaneous turn option where movements are not carried out realtime (first to click gets there first), but where everyone queues their unit orders, and once everyone has finished queueing orders and hits 'end turn', movement gets resolved all at once while everyone watches. I don't know what the technical term for this is, but I've seen it work well - it does require a few additional options, though:
In fact (apologize for the tangent) I'd really like to see zone of control in general, not just for MP/simultaneous turn purposes. It's even more important for sequential turns where you can easily navigate around an enemy army; by giving them a certain zone around them where if you enter it you're forced to attack them or retreat, you make it possible to actually defend chokepoints. This gives you more options than games where the actual tile the army is standing on is the only thing it can protect, leading to Civ4-style stacking all your armies inside cities. It just makes sense, ZoC eliminates the whole "what the hell, they walked right past my army and it couldn't stop them," which is problematic for both sequential turns and simultaneous.
*Side note: Tactical battles give us a great deal of freedom here; unlike Civ4 and other traditional TBSs, it doesn't matter who the attacker and who the defender is, or which tile exactly the battle takes place on. All that matters is that a battle takes place, the rest can be decided during the actual tactical battle. Say my army is on a hill, your army on a plain next to it, and we get close enough that one of us chooses to start a battle. Assuming there is some defensive bonus to defending from a hill, when we get to the tactical battle have my army sitting on a hill, while your half of the map is a plain, and during the tactical battle we each can choose whether to attack or defend and determine by our unit movements where exactly the fighting takes place - none of this needs to have anything to do with our movements on the strategic map.
On further reflection, with player numbers greater than 16, the default mode should be simultaneous;
Thirty two players taking 30 second turns each (wildly optimistic by mid game) would result in 16 minute waits between each turn, allowing roughly four turns every hour.
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