How about a mini card game that allows people to bet in game gold?

I like this idea. It could be used for other purposes too. Say there is a hard limit of 5 minutes for tactical battles. If there is no clear winner and both sides still have X% of their team left, then the battle continues on into the next player's turn, and so on until it comes back to one of those players in the battle. This "time limited/multi-turn tactical battle" could also be an option for single player as well.

He was referring to the idea of a mini game while waiting for someone elses turn.

Though personally I don't think thats necessary. Simultaneous turns drastically reduce the amount of time you spend waiting, and the liesurly pace of a TBS is one of the appeals of playing it anyway. You don't need to have a constant barrage of something going on.

This, and the "Zone of Control" idea could work well if it were possible to provide "Action Orders" to any army group based on either thier Movement or Sight Range modifiers.

Example would be as such.

I request army group A to move 50% of total alotted squares next turn, then right click the group and select an "action order" from a list of 4(?) items (just some quick ideas really)

- Scout ((Maintain Max. visual range on any target and move accordingly, forwards or back (using remaining moves as required)) to avoid possible enemy detection. 

- Hold ((retreat (use remaining 50% move) if attacked))

- Defend Area (fight with Defensive Stance until next turn)

- Attack (Advance (the 50% remaining moves) to engage the enemy)

- Retreat (immediately. ((A small force you don't want overwhelmed)) Scouting has revealed a large enemy force in the immdeiate area)

I like the idea of silmultaneity, but I also love tactical combat.  In order to keep the game from bogging down, and to avoid giving people a tactical advantage based upon when they click done, the turns must actually be resolved in a simultaneous fashion, with ties potentially broken by the order in which moves were made for the turn coupled with the order in which people were done (although you may want to let the person review their action ordering).  Thus, having player A move onto a unit stack of player B's while B decides to move the stack could lead to combat or not.  This could be resolved using the tie breaker above, or it could always lead to combat (but then player B should get to change their move / apply additional spells to the stack if they win).  Frankly, if a unit stack is visible to me, and I want to attack it, it would be quite irksome to be unable to change my move to pursue.  So, without fog of war keeping a move hidden, it would be necessary to allow one to specify intent ("get that unit stack!", "take that hill"), or resolve movement of close / visible units one square at a time (with the moves showing up as they are made).

Within the tactical combat itself, I prefer per unit initiative instead of per-side turns.  Note that the wizard (sovereign) would also have to be assigned a time slot in which to cast a spell / spells.  Particularly fast units might actually get to act twice before particularly slow units.  This is akin to the way turns are resolved in Final Fantasy Tactics (which had the added twist that certain actions took time to process, so one had the decision time slot and then a later time slot for the result).  This mechanism is also a fair way to resolve tactical combat in the case where two unit stacks move to the same space during a simultaneous turn (unbeknownst to the players ahead of time).  Alternatively, I suppose one could give the first turn to whoever moved there first according to the previously mentioned tie-breaking.

Longer contemplation leads me to an alternative design: let people move each unit its once per turn (and take time to cast spells, manage cities, etc.) and let the movements and spells resolve as they play out.  Tactical combat can be held until end of turn, resolved in the order in which they occurred (although I suppose a player might choose to resolve more than one at a time if they are up for it).  It might be more fun if other wizards can meddle in a combat - heck, there might even be more than two factions involved in a combat!  In those cases, the tactical combats may be enjoyable enough for all involved that they don't get frustrated.

Turn limits are probably necessary (although care should be taken not to favor people who don't have any complicated fronts over those that are interacting heavily with other players).  In tactical combat, I don't think time banks or gold costs are necessarily a good thing - if play is done on a unit by unit basis, then a unit can just forfeit it's time slot and perhaps get its next time slot a little earlier. 

Forgive me the brain dump.

BTW, TinyMCE rocks.  

Sorry, I had started that post last night and got interrupted, so I actually started it before all of these great ideas from other posters.

I think the idea of larger scoped battles that span multiple turns (perhaps even adjacent squares) is a very good one.  Allowing the tactical battle to continue into the next turn lets epic battles take the time they should and allows for a more realistic battle in terms of reinforcements, being resupplied with mana, etc.

I believe that MoM has a 100 turn limit within a tactical battle until "your armies retire from the field, exhausted" - essentially a stalemate in case neither side was willing / able to attack or someone kept running a fast, regenerating unit around the board like a sissy in order to defend against unusually strong rampaging monsters .  It might be nice to have an option to mutually withdraw instead of just forcing one side or the other to retreat; the effect would be much the same as a retreat without any penalties or parting shots.

Simultaneous + Time Bank would be good.  I don't think "hotseat TBS" is as viable today as it was 10 years ago, simply because a far greater percentage of people are likely to be online or LANed than playing multiplayer on the same PC, which was really what hotseat was for.  Simultaneous play removes a lot of deadtime from the game. 

I'd like to include thses options:

-close and engage with enemies (enemies = declared war) -- move directly towards the foe to intercept.

-stop and dig in when see enemies (with an option to select the most defensible terrain instead of just stopping where you are when the enemy is first observed).  Option to hide if stealthy.

-avoid contact with enemies (reverse movement path, or if not possible then move directly away from enemy).

Part of this depends on how many hexes a unit can move in a turn.  Currently a Sov doesn't move very far.  As the number of hexes/turn increase, the need for these options increases with simultaneous moves.

I wouldn't mind this as an option but I wouldn't want it in my games.  The main reason?  I shouldn't know the composition of your army that I have never seen because you just fought a battle.  Seeing a battle because of a spell or a spy in the army would be a nice touch though.

What if we went for a little realism. Phased turns or being able to do everything but move and progress when it isnt your "turn." Make units, set research goals, engage, observe battles you can see. The new idea I have is that the ones you cant see would generate a message that pops up telling you of a great battle that has recently taken place. You would actually hear of battles in the old days by messengers that sent out news or traders and travelers looking for a quick coin. So that way even if you hadn't even met a rival kingdom, you hear of their battles and have something to do during their turns.

If say, I was at war with my neighbors and a message came to all of us saying our distant neighbor was getting crushed every turn by some unknown force, we could end our petty rivalries and band together against one kingdom that has been perfecting its economic model throughout the beta and is now nearly unstoppable, I'm talking to you Tasunke.

Wouldn't that be just epic.

Streamlining multiplayer and turn interaction.

Those of us who have experience in TBS multiplayers know how tedious it is to sit waiting for the opponent to finish their turn. Streamlinig is an exponential problem, as players resources grow their management grows and thus the length of 'off turns' grow.  I personally regard it as one of the most important aspects of creating an enjoyable multiplayer experience.  MP components can fly or die by this issue alone.

Previous TBS titles have run the gamut from being able to do nothing in your 'off turn' to fully fledged mini games that influence resources and heroes in the main game.

I can think of four main components that have defined multiplayer streamlining in previous titles of this genre:

Simultaneous Turns.

I've encountered two types of ST formats personally.

The full format, like in Age of Wonders 2/SM which allows everybody to take turns and move troops at the same time and the partial format, like in HOMM V which allows everybody to move at the same time until such time that a conflict becomes possible (conflict resolution), then resorts to classic mode (and never back)

The advantage of full is that games will move even faster, the disadvantage is that troop movements are based on a 'first come first served basis'.  That is to say, in the AoW series, only one troop can actually move at a time and thus the first person to click moves first and this introduces issues of latency /reaction time etc.

I would personally love to see a compromise of these two systems developed some day, which allows free movement but resorts in and out of classic dynamically based on conflict resolution.

Kingdom Management.

Being able to browse your kingdom and review statistics, and to possibly change selected [on next turn, like training/research] options does a lot to alleviate the tedium of waiting on an opponents go.  You can review your kingdom and ponder future strategies.  Some games, like HOMM V did not even let you look at or browse your kingdom whilst in off turn.  This is the sort of the thing we really want to avoid.

Mini Games.

Already a subject of controversy but like it or not mini games do address the problem of streamlining and some people want to use them.  It is generally agreed that if such an option is included it should come with an on/off switch rather than be integral to the MP.  If these mini games effect the game in someway it is genuinely agreed that this should be in only a small way and this element of 'in-game' reward should also come with an on/off switch.  If mini games are themed in the same way as the game they can preserve immersion and add a fluency to the flow of turns in MP.

Seeing each others battles.

There are games where every single battle is displayed for all players to see.  The advantage of this is that it gives players in 'off-turn' something to watch.  The obvious disadvantage is it gives each player the ability to size up information about their opponents armies, what they're fighting and their success rates etc (although all players are affected by the disadvantage/advantage).

I've seen variations of this in games.  Some show all battles, some show only allies battles, some allow you to right click and watch the units HP go down and up but not actually watch the battle (I'm looking at you Disciples 2).

It seems the most balanced option would be three options - Show All Battles, Show Allys and Own battles only, Show Own Battles only.  This allows players to streamline the game to their own tastes.

Of course there are numerous smaller issues that can effect a game.  Like setting to decide the density of resources or the power multipliers of spells, the abundance of towns etc etc etc but I think these are the four cornerstones of the streamlining problem.  All things considered the over arcing ethos is options, options, options.  The more the better.

This ... made me smile. Kragroth?

Anyways, I don't think their should be a "hard" limit on Tac Battles, but after the first one or two, any additional tac battles need large armies on both sides, or else you have to autoresolve. (large decided more by a culmination of battle rank than by numbers)