Don't think Multiplayer. Think Online Worlds.

[Bisonbison]

Regarding the big announcement tomorrow: I'm guessing it'll not only touch on multi-player, but perhaps offer a radically expanded multiplayer version of the game.

Which I think would be neat-o.

I just wanted to get my half-assed speculation in now, so that when I'm right I'll look brilliant.

[dainbramaged13]

big announcement?

[sekong]

I second bison's idea.
If you don't get it, I think maybe you don't know mud, or UO,or an online multiplayer game called artifact, or a lot of others.
The idea is having a huge map, and many (could be 100+) players in it. It means 100+ small countries.
I don't know if it's what Bison mean on-line world, but I guess so.
And I also hope that's big idea that firaxis trying to work on
If they don't do it, I'm dreamming it at least.

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
big announcement?

Yes Dainbramaged, MarkG has posted that there will be a chat session tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST. In Markos' own words: Be there.

But getting back to the subject, I think it has to do with Apolyton receiving an advanced copy of Civ3.

But I like your beliefs too Bisonbison and Sekong - That would be really cool to find out more info concerning the future of MP in Civ3!

[Blake]

Online worlds is a pretty cool idea. Just supposing for a moment that it happens, how should it be implmented? Prehaps a really big map of the world with about 50 civs, which are controlled by Humans, or AI's (upon joining a human could choose any AI civ, except for recentely vacated ones, which could only be claimed by there most recent human leader, atleast for a number of hours)
The tech rate would have to be slow, and the turns would have to be simulatenous and timed. Once a game is 'won' it would be restarted in the stoneage.

It would be a massive undertaking to make and perfect.

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by Wittlich

But getting back to the subject, I think it has to do with Apolyton receiving an advanced copy of Civ3.

Oooooh! I will be very curious to see if that's it!!!!!! Lucky shlumps.

[sekong]

For people want to know how to implement a online world of civ type, I suggest them try artifact. It's a free game, although you can pay and get more fun to enjoy it.
It's a combination of turn-based and RTS. The time is mid-age.
The aim is to find and keeping 7 artifacts ( kind of borrow from AOE). The samugame provide game servers. Player download the client side for free. There are 10+ world(games) openning at same time. Generally one game take 2-3 days. Each player have 4+ hours a day to DIRECT your country. The game will re-start after the winner is decided. I don't want to go too much ad about it. If you want, you can find more info from:
http://www.samugames.com/

The down part is that you can't do research. Almost everything (units, buildings) are available at the beginning. Therefore it lacks the depth of strategy, and the fun as CIV. I'm dreamming something combine the civ's depth into this on-line world model. If Firaxis won't do it, I hope somebody will do it, or it's being worked on already.

[sekong]

Originally posted by Blake
Online worlds is a pretty cool idea. Just supposing for a moment that it happens, how should it be implmented? Prehaps a really big map of the world with about 50 civs, which are controlled by Humans, or AI's (upon joining a human could choose any AI civ,

As I borrow the idea from artifact:
There is just one big map. When I new player join the game, he find his settler and other initial unit at a undiscover land. Then you build yr city, etc.

except for recentely vacated ones, which could only be claimed by there most recent human leader, at least for a number of hours)
The tech rate would have to be slow, and the turns would have to be simulatenous and timed.

The producing and research, taxing are turn based. say each 2 minite, or 10 minite, which could be a factor of the game. But the combat and exploration are real timed. And you can give units orders like goto, patrol(?). Then they will do it by their own. Most computation are done by the game server.

Once a game is 'won' it would be restarted in the stoneage.
It would be a massive undertaking to make and perfect.

As I said previously, restart is not a problem.

[DanS]

Hmmm... Online worlds sounds expensive. Like $10/month, the same as Ultima Online.

[connorkimbro]

Yes Dainbramaged, MarkG has posted that there will be a chat session tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST. In Markos' own words: Be there.

But getting back to the subject, I think it has to do with Apolyton receiving an advanced copy of Civ3.

Umm, don't get your hopes up. I'm "hosting" that chat tomorrow, and to my knowledge, there isn't anything like that. PERHAPS there is something that MarkG has or knows, but, not to my knowledge.

[Oligarf]

I think that simulatenous turns are the best. I don't think everyone playing on such a huge world could be online all at once. There could be different worlds depending on how frequent turns are executed.

I personally quite like the idea.

[MarkG]

there is no big announcement

we're just having a chat

[LoD]

We'll, having 50 some opponents in the game might be interesting and fun, but let's think about it - can the Online World concept be implemented effectively in civ-type games? Simply consider the fact that players don't spend their entire life seating at the computer (well, there are exceptions, but count those as clinial cases ), so eventually a player will have to log off from the game. Let's analize the possible solutions to the problem:

• '50 player PBEM' - . Nuff' said.
• stopping the game - would never do, obviously
• complex subbing system - not viable, since it would require an immense synchronization effort.
• generating the turns as if the player had skipped the turn with no orders - the player would probably find his empire partitioned after he rejoins the game.
• temporory appointing the AI as the leader of the civ - as above.
• temporary dissapearance of a civ from the game - would cause great confusion and rule complication. Possible abuse.
• temporary invincibility of all civ's units, structure's etc. - at first, sounds like good idea, but will provide much confusion. Also could be easily abused.

I may had missed out a cure for the problem, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that civ games are too complex and have a too fragile balance of power (for 50+ players) to be Online World games. 16 civs are quite enough for an MP game.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by LoD
I may had missed out a cure for the problem, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that civ games are too complex and have a too fragile balance of power (for 50+ players) to be Online World games. 16 civs are quite enough for an MP game.

Well, IMO, just let the AI governor take control of a missing human player. If the AI does something you disapprove of, just think of your return to the game as a return to the throne after a ruler has died or been deposed.

It's a disadvantage, especially if other human players don't have to miss turns, but my feeling is: if you don't like the possibilty of AI governors fouling up your kingdom, or if you can't be present for each session, don't play. Multiplayer requires sacrifices in general - quit *****ing and suck it up.

[sekong]

Obviously, you did not have a look of samugames.com, the host of artifact yet. There IS a cure for all your list of "problems".

Originally posted by LoD
We'll, having 50 some opponents in the game might be interesting and fun, but let's think about it - can the Online World concept be implemented effectively in civ-type games? Simply consider the fact that players don't spend their entire life seating at the computer (well, there are exceptions, but count those as clinial cases ), so eventually a player will have to log off from the game. Let's analize the possible solutions to the problem:

• '50 player PBEM' - . Nuff' said.
• stopping the game - would never do, obviously
• complex subbing system - not viable, since it would require an immense synchronization effort.
• generating the turns as if the player had skipped the turn with no orders - the player would probably find his empire partitioned after he rejoins the game.
• temporory appointing the AI as the leader of the civ - as above.
• temporary dissapearance of a civ from the game - would cause great confusion and rule complication. Possible abuse.
• temporary invincibility of all civ's units, structure's etc. - at first, sounds like good idea, but will provide much confusion. Also could be easily abused.

I may had missed out a cure for the problem, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that civ games are too complex and have a too fragile balance of power (for 50+ players) to be Online World games. 16 civs are quite enough for an MP game.

[sekong]

Originally posted by DanS
Hmmm... Online worlds sounds expensive. Like $10/month, the same as Ultima Online.

AS the case of Artifact, you can play free as nominad, or $25 one time for basic member.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Wittlich


Yes Dainbramaged, MarkG has posted that there will be a chat session tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST. In Markos' own words: Be there.

But getting back to the subject, I think it has to do with Apolyton receiving an advanced copy of Civ3.

But I like your beliefs too Bisonbison and Sekong - That would be really cool to find out more info concerning the future of MP in Civ3!

This sounds great!

[TheBirdMan]

I have just tried Artifact as Sekong writes about.

Sekong is right about depth of the game - someting like Age Of Empires but with the gamelenght of a CIV-game. I don't expect to become an addict of that game - but the hours passed rather quickly yesteday, when I "ruined" my first civilization. Total failure.

This morning I just "joined" a second game, that had started about 30 hours earlier - no problem. I think I was the 60'th player in that game. As you can guess, not all players are online at the same time.

And as Sekong writes. You can play for free - but only in 2 games at a time and only a few hours a day per game. Or you can pay and have access to many more games a many more hours.

When you have used your time for that day, you are still able to watch your game, but you cannot command it - an AI is taking over - or you can have allies to watch your civ, when you are away for other duties/work/school etc.

Most important is, that the concept works!

It could be fun if this could be carried over to either a CIV or a CTP clon (CIV IV or CTP III - or whatever the next title/version will be).

[LoD]

ajbera: I have explored that possibility (AI) in my previous post. And I have played quite a lot of MP games, so I know how much it requires commitment.

sekong: Could you please explain to me how they did it, as I can't find a FAQ anywhere? BTW, isn't Artifact RTS?

LoD

[Jason Beaudoin]

Regarding the big announcement tomorrow: I'm guessing it'll not only touch on multi-player, but perhaps offer a radically expanded multiplayer version of the game.

This is an angle I never thought about. Well done!

If Firaxis does create something totally revolutionary for MP in TBS games, it would make a lot of sense not to include it in this upcoming release, and I think I'd be able to forgive them (maybe ) for not telling us about it sooner.

If it was something revolutionary and new, it would make sense that they didn't tell us anything about it early. They wouldn't want any potential competitors to jump on it.

[sekong]

1st, my thanks to Thebirdman for trying out and confirming what I said. You are right, it could be addictive as well.

For LoD: here is a link of helps:
http://www.samugames.com/artifact/help/
a basic summary:
http://www.samugames.com/artifact/

Yes, it's RTS. But later I found there are turns as wells. But turns here does not mean players take turns to make their order, units take turns to attack, etc, which I think is downside for a on-line game. Instead, turns here means some important production, improvements get updated for every 5/10 minutes a turn.

How do they make it? It's a more difficult question to answer, but easier to experience.
Short answer:
1) massive orders
2) Good pathfinding algorithm
3) simplified science discovery/ tech improvement
4) fairplaying
5) alliance/clan system.

Long answers:
Although sid said he get the inspiration of civ from simcity. But actually, artifact is closer to simcity than civ does. Like in simcity (or similar games like Caeser III), you lay out the city constructures(?), give massive orders to outline the cities, and units. Then city will begin to grow and improve. The units will walk the distance to explore the world, find the enemy or important targets. When they doing these, you don't have to be online all the time. Important events will be registered on a log report. You just come back in time to check the results and make new orders. Or at some point, directly command the critical battles.

When we look at civ playing, we spend a lot of time to finger ordering units. Which should not very nessary if there is a good pathfinding algorithm

Another big part of civ is anxiously waiting for the shields/food to fill the que. In artifact, you can just give out the order and then come back when it's done. I think in civ3, with the city production order list, we can do similar things. (massive orders)

The 3 rd big part of civ-playing is climbing the science-tree. Artifact simply omit it. That's the part as a civer I don't like about. And need to be improved. And there are solutions obviously, if you know about SMAC.

A lot of civver, espacially deity players have the habit of micromanagement. If civ implement as an on-line-world game, I don't think you can do that, and you don't have to. Because every one are all the same: fairplaying.

In Artifact, If you have alliance with other players, they can watch out for you when you are not on-line. Actually, their most important role is to make sure when someone attacking you, there is a human player helping you with defending the civ. This is how they make it in artifact. I don't know if an on-line-world civ should do that. But obviously a good thing to consider...

Sorry for my English, I hope it could be understood.

[sekong]

http://www.csonline.cc/readPosting.asp?PostingId=538977

It ends with :
"If you are a big fan of the Civilization and RTS games then you should really like this game. You have empire building, city management, and conquering in one game and it can be extremely challenging sometimes because other human players surround you. The replay ability is great and there are always things to try and do. "

Yes, I did like it

[Akillias]

lol i cant imagine 879 players waiting in line to play

[sekong]

Yes, because it's not what happened.

Originally posted by Akillias
lol i cant imagine 879 players waiting in line to play

[Sarxis]

Hmm, the speculations and discussion here is all very interesting. Since I want to keep an open mind, and also since Firaxis has yet to tell us anything about CivIII MP, I will just watch and wait.

Another completely free online world type game is Planetarion. Well, at least it was free when I played it. www.planetarion.com

[dainbramaged13]

i did not like the game, and it would definetly not work with civ. THe system is that all the units and buildings follow your last orders until they are done, or until u get back. This would not work in civ3, sincs u usually give orders per turn, or, once every two turns. It woudln't work.