12-01-2004 05:54									#1
	Timer Use in Simulplay Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Ok, got a question. I was thinking about how simultaneous play WITH a turn timer might force changes in my tactical style last night and that's when it occured to me that you could just abuse the turn timer to effectively give units multiple moves without giving your opponent an entirely equal chance to react.

There's also a problem with the use of bombardment units on offense because, at least to my knowledge (not having played MP all that much and my experience being primarily PBEM), while there is a stack MOVEMENT quick option, there is no stack bombardment quick option. There is auto-bombardment, but that's not the same thing. If getting your military move off before your opponent has a chance to move his units is critical, firing artillery units one-by-one has to be EXCRUCIATINGLY slow. This has to be many times worse if you're playing with a tight turn timer and that cuts short how many things you can even afford to do in a single turn.

Now the turnless mode (if it worked properly) would fix the problem of abusing the turn timer to give a stack effectively 2 moves before an enemy got one since moved units are "timed out" for a period after moving, but it still wouldn't fix the problem of bombardment units being significantly less valuable for taking more time to use than stack of units you can just attack en masse with a stack move command.

Thinking about this, I can't help but come to the conclusion that the entire nature of tactical play under simulplay with a timer resembles more a badly implemented version of a game like Rise of Nations than like Civilization III. I mean, if you're going for that playstyle, why not play RoN, which was specifically designed and balanced for it and which is just a straight out awesome game, too?

There are two workable middle grounds I can see. If you play simulplay with NO timer you run the risk of playing with an opponent or opponents who take forever on their turns and drag out the game even more than you fear the game would be dragged out under turn-based. It would largely prevent people from abusing the turn-timer, however, as once you've made your moves, your opponents' units that have not moved still have a chance to react since the timer won't immediately run out on them and cheat them of their move. Artillery would be more fairly useful because you'd have enough time to use them while not worrying that the extra time would leave you with no time to do anything else during the turn (or far less). The problem is that artillery's need to be fired one at a time (not to mention any other tactic which involves individually acccessing units) would be very difficult to perform without being interupted by your opponent using stack movement orders that are easier to perform.

The other middle ground would seem to be timed turn-based games, which I've done and seem to be workable. Sure, they take longer than simulplay games because each player is taking turns, but there are ways to speed them up and establishing a timer on the turns will keep it moving. First, the basic gameplay of Civilization III goes completely unharmed since players are still performing actions in turns, assuring that one unit receives one fair move for one turn and that all units can perform actions relatively equally w/o being pre-empted in the middle of those moves if the game developer didn't code a quickkey for them.

The way to keep a turn-based game moving quickly seems exceptionally simple: First, you use the turn-timer which can be used without risk of it being grossly abused because players are doing all UNIT actions in turns. Second, players can manage their cities, look at demographics, and all such actions while their opponent is moving units so that they can save all of their precious turn timer for moving their units. This works in much the same manner in similar turn-based multiplayer games I've played like SMAC/SMAX and Civ2MP.

I'll admit that since most of my MP (as opposed to PBEM) experience is on LANs, I benefit from the ability to directly coerce the guy taking too long on his turns to move faster by yelling at him in the next room. That said, as long as all players are managing their cities/bases on other players' turns, the pace of the game picks up considerably. As for LAN play, some of my favorite fast-paced LAN games have been games of SMAC and Civ2MP when my brother and I came home for the holidays in college and had some friends over to play on our parents' home LAN. Only problem was letting my father play, who likes civ, but is slow as molassas with his turns.

	12-01-2004 06:07									#2
	Full PM-box? Change here!

What you view as an "Abuse" of the timer is simply an accepted strategy in MP, one with tricks to it, but also counters (sentinel nets) and one that increases the wartime value of horsemen as a hit-and-run unit (something civ displays very poorly), making the horse almost (if not more in some cases) valuable than swords.

It's merely a different facet - the "double move" can be done by both parties, and if you're ready for it (sentinels seeing the potential threat, etc) it can be thwarted pretty easily... particularly now that we have those nifty barricades.

	14-01-2004 22:02									#3
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Well, I get to be your opponent in the next round of the Poly tourney so we need to come to some sort of compromise. I'll give the turn-based game a shot if we can use a timer. I just can't bear for the game to draaaaaaaaaaag on and on. That being said, I don't want to win the game just because I'm more familiar with the different strategies associated with simultaneous play.

You're right, the "double-move" is indeed a commonly accepted tactic in standard simultaneous play. But, as Fried pointed out, for every offense there is a defense. It's not abusive or wrong, just different. I suggest you give it a try sometime, although I don't think it's fair for you to have to "try" it in a tourney, especially against a seasoned MP vet like myself.

Also, you're right on about bombardment units. They aren't used much in MP (unfortunately) because bombarding one-by-one is too painfully slow. This is one thing I wish they would fix, as bombardment units are a good and effective part of the game. Give us stack bombard!

Again, as I've pointed out before, I sure wish the play style would have been specified up front so that everyone knew what to expect. I guess I didn't think to even ask the question as everyone I know (literally hundreds of players on the Ladder) plays simultaneous moves with a timer.


Mo D

	15-01-2004 06:28									#4
	Got spare money?

I think a timer would be a completely acceptable thing to have in MP games. Afterall, the timer forces you to make decisions quickly, manage your time and attention, and keeps the game moving... precisely what the stupid "imperial focus points" were supposed to do for MoO3. The only problem with the timer is with things like bombard units, but I think we can cope with that, especially if we manage the rest of our time well.

The only issue I think I have is playing BOTH timer AND simulplay. I can see playing simulplay without a timer (it's different, but at least less open to things like the double-move problem) and playing turn-based with a timer (to encourage people to economize their time and attention, keep the game moving), but playing simulplay with a timer just seems insane to me.

If you're fine with playing turn-based with a timer, I'd be more than happy to do that. If we manage our cities primarily during the OTHER player's turn (aside from changes reacting to things that take place once you start your own turn such as science and productions completing, etc.), that should drastically increase the pace of play beyond what turn-based might otherwise lead to.