22-12-2000 03:38									#1
	Important vote: Single Player or Multiplayer? Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

After a large discussion at the meeting, and some advice from Harel, we have realized that it is likely that we will need to decide on this soon.

Like Harel said at the meeting: We have to pick one. The game can not be both.

Therefore a vote may be the only sollution. Everybody are welcome to vote here, so please do. The two options for now is:

1: We make the game a single player game with some multiplayer capabilities. This, however, means that the amount of players in the game will be severely limited.

2: We make the game a multiplayer game. Have the possibility to have loads of players play the same game, but make the game multiplayer based. So no real AI.

Harel sort of convinced us that we had to pick one of these, and that a hybrid would be impossible.

So this will be the thread for dealing with this. The vote is not required right now, I would in stead like some discussion and different pros and cons of the two choises first. Then we can vote.

	22-12-2000 04:20									#2
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For anyone who was at the meeting it will not be a secret that I am a huge supporter of the 2nd option.

I want this to be a massive multiplayer game. I would like to have as many players in one game as technically possible, and 100 at least. I think this would make the game world alive, and different in every single game.

I would like multiplayer games that goes on and on for months and months. Where the players come and go, as the world developed. Empires would rise and fall, things would go on as they would in history. No winner, no loser.

This means that the game design should be made so loads of players are supported. Not only does the map have to be large enough (which it should be), the focus of the game should also be made so diplomacy with loads of other players is possible and indeed an important aspect of the game.

The reason why I dont think we should spend too much focus on AI and single player games are, that the game is going to have a huge variables, statistics etc. And since an AI is one of the more dificult things to program at ALL, it is likely that we will never be able to make an AI that is good enough.

And since people will already have downloaded the game from the internet, and are likely to take part in a development discussion at our forum (at least suggest some ideas) they might as well play the game against other players online. And having loads of players will mean more fun diplomacy, and finally with real intelligence to do it with!

That is why I support #2.

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"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

	22-12-2000 05:51									#3
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Well, I will vote anyway, but more to make clear the reasons I mention afterwards...

"Multiplayer"

Ok, that's out of the way. Now, as to *why*:

1. The biggest difficulty in Civ games (and others, I'm sure) is that creating a good AI is nearly impossible. You either have to lower the game strategy to what an AI can do, or you have to make the AI cheat horribly, which really creates havoc. Besides, players will focus on how to exploit AI weaknesses rather than improve their own game-play. Eliminating an AI will eliminate a lot of programming requirements.

2. Focussing on interactive human players allows the players to be endless and cunning AI's (so to speak). What I mean is that allowing human players to do all the decision-making will bring out the best play right from the start.

3. I think that the game should *allow* for self-play (like Civ hotseat) and 1 vs 1 games. That will be important for learning the basics of the game (it *is* going to be complex). Plus, it is important to allow for people to test strategies themselves, and a hot-seat would eliminate a need for an AI.

4. People have come to expect a Multiplayer format. As a practical matter, the game will not likely succeed without it.

	22-12-2000 13:48									#4
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No.

I think that single player would be the best option. The game can not work, as multi-player, espically in its infancy. When the game is still new there will be not that many people, and therfore no one to play with.

There are many advantages to single player, like being able to play the game when not connected to the internet. This, IMHO, is a great advantage.

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	22-12-2000 20:00									#5
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Would it, Heardie?

Fact is that we are not going to have an AI any time soon. In fact it can not be constructed untill we reach alpha or beta stage, something far away. Therefore I think if we create a multiplayer client/server thing soon after making the UI, it will be possible for us to play the game against each other, and test it this way. I don't really see any other ways of testing it, honestly.

I can see the downside of having to connect to the internet to play, but if we do this well it would be possible to plan your turn (we're using preplanned turns) offline, and then just hit a submit button, which will make the PC go online, post your moves, and go offline again. At the deadline you can go online shortly agian, and get the other players moves.

Besides, the internet is evolving rapidly. The game is not going mainstream for at least 2 years, which will mean that by then many people will have ADSL lines or better, and therefore be online all the time.

But my main concern here is the amount of players. I would like as many players as we can fit in to the game. And with a 1 000 000 hex map there is room for a lot of players. I fear that if we make the game single player at first, we will limit the amount of players to 10 or so, which will mean we could never have the huge, living games that I think would be one of our greatest assets.

This does not mean that we can't create AI's later on. Or even at the same time. Just that we will make the game work with a lot of players.

------------------
"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

	23-12-2000 00:47									#6
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Hmmm...well first we had a good meeting, I had to leave in the end, my brain had ceased to function...

This really is a difficult subject, but my opinion for what it's worth is that it should be Single Player based with good but small Multi Player support. Simply cos Big Multiplayer support is a different matter altogether.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to make a huge online only game of sorts (I've often thought of a business game, with monopolies, world trade and players forming corporations - but that's a different matter ;-)).

My view then - is 32 players in a game, and up to 32 of them being human, but not making any promises it'll work when they do that!

	23-12-2000 17:22									#7
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I see why that makes sence, Chris.

But still I think it would be idiotic to limit the game to 32 players. Why not make some huge limit, design the game as we want to design it, with diplomacy, politics, economics, units and all the other stuff that we are going to have anyway, and then find out how many players it can work with and still be fun.

I know Harel said that we have to desing a completely different game for 100 players than for 10. And not following this advice I feel like telling Einstein how to do physics. I just hope that I may be telling him about quantum mechanics, then.

I just feel that maybe it would be possible to have a game, where there is room on the map for loads of civs (and we have that) and where the player is doing the thing he is doing just like he would otherwise. But where there is more players to have fun with, to go to war against and make alliances with. In most of the design we have done so far we have been copying history. Would it be impossible to do so here?

------------------
"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

	23-12-2000 19:33									#8
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So I'm an idiot joker?

It's a great idea joker, but I just can't see it being workable. Think about it, 1 million hex's makes a heck of a big game, requiring hundreds of mb memory to play. If done with a limit of say 100 players, you'd need dedicated serverS with a big S. Obviously we couldn't limit it to one game of 100 or so people, and a game with 1000 or more would really be impossible. It's just too much too soon IMO. How many of us have actually even written a full released game again?

I say we save the MMP version for ggs2...

[This message has been edited by chrispie (edited December 23, 2000).]

	23-12-2000 21:50									#9
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1. Is an AI really that easy to design (given the additional complexities that you are all planning) compared to allowing MP? I'm asking, only; not trying to argue about it (I simply do not know). The AI in Civ2 is pretty wretched (I find that it functions at all to be a remarkable accomplishment, but that doesn't mean it plays very well).

It seems to me that the improvements you are planning in game play are precisely the kind that an AI would have the most difficulty with. If I am understanding the direction this game is taking then strategy, negotiation, and anticipation are going to be paramount. And, if I understand how AIs work, they are essentially tactical (as opposed to strategic) in operation.

The Civ2 AI "improves" its level of play only through massive cheating, which becomes maddening to players as they get better at the game themselves. If there is a way around that, great, but I suspect there is not.

2. Is the concern with memory requirements (100+MB) a game speed concern or a user's equipment concern? In other words, is it that the computer would take a long time processing all the moves or is it that the game would take up too much room on a drive?

Being (I think) a fairly typical gameplayer/computer user, my 6 GB hard disk is only 1/2 filled and storage demand is relatively irrelevant to me. Given the GB of space on newer hard disks these days, I can't think that storage would be a real problem.

	24-12-2000 10:41									#10
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No, it's not a h/d space problem were discussing (I just bought a 20gb h/d for £77) It's memory...my particular concern though is moving that memory over the internet for MP games. Modern computers (with swp files) can easily handle big memory games, and ones in 3 years will be even more able.

As for AI, yeah it's hard to write - but whoever said programming was easy anyway? We surely can't shy away from any AI just cos we think it might be a bit hard...?

	24-12-2000 00:20									#12
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To make things clear: I vote Single Player

Single Player with MP support. Ans i mean mp support like doen in almost every other game now on the market.

MMP games seems really great; thinking about 100s of players in a game with each other, BUT i DO think that we'll have to save this for later. I think we first have to make a game that can be played by 1 persons before this player even thinks about playing the game online. I won't play a game online if i can't play it in SP mode myself.

Also, I agree that we have to use MP to test the game ourselves before we have an AI that can be used with it, but this is still possible with SP as it has support for MP games. Not MMP, but there is a way to play a game with real-life(tm) players.

At last; before there are 100 of players that will jon 1 single GGS game, we could have 1000 of SP players. I think we should build our reputation first on SP, with all the game features showing the world what we've made, before convincing the player to join a 100players-mp-game.

Someone has said here that we're not making a civ-clone, and I agree. But we ARE making a civ-like game. Those we all like and build our enthousiastic spirit on. We need GGS to be a civ-like game, rather than an MMP game without an specific user group.

	24-12-2000 03:06									#13
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well, we had quite an extensive discussion about MP along time ago. Hundreds of messages on mailing list about it actually. I dont really remember what was the consensus (or was there any). Digression: Dan Ward, are you lurking out there? Perhaps you know someting?

I ll just give a link: http://www.planetarion.com is a web based "civ like" game in space with some 50 000 players. It is run on dedicated servers. Check it out, because that is the model if you want to go massive. Massive games include serious simplification.

Now, we may have simplification via "layers" of complexity. Meaning you can for example give order to your Minister of defence, or dive in to division level (or what ever) to command the army. If each model has few levels, we can group them. So for example you may agree to play a MP game locked at level 3, which would not allow you to micromanage lower, in effect shortening the turn time and game time too. Making game simpler.

I dont want to make a game simple. As Joker said on the meeting "to have a game with complex inner working, so things develop themselves and player only gives general orders". Our game will have _lots_ of calculation and lots of complexity. To make it massively multiplayer would not mean to make it unplayable - people play those web games, but it would take much spice from it.

So as I see it, a game with up to 8 players in MP, with an excellent AI in SP. Up to 8 not because of speed of modem, but because of speed of thought. How long do you want to wait for your turn actually?

But the design issue here is how much you want to simplify the game.

Happy holidays everyone, see you in a week or two!

	26-12-2000 10:16									#14
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It seems unlikely that a small group of hobbyists can create both a complex game and a revolutionary AI for it in their spare time. Perhaps you guys can prove me wrong, but I think that a complicated game will require an AI which is completely revolutionary. The more complicated the game, the more cutting edge / revolutionary the AI must be in order to give the player even the same quality we all ***** about with CIV. In order to create a quality AI in all likelihood the game will have to be designed from the bottom up with the AI in mind, which will mean that most of the basic game design decisions will need to be made by the programmers.

I think this sort of game is possible, but I also think that it should be designed to be played mostly by humans, with some AI capability to handle non-player civs / tribes and human dropouts. The game will need to be simplified whether it is for human multiplayers short on time, or the AI short on brilliant programming and processor time. The idea mentioned above about creating various control levels is a good one actually, but the best time for limiting the scope of the game is right now while very few things are settled.

Who is the player pretending to be? A sort of cultural God, who guides his people through the ages? A King or Emporer who tackles the day to day struggles of the Government? A great General who leads his armies to victory? Civ has the player fulfilling all of these roles simultaneously, and by doing so makes the game unrealistic, simplistic, and unchallenging to play against the AI. By limiting the player to a more confined role, it is possible to make the game more realistic while getting rid of a lot of complexity on the player's side (especially micromanagement). It also makes the game easier to adapt to either AI play or Massive Multiplayer play.

IMO, the player should have the same level of control as the leader of the Government would have at various tech levels. Thus he orders his armies about, but does not actually command every single movement. This saves the player time, and places him more on par with any AI used. If his Generals continually frustrate his schemes, he can increase the share of the economy devoted to the military to attract more talent, or have his wise men try to develop new weapons and tactics to improve the army's performance. The player should control Grand Strategy, Diplomacy, and Resource Allocation. The built in tactical AI should handle all of the details for human as well as AI Civs. This will give the game a real possibility to be excellent for both MP and SP. If the game still retains it's massive scope for each player, then I fear that the only possibility is for it to be played multi-player only.

	26-12-2000 18:45									#15
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Chris:

quote: As for AI, yeah it's hard to write - but whoever said programming was easy anyway? We surely can't shy away from any AI just cos we think it might be a bit hard...?

	27-12-2000 07:29									#16
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I just stumbled into this site and probably haven't done enough digging, but I'll ask anyway: how will the turn based model be fitted to MP gameplay? Specificly, in massively multiplayer games you can't guarantee that everyone can attend at any given time. Some will drop out, others will just miss a few turns, some might think too long, their computers could crash... anything can happen. How are these situations handled with? If the civilizations just follow previous orders until they run out, competing civs can use this to their advantage. On the other hand, to make the day to day running of a civilization independent on the player requires making fairly good AI.

Perhaps I'm missing something....

	28-12-2000 01:18									#17
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First we are using preplanned turns, which will mean that the amount of time having to wait for other players to make their turns will be the same whether you are playing one on one or with 50 other people.

Second a nice feature of a long mp game would be, to allow players to hop in and out of civs. A game going from 4000BC to 2000AD would last months and months.

This would make it likely that not all players are interested in playing a game all the way through. Therefore players could hop in and out as they wanted. If a player quits a new one could enter. That way.

But on the other hand you are absolutely right that we need to work on this, as on all other game aspects.

------------------
"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

	28-12-2000 04:21									#18
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I think this is indeed a very important issue, so I'm making quickly my point. Sorry I couldn't attend to the meeting!

As usually, I'm along the same lines as Joker. We will have to start making this game with multiplayer system, for all the reasons stated earlier; most of all, the ease of testing the game, and also the fact that without good multiplayer system this game will be nothing. But I know all too well that we can't get rid of AI entirely. If we want to reduce micromanagement, which we _do_ want, we will need AI to control the tasks the player doesn't want to be concerned with. So, the game has to be designed from the beginning with AI in mind; in the beginning, there will not be much of it, of course. When the multiplayer game is ready, we will have lots&lots of AI in it. Then the last task would be to create the "master AI" which would take care of the whole government, just like the human - which can prove quite tricky to do properly, so it's good to start to make a multiplayer game; computer will most propably be able to serve only as a sparring opponent for multiplayer games.

I think Joker is foreseeing the future quite well. This game is designed for the computer and internet situation of the year 2002 or 2003. Then, computer resources will not be any kind of problem for us, and also internet connections will be good. What we have been talking earlier is, that the game would have lots of small people, and some large empires; empires rise and fall. If there would be 100 people, we could have 100 players in the game. Players would join a game, and get a people to lead. They would play, and try to get most out of their situation. When they have played enough, they quit, and other people or AI would take over their people. When the game has ended, perhaps when a certain year has been reached, the game history will be reviewed. Players would receive points for their actions and achievements during the game, and some kind of system would be used to rank the players. The better the player does, the more bonuses he will get in the games.

All this needs careful planning, but I'm quite assured that this might be a really revolutionary idea of a multiplayer game. It needs work, and might be difficult for beginners like us, but in my life I have become to notice that hard and honest work will always recieve its price somehow. I'm certain that if we just try, and don't be let down by difficulty of our task, we will be making something incredible.

	28-12-2000 04:48									#19
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As always Amjayee makes a lot of sence.

And on top of this he agrees with me!

Great.

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"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

	28-12-2000 05:51									#20
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I also like to say that it's not an easy to play MP game. The turns take a long time, escpacially with a lot of players and expanded areas. I onces tried to play MP civ2 but I game up while I was waiting just too long. I know we have a turnbased system with simultaneous movement, but even than turns would take a long time playing the game. In SP this is normal, but in MP this could really be a difficulty.

	28-12-2000 06:58									#21
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In multiplayer game a time limit for each turn is a must. It could be configurable for each game, or maybe dynamically depend on the size of the civilizations. In any case, the length of a turn would have great influence in the gameplay:

1) use 5 minute turns or shorter, and quick wits are rewarded in wars and such. Long term planning is difficult because the AIs will mess up the civ during the player's absence.

2) set the turns to more than 15 minutes, and you get two different kinds of players: those who make their moves and wait until the turn passes, and those who keep giving more and more detailed orders to their underlings. In real time situations there is no difference between the two groups, but the civs with better instructions while the player is absent might have an edge over other AI-driven civs.

3) set the turns closer to hours and you get really long chess-like games. Only 24 years pass in the game world per each day, so a moderate game spanning from 1000BC to 2000AD would last about four months. The role of AI would be reduced.

All of these have their merits and as such should be possible by just tweaking the parameters for each multiplayer game. From game design point of view two things need to be taken into account,

a) players should be able to make big decisions quickly and
b) players must have means to elaborate their decisions as much as possible.

By b) I mean that there should be a way of giving orders like "achieve a pact with Vulcan and if the Klingons start boosting their military wipe them out" or "maintain status quo until explorers find a new continent; if new continent is uninhabitet or habitet by civs with lower technology, begin colonization".

How the players can jump in and out of the game should be as invisible as possible from other players' perspective. There would basicly be three kinds of civs on the game: those controlled by human players in real time, those controlled by AI advisors for humans and the civs whose human player has resigned. The third ones can be used for new players who wish to enter the game, or alternatively the game could force a new nationality to be born from the population of an existing civilization. Of course, in order to make the game as versatile as possible, some games could be "closed" and not allow new players.

	29-12-2000 10:14									#22
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Ok my vote:

Multiplayer all the way- No AI at all.

Ok exactly when ARE we going to be finished with this game? I can see it done in a year maybe two years from now. Most people I know already have high-speed internet access, and in another two years wether to be connected or not won't be much of an issue, especially since the most popular games even now and for the last few years have been internet-exclusive games.
I see no reason not to have each game with a total of 128 slots open, some devoted to nations and peoples, some to economic tycoons, some to religious leaders, some to generals, etc. You have each slot that is not occupied by an active player be an AI (ok some AI is required) but that AI will be basically weak, easily bullied around and not much of anything to anyone. Essentially an inactive player.
Once you join the game you look at the open slots and pick one and you are the newly "elected" leader of that particular position. When you decide to go to bed, and you leave the game, your reign comes to a close and you retire or die or whatever, and your position is replaced by either another AI or an awaiting player.

My only question is, how do we do the turns? Do we want to make each turn last a set ammount of time? I know that I don't want to be sitting around forever waiting for some jackass in Montana to get out of the bathroom and hit "continue" if you know what I mean.

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	29-12-2000 00:50									#23
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Ok, it seems the game being made is -completely- different from the one I thought it was - fair enough, I'm flexible.

So, we going with MP with an AI which just 'looks after' nations when no human is in charge then? That's fine by me.

	29-12-2000 03:35									#25
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Leland:

Your idea about the max time limits are pretty much what I think we had in mind as well.

A:
This is completely true, and will be implemented. It shouldn't be too hard either.

B:
This is a more dificult thing indeed. I think since this will require immence AI that it is something that we will have to wait some time for. But when we get a good AI we should also try to make this possible. It would be a magnificant feature, that's for sure.

quote: What if people want to play the same civ more than once? There should be a way to give the viceroy AIs plenty of instructions and guarantee that at least another human player won't be messing with your ideal civilization.

Yes, it should be possible. Hard to create, though.

quote: Configurable time limit. I'm not sure what the rest of you think, but my opinion on this is fairly well explained in my previous post.

I agree.

Guildmaster:

Although I agree with you that mp should be the main thing, I think the "no AI at all" thing is just too odd to be possible. AI's in some forms are needed, if not for anything else then at least for making sure the units are going to end up where you want them to.

Besides, if we can make a good AI I see no need to not do so, and make it active and as much like the players as possible. Here I agree with that guy (can't find it just now) that said that a large mp game could include both AIs and players, and that the players should have as little knowledge about who was a player and who was an AI as possible.

The 128 slots is pretty much what I had in mind as well. But I think that we should not settle on this before we know what is possible and fun. So maybe 50 players will turn up to be the highest amount to keep the game and diplomacy fun, or maybe 200 players is possible. So whatever we find is the best amount should be what we pick.

The whole concept of players being able to play as religions or tycoons is one that I as well like. And since they should propably both be controlled by some sort of AI (at least they should) it would most likely be possible to put a player client in them in stead of an AI. But before we do that we should have a game that is fun to play as a civ leader. Most of the game should be settled before we can even think about making a game where the player is a religion possible. But I agree that it is a fun and interesting option. It should just not be anything that we spend all our time now thinking about.

I think the turn max times have been explained, so no more of that.

lol@the jackass in Montana, BTW.


Chris:

quote: So, we going with MP with an AI which just 'looks after' nations when no human is in charge then? That's fine by me.

I don't think we would have to be this extreme. AIs should be as active as possible, and as close to human players as possible.

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	30-12-2000 04:02									#26
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It seems that you are planning both large MP play *and* a sophisticated AI in the recent posts, and most everyone was recommending against that earlier. The question of what to do with a civ when a player leaves seems important.

1. If civs are allowed to die...

If civs die when players leave, then there will never be much advancement in the game unless you have a way to create new civs at advanced levels after the game has started. Otherwise, new civs would be constantly created at the "start" level, and would be hopelessly behind the current human players.

What if new civs (after the start of the game) were allowed to commence at some "average" level of existing civs? Or perhaps equal to the worst human civ in play at the time (otherwise, players doing very badly would keep quitting and rejoining).

2. AI

Or, you could have abandoned civs continue with an AI to guide them. We know how poorly Civ2 AI's operate, so that might be difficult.

Or, again, perhaps some "average of existing human civs" trick could be used. Not quite an AI, but just a way to keep computer civs viable for new players to take over.

It might even be worthwhile to consider copying an existing civ when a new player enters.

3. The map is finite.

In most MP games, some civs advance and some are wiped out. It doesn't take too long for most of the map to be controlled by only a few players. You may be planning to allow 100 players, and new civs to be created as new players enter the game, but where will they go? Will you steal space from existing human civs?

I would expect to find that a game starting with 20 players would quickly be reduced to a dozen or fewer that controlled the whole map.

Perhaps a game like that should be locked until an existing civ becomes available (by a human player quitting). And if so, then you need to allow for multiple games.

	30-12-2000 05:33									#27
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The impression I got was that the "fall and rise" model of civilizations would be inherent in the game mechanics. Big, old empires would either break down in face of external threats (small civs looking for lebensraum) or stagnate to death. Kind of spenglerian, but I like it.

If the server was really smart, it could find evaluate the status of current players and find suitable revolutionary spots where new players could start. This wouldn't bother the esisting players much since they had problems with those troublemakers anyway; and a new neighbour migth prove to be a valuable ally.

But what do I know.

	30-12-2000 18:12									#28
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Cavebear:

Again I don't think a sophisticated AI and mp would be mutually exclusive. We just have to figure out how many civs we want to have in the game, and make the game work with that amount. That is the key issue.

1:
Think history. First, if a player leaves his civ should be controlled by an AI, untill another player takes it over. Second new civs are going to get techs really fast, due to tech diffusion. And the rise and fall concept will make sure that civs, once strong, will be surpassed by other civs at one point.

3:
The map will be huge. Most likely around 1,000,000 hexes, or 1000x1000 hexes. This will mean that untill modern times there will always be free space for a new civ to get. And a completely new civ may just get one hex to start with. Another option will be to use nationality to let a new player lead a nationality conquored by another civ, or a new nationality just arisen, and try to lead that to independance.


Like Leland wrote, pretty much.

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	31-12-2000 05:54									#29
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1. AI

Whatever we choose for our game, we NEED and AI. Either for not human player and abandoned civs. If a MP player leaves his game, the civ won't disapear instantly. (Or at least I think it shouldn't.) The AI needs to handle this civ. Then, if you really have a standard non-variable number of slots, thre should always be AI civs that probably won't be ever run by human players. Espacially with so much slots as 128, I don't think we see this large games totally fulled up with human player.
Now, if we NEED an AI, we can also implent single player. Maybe I'm to simple minded, but we need a decend to good AI anyway...

2. MP
I am convinced we should make MP the main thing in our game (so not exclude SP). However the max you set (128) is pretty much. Even if we have maps with 1,000,000 hexes (so about 25 km hexes) it may not be reliable to play on such map with 128 players. This is thought that every player runs 1 civ.
A good thing about a fixed number of players is of course that there will always be a place for new player to enter the game...

Basicicly I like Lelands ideas.