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DJ RRebel
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CANADA
Jul 2000
time: 05:23
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Well ... let me first start by saying my first real experience in multiplayer took me about 5 hours before even entering the game ... the MP is so shoddy, that I am actually considering returning the game, as as much as I am a Civ fan, there really is no excuse for having Multiplayer written in big letters on the front of the package, only for it to take 5 hours to get a game started. But anyhow ... lol ... there are too many other complait threads going on ... I want to talk about something that will hopefully be a little more fun to discuss ...
To begin ... let me say, that we were 3 people who entered the first MP set-up room ... all were under 200 ping ... and I was around 150 or a bit less.
Don't ask me how ... lol ... but we lost one person on the way into the next set-up page ... but we decided to continue anyhow ...
We player a turnless game, with the timer set to slow ...
And yes ... there was some considerable lag ... but I want to discuss another point ...
THE JOY OF TWEAKING !!! 
Having time limits forcing you to play and not tweek/perfect your territory, is simply NOT civilization ... In ancient history, people had decades to plan and develop where their next cities would grow ... with time limits, I found myself not moving my new settlers a couple of turns, while calculating the most efficient placement for my next city ...
Losing extremely valuable turns at the beginning of a Civ game simply for planning out ahead ... is not Civilization.
Not being able to manually move all you pieces in time without even planning a little bit ... is not Civilization ... at some points, I didn't even have enough time to move all my pieces ... and if I stopped to figure out the most efficient terrain improments, half my units would lose their turns ...
This sort of innefficiency in playing Civ, is not only a guaranteed loss ... but it's also painful in knowing you would have done things differently and more efficiently ... the opposite of that painful feeling is exactly why we all love the game ...
Don't get me wrong ... I'm not complaining against Firaxis for adding these gametypes ... but in the future, I really have no intention of playing anything else in multiplayer but Turn based games with no time limit ... it's simply NOT Civilized Civilization !!! lol
To me .. the ONLY way to play Civ, is being able to place your cities where you want ... to use your workers in the most efficient ways posible ... and to be able to tweek all posible variables to the maximum efficientcy posible ...
Some of you will probably argue that as long as everyone has the same disadvantage, then it's fair ... and that's totally true ... but I want to be clear that I'm not saying that ... I'm saying that even if it's fair ... it's not Civ ... or at least in my opinion !!!
Maybe if there were zero lag ... and we had the ability to slow the turns down substantially ... and a pause button so that we could actually take a couple of minutes to press our F1 to F6 buttons and tweek/assess our empires ... but even then ... I really don't think it would be the same ...
Anyhow ... that's just my opinion ... so in the end ... I'm not saying turnless will never be good (after the million or so patches that are painfully needed) ... I'm just saying that it isn't the Civ that I spent a million or so hours playing and loving every minute of it !!!
bla bla bla ... lol ... end of rant ...
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Adm.Naismith
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Milano - Italy
Oct 1999
time: 06:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Nuclear Master
Did the Bablyonians just build cities in terrible places because they were rushed. No they didnt. |
In real life? Sure, any civilization build and abandon many cities because they become not more "in the right place": I'm speaking about commercial route abandoned (because sailing was better than walking with a slow caravan thru the Asia) and "lost cities", speaking about exausted mines, or dryed rivers and lakes (desertification of the North Africa and south of Italy).
Not to mention that most of cities aren't "built" in better place by some God: they develop around any good aggregation point, and prosper or decline for many reasons.
On a gameplay point of view, I can understand that a turnless mode is way different from common Civ player experience, but it should be interesting anyway (I haven't PTW, so I can't judge by first hand).
I suppose that more "automation" is the real workaround of the whole time problem: a leader should focus on real critical decision and live with less than perfect generals, city major and so on...
BTW, I hate when my best friend waste an hour balancing every single unit movement in boardgame or mp games  , so I'm a little biased on this topic 
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candybo
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Tho I haven't picked up PtW yet (dang work thing), I would tend to agree on principle. My favorite part of pc games is the thinking, not the clicking. That's what consoles are for, in my opinion. Off Topic: Except for EA's NHL series. It rocks! :On Topic. Even tho I don't maximize every possible efficiency myself (boring), for me, that's the biggest point of resource management games.
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[FX]Roman
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quote:
and if I stopped to figure out the most efficient terrain improments, half my units would lose their turns ... |
It looks like you had a good ping... But it seems like your brain had a really bad one.
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neonext
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huh? that's all you get to pick from, slow, medium, and fast???
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metalhead
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quote:
Originally posted by Adm.Naismith
I was one of the lobbist for introducing Simultaneous in Civ III, and I'm considering to buy PTW just to give a try at Simul mode. 
Just 2 questions for you, if you already played it:
a) Can you confirm I can play Simultaneous in Single player mode, too (AKA every other player is AI)?
b) Do you find the game stable enough in Simultaneous mode (AFAIK most of crashes and bug alert are related at internet game)?
Thank you in advance |
Answer to (a) - Well, you could go into MP, host a game, and launch with yourself as the only player. Add a few AI civs, and you could then try out the simultaneous mode at your leisure without other people bugging you.
Answer to (b) - So far, the only games I've been able to play are simultaneous. The host has frozen every time on the other settings (when the game has actually launched), but simultaneous seems to work OK, it isn't even that laggy, although unit animations are pretty jerky. Of course, this is with 2 human players only. I have yet to play a working game with more than 2 people. So, I would say, at least right now, it seems to me that simultaneous is the most stable mode.
As for turnless, I think everyone owes it to themselves to try a turnless game with accelerated production and a fast timer. It will likely drive you crazy after 10 minutes or so.
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neonext
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It's amazing to me how many people can knock the turnless mode without even trying it.
For those of you who HAVE tried it, you have a valid point by saying it takes away a lot of the strategy involved by making the game have such a faster pace.
There IS still much of the game's strategy involved though, you just don't always have the time to figure it all out, especially if you have a huge empire.
Just realise that the turnless mode is there for people who want the Civ experience, but don't want to wait an eternity for their next turn (btw, this is true in SP and MP). Simultanious mode with a turn time limit is a great way of handling TBS while elminating a lot of the waiting, but it DOES NOT solve the problem.
Also, saying anything like, "if i wanted to play an RTS i would go buy one" is just plain stupid. This game wasn't designed to be a RTS game, so of course it couldn't compete with RTS games. Hell, even calling the turnless mode a RTS game is wrong, because it really isn't real-time. It's semi-real-time. It's basically in between TBS and RTS because there are technically still "turns", they are just on forced timers and on everything from unit turns to city production turns.
Some people just don't have the patience to wait 5 minutes while Mr. Tweek-On-Everything-In-My-Whole-Empire is finishing his turn. For those who do have the patience and want to play civ the way it was meant to, there are plenty of other modes for you to play.
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mok
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I have tried turnless mode and to me it does have the feel of an RTS with too much to do.
The interface does not lend itself to turnless mode very well. Data is not displayed in a way that it can be analyzed in a second. When your turn rolls the unit you had selected changes, adding to confusion(this is a bug IMHO). Being able to affect changes to a city take too much time, you need hot keys for production changes. NEVER allow popups to appear.
My main gripe about it though is that you are unable to set a game clock. Sure they have a "Fast, Normal, SLow" setting, but
why cant the Host decide what the actual times should be? Say, allow him to input the number of seconds allowed in a turn. Or, like a chess clock, the number of seconds allowed in an entire game. Or input a constant into what ever time formula it appears they are using based on game turn.
If Firaxis can give the host control of the game clock, then you can have a game where players are constrained to time limits in managing their world, and then the clock becomes more of a part of the strategy, instead of just some Zurg Rush-like clickfest.
Civ III is very strategy and micromanagement feature rich, and those who "do not want to wait" in multiplay need to buy something else, like Age of Kings or Empire Earth.
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04-11-2002 18:45
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