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dan ward
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These are the provisional results for the Turn Order vote.
Pre-planned Turns (option 3) = 5? votes (winner)
Classic (option 1) = 4 votes
Simultaneous (option 2) = 1 vote
There's a question mark next to pre-planned turns because one of the votes was by Ron Hiler who's the person behind Manifest Destiny. If anyone has a serious objection to Ron's vote then you have until July 31st at 00:00 GMT to complain.
If there are any complaints we'll have a run-off vote between options 1 & 3.
I've listed who voted for what below. Please check for mistakes. Remember voting closed on the 24th you can't change your vote after this point.
Classic (4)
=======
Victor Galis
Heardie
VetLegion
markusf
Simultaneous (1)
============
dan ward
Pre-planned Turns (5)
=================
Guildmaster
Lord God Jinnai
Ron Hiler
Amjayee
The Joker
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heardie
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I have no objections to using Ron's vote.
Also although I voted 1 I wouldn't mind in the slightest if 3 is used aftyer Amjayee explained it
[This message has been edited by heardie (edited July 27, 2000).]
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The Joker
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 1999
time: 06:14
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I feel more or less the same way as Heardie. I vote #3, but I wouldn't mind if #1 was chosen.
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phunny pharmer
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La Jolla, Ca, US
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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Joker: I'm sorry the Imperialism II demo didn't work. I have the game at home, but it takes up one CD (110 MB). I can't quite fit that on my Yahoo account! The game's quite a cool one, though.
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The Joker
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 1999
time: 06:14
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Double post.
[This message has been edited by The Joker (edited July 30, 2000).]
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The Joker
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 1999
time: 06:14
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No prob, Phunny!
I have also heard great things about the game. But I haven't played it yet.
So. Have we reached a conclusion in this matter? Will we be using the preplanned turns or the traditional kind?
------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club
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Guildmaster
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Up your butt and around the corner
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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I would like to further offer support to the more modern option #3. The take-turns option is I think too limited and has too many fundamental flaws, knot the least of which is the relationship between seeing and being seen with regard to military units. Remember how the origional Civ and Civ2 games worked? How there may be an enemy bomber attacking and they can have free reign over all your territory until the end of their turn and you couldn't do squat about it until your turn... mind you, AFTER they have already done their damage? What's the point of air superiority if you can't use it to protect your airspace? Also submarines, there could be a first strike option for all stealth-type units that in order to be implemented properly we need to use some kind of simultaneous move system.
Also, what about strategy? A lot of strategy is based on speculation: what you think the other guy is going to do this turn. How can you do that when you already know what he's done this turn, and then how can you do it if he gets to wait until you're done to decide what to do? Decide all your plans for this turn, and then see how the market reacts to those plans. You might make more money or less than you speculated, simply by not knowing what the competition is going to do, and not how the competition is going to respond to what you do. Plan first, then move. Plan the whole turn, then determine the results, not just in military maneuvers, but in economics as well. Plan what economic policies you intend to enact, then the game compares those to the other players' plans... Say you plan to offer coal at $320/ton, the other player plans to offer it at $310/ton. Bye-bye coal industry. You can't have that kind of unpredictability in old-fashioned turn order.
I have to go to work now... does anyone know what's up with the terrain&map forum,?
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Guildmaster
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Up your butt and around the corner
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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Actually, a blank page is what I meant when I said I couldn't access it. =Þ
And here's some thought about the timing issue...
If we break the game turn down into (bear with me) "sub-turns", or perhaps "twelveths" of turns if the turn is one year, and the player will strategize for one year. Then the simlutaneous movement could go like this: The game could be coded so that it will move each player's units, enact policies, etc one at a time, like in old-style, and do this twelve times. A unit with three movement would move once every twelveths of a turn and would be eligible to engage any enemy units depending on where he is during that twelveth. or whatever segment you're currently on. That would also give an actual growth line... players could perhaps plan for prices to go into effect during specific "months". All the player sees though, is the plan they put into effect, and the end result at the end of the turn.
Just on of many possibilities, this could be a really simple way to do a really complex thing.
Better idea: Each player decides everything and the game moves everything exactly at the same time. If there is a conflict, either pre-set orders take into effect or a pop-up menu will appear asking the player what to do. Pre-set orders would be something like "Engage Y enemy at will" or "Buy X at lowest available price" or something like that. The game will assume that each unit will follow orders (unless you allow deserters in the game-options menu
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The Joker
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 1999
time: 06:14
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Guildmaster:
I don't really like having twelveths turns. I like Amjayee's initial system better.
Also, for simplicity, I think that economic stuff and such should simply all be handled at the beginning or at the end of the turn, in stead of being spread out over it. The preplanned turns would propably only be for the units.
One thing that we need with this system is a unit's speed, which might very well not have anything to do with it's operating range/deployment range. An airplane would in game turns be able to get to everywhere in it's deployment range instantly (in game turns) where a legion would take several "subturns" to move around inside it's deployment range.
This system definately needs some work, but I still find it superior to the traditional turn system.
Anyway, what are we deciding? Is it the preplanned?
------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club
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amjayee
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Oct 1999
time: 07:14
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Here are some thoughts to clear some things out. First, I think the turn should always be one year. In early game, or when there is nothing to do, the player could skip as many turns as he likes, or skip only the empire management phase, moving only units; after all, unit movement takes generally less time than management, since we use armies¨and some auto-moving features.
About Guildmaster's "sub-turn" idea, I had something like that in my mind, too. What I think is, that the turn is one year, but units would move in one-month turns; usually, when nothing special happens, they simply move the whole year's movement, but during wartime, they could be moved in monthly scale; the idea is, that units could attack more than once per year, and wars usually require some maneuvering around the units, so this would be used as a partial solution to war problems. As I said, moving units should be quite fast, so this shouldn't slow down even multiplay very much - and since wars are very consuming, they usually don't last as long as in civ2. At least 100-year wars would not be very intensive all the time; rather they would consist of lots of smaller wars.
About empire management, I agree that there should be one phase at which you can give those orders; usually in the beginning of each turn's design phase. If you don't have anything to change, you could simply skip that phase entirely. Since cities have some ai and automation, usually you don't need to traverse through all cities changing the orders, giving more stuff to produce etc., but rather you can concentrate on the big picture.
About which system we choose, I asked people if it's ok if we choose number 3. There's no opposition so far, but let's wait a couple of days. After that, we can start designing the system.
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Guildmaster
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Up your butt and around the corner
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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I would like to see the simultaneous turns in economics as well though, I think it would add some unpredictability to it...
But this one is kinda odd-subject, but it's a really kneat idea I think: Why not let us import cities from SimCity3000 and place them on the map somehow? I always thought that would be pretty cool to have a simcity and import it into a Civ game...
Ok but seriously, I like to remind us all that during ancient times there is every bit as much going on as there is now, only communication and anfastructure were different. I see no reason to manage an empire at 20 year intervals like Civ and Civ2 did, and I always thought it was stupid to do that. An empire can completely rise and fall in one lifetime, how can you do that with three turns in Civ2? That's something I wouild like to put a big enough focus on, having a realistic (and fun) ancient game. You could emphasize it by saying that messages and units don't get transported for several years, that would really put an appropriate contrast to the light-speed information age. Say you could tell a unit way over in Jerusalem to move from point A to point B, and the unit would wait a couple turns, then get the message, then move, whereas in the modern game they move right away after the radio dispach. Same could be said for diseases- especially diseases. Say you get word in Washington that people in L.A. are dying by the thousands by some disease. 3000 miles away, you realize that by the time you get the tablet with the news carved on it, they're already dead and it's too late while in the modern age you get an email describing the first patient long before any outbreak. This would put an end to the rediculously large prehistoric empires that cover all of asia and europe before horses were invented.
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amjayee
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Oct 1999
time: 07:14
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Now that sounds cool. I have dreamed about something like that. We should definitely try to do that. Perhaps we could have some transportation technology; in ancient times, you would need to use runner or horse couriers. The message would com to you or your units when the messenger has traveled the required distance, which is that unit's deployment range. If the range is smaller than the distance to target, it will arrive after some turns. This would really put some difficulties for large empires, which is only good balancing, and, quite realistically, force you to build roads and courier stations (and guarding outposts) in the ancient times. In modern times we would use telegraphs, phones, SMS's and email, that arrive instantly; perhaps we should incorporate some kind of penalty system to make the difference between all the light-speed travelling messages.
About managing your empires year by year, that is ok for me. Year should always be the standard time unit; for units, in some cases you could use them in twelve "phases" per each turn, meaning that in war-time you could move them one month at a time. This is especially useful in modern times. In ancient times, you could always skip turns if you don't want to do anything. I have always thought it would be cool to run a large empire year-by-year for 6000 years. We just need to work hard to make it meaningful to do so; the differences between different eras must be really significant, so the players will have patience to play the same game for weeks Also the players needs to have enough to do, but all tedious tasks must be automated, so the player can give them for AI if he likes.
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Guildmaster
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Up your butt and around the corner
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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(but what do you think about importing cities?)
Ok so then in order to make every year worth playing we need to outline what is fun and what isn't fun...
FUN:
Responding to challenges
Attacking the enemy
Accomplishing tasks/goals
building up the empire
Watching it grow and flourish
exploring the unknown
actually negotiating with the enemy
NOT FUN:
Doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over
Meticulously moving units one space at a time for the next 50 years until they finally reach a point of any use.
putting up with the AI asking you to sign an alliance after you've already said no about a hundred times.
When there are no more challenges to meet
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Guildmaster
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Up your butt and around the corner
Jun 2000
time: 05:14
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(but what do you think about importing cities?)
Ok so then in order to make every year worth playing we need to outline what is fun and what isn't fun...
FUN:
Responding to challenges
Attacking the enemy
Accomplishing tasks/goals
building up the empire
Watching it grow and flourish
exploring the unknown
actually negotiating with the enemy
NOT FUN:
Doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over
Meticulously moving units one space at a time for the next 50 years until they finally reach a point of any use.
putting up with the AI asking you to sign an alliance after you've already said no about a hundred times.
When there are no more challenges to meet
------------------
Goober
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The Joker
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 1999
time: 06:14
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The subturns are an ok idea. As long as you don't end up moving units on a monthly basis. If we do that then we could end up with a game lasting 72,000 turns. And that is not a good thing. Turns should be one year each. Of cause in scenarios we could have monthly or daily or even hourly turns, but that's another story.
About the simultaneous turns in economics, I guess that could work. But we should just develop our economic system and see how it works out. It should not be a must to have simultaneous economic turns.
I really like the idea of having information in ancient times that does not progress with the speed of light. You should propably only get information about your units with the speed (deployment range) or your fastest unit before the development of radio. This would further increase the problems of having large empire. It would, unfortunately, require a good unit AI, something that has shown to be really hard to make. After the development of radio I think that you should just play the game as in Civ2. I don't see the need to know whether you communicate with your units via e-mail, icq or phone.
Importing cities from Sim City:
Hmm. I don't think it would be that hard to do. you would mostly just need to know the size of the city, and if could be made. But let's focus on the more basic things before we start importing cities, ok?
BTW: I completely agree that the most important thing is to make sure that all turns are fun. Guildmaster's list shows us excactly what we should do. I would add keeping your empire centralized, and avoid it falling apart. It really shouldn't be hard to create a huge empire in a very short amount of time. But it should be virtually impossible to stop such an empire from falling apart.
So, are we using the planned turns???
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27-07-2000 01:17
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