Note that 1) and 2) don't necessarily prevent the non-fighting players from doing anything while the others are playing : in SotS1 you can still design ships while waiting for other players, and HoMM5 has the "ghost" mini-game. Most games also allow you to survey your empire and that way think about what you are going to do next.

I think #3 flows the best. having to wait for someone to plot all their moves and then having to wait again as battles are conducted might become tedious.



There are also some tactics I have had fun with in games using this method. For example throwing a small sacrifical force near the enemy as bait. If one of his stacks take that bait you can draw them outside of reinforcement range of his other stacks and swoop in for the kill.



Some of the games my son and I have had in AOW3 have been intense with move/feignt/countermove using a simultaneous system. This makes scouting very important. Almost as important as having the better army is knowing where your enemy is without him being sure where you are.

The worst part about making this decision is the fact that depending on how we decide how the multiplayer will play out also changes how the games will be played.

Option #3 will make players want to scout a lot and be fast on their actions. You must come up with a plan a couple turns before and there usually always is a default way to play. However it also allows you to know what your opponent is doing at the exact time, allowing for more tense action in terms of what to do immediately and what to put off.



Option #2 will require a lot of thinking on how everyone is going to act at the end of the turn. There may be conflicts with how something is done which will also require a bit of dumbing down to make everything work correctly but in the end everything flows well together. You don't have to be active all the time and it allows a bit more time to think on matters. +less abandoned games like in #1.



Option #1 is classic and never has any conflicts or problems in how things are played out. The only problem is it can be boring waiting for someone or being the one making the other guy wait. It makes things a lot tense but it also means more people are abandoning games and not taking their turns.



BlueTemplar made a lot of good points in his post and I feel like this shouldn't be as simple as a vote. We may need to vote on this more often and discuss it. This choice could really affect how people will play and how the game will be played. Maybe we should vote on things that can affect multiplayer and then in the end vote on what best fits all those thigns we voted on earlier(this vote).



AoW3 had the option for option 3 and 1.

In option 3 you usually have people running to attack quickly and get out quickly, whoever attacks first wins.

Many people before the game agree on rules such as "No attacking until...".

If Option 3 has a good amount of balance on this idea or options to set certain rules such as this it will be great. However, if its standard Option 3 then it WILL be "whoever clicks fastest wins."



So if we can agree on such rules, Option 3 will be the best, but at the moment Option 2 probably does a lot better. Option 1 is just too long to be fun usually - but having options before starting the game to switch to option 1 would be nice like AoW3. I will vote Option 3 because it still is generally a lot of fun, especially when everyone agrees to rules. Games go quick and require a lot of thinking on what to act on. You must have both immediate thinking and think long-term unlike other options. I love the idea of having to act on things quickly and long term at the same time.

One thing to keep in mind is that I believe the devs have already decided #3 on this one so the voting may be moot. Theoretical discussions are still interesting, however.



There is a subtle but key difference between AOW3 and EL. The distance a unit moves in a single turn in AOW is much greater and the choke point effect of terrain almost non-existent. Perhaps even more significant to how volatile the higher movement makes AOW3 is the ratio of movement distance to sight distance.



In EL units move slower and see further (when considered as a ratio to movement rate) this will avoid the mayhem that can occur in AOW3 while still maintaining a quicker pace to the game and some interesting interactions.

Thanks for the post, I'm still trying to get Endless Legend into my collection. Was going to buy it this month but then I hit my budget. Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully the default map is large in scale. So standard default games play out well with #3. We don't need to worry about other map scales because that is up to the player by that point. #3 is good pick now that I know of this.

TheGrimOfCrazy wrote:
Hopefully the default map is large in scale. So standard default games play out well with #3. We don't need to worry about other map scales because that is up to the player by that point. #3 is good pick now that I know of this.

The maps are very large, in my opinion...

Personally, I always prefer 1) and 2) as the multiplayer (and single player, for that matter) solution in my turn-based games. I understand the desire to keep players active in a multiplayer game so they do not abandon a game out of boredom, but when I play a turn-based game, I want it to be actual turn-based. Simultaneous turns are, As "Yahtzee" Croshaw once put it: "It's like an opponent in chess flicking elastic bands at your pawns while you're trying to think." If I want "move, feign, and counter-move" I will go play a proper RTS instead, cutting out the wait time of processing the end of turn.



I dearly hope Amplitude will at least consider sequential turns as an option to be selected during game setup.





EDIT: Fixed a typo as helpfully pointed out by BlueTemplar

I feel that we have to talk about this (hopefully it's not too late to influence EL).



Previous thread about the same subject, but for ES:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12739-suggestion-hotseat



So, there are various forms turn-based games can have a multiplayer, let's look at them (feel free to add some if I forgot any):



1) Sequential turns :

The most basic of them, players play after each other, same thing for tactical combat if there is any.

+ Maximum strategic control

+ Easy to make an Hotseat multiplayer option or a Play By E-Mail option (if no tactical combat).

- Games take more time, especially with more than 2 players.

Examples of games using this form of multiplayer:

Alpha Centauri, Heroes of Might of Magic 2 & 3, Space Empires 4 & 5, HoMM 5 after the heroes have defeated all the neutral armies that separate them.



2) Simultaneous turns with an end turn phase which resolves all the movement and combat :

+ Games can have lots of players without taking enormous amounts of time

- Players usually have less direct feedback over orders, as those are executed during the processing phase

- Being able to give multiple orders to a specific army requires the developers to program a specific queue for said orders

- If there's a tactical combat, it has to be automated if the players aren't present

+ Allows PBEM or direct tactical combat

Examples:

Space Empires 4 & 5, Sword of the Stars 1 & 2

(Note that SE doesn't have direct tactical combat, while SotS doesn't have PBEM, but my understanding is that these could respectively be implemented, with some effort.)



3) Simultaneous turns with simultaneous movement and combat :

+ The fastest MP gameplay

- Not having a clear idea as to when an enemy unit will move makes this combine the worst features of RTS and TBS, often the player that manages to click the fastest wins.

- No possible Hotseat or PBEM

Examples:

Endless Space, Alpha Centauri, (Civilization 5?), HoMM 5 before heroes have defeated all the neutral armies that separate them.



My own preference is 2 > 1 > 3 (because the chaos of simultaneous movement is such a deal-breaker to me).



What kind of MP design do you prefer?

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Personally, I always prefer 1) and 3) as the multiplayer (and single player, for that matter) solution in my turn-based games. I understand the desire to keep players active in a multiplayer game so they do not abandon a game out of boredom, but when I play a turn-based game, I want it to be actual turn-based. Simultaneous turns are, As "Yahtzee" Croshaw once put it: "It's like an opponent in chess flicking elastic bands at your pawns while you're trying to think." If I want "move, feign, and counter-move" I will go play a proper RTS instead, cutting out the wait time of processing the end of turn.

I think you meant to say 1) and 2)?



After playing EL it dawned on me that you could have separate multiplayer designs for strategic and tactical (when the game makes tactical a separate instance, unlike in Civilization games). So, EL seems to be 3) for strategic, but 2) for tactical (as well as ES, even though the combat turns there are on a fixed timer). And SotS has 2) for strategic, but RTS (let's call it option 4) for tactical.

All of the above, depending on what I choose? Civ V does it.



I know this is going to sound impossible, but I really think you guys should aim for making this everything Civ V is except way cooler.



My number one pet pony in this race is LAN play. I play strategy games on my LAN in LAN parties, as they were meant to be played. If a game can't do that, I don't buy it. Yes, it's that serious.



I just hope you folks at Amplitude take your time and do this thing thoroughly, because I tell ya - the impulse that made me buy into this is the promise of more depth than Civ V. It's a sentiment I hear echoed by a lot of people. I understand that is not an easy goal. But look at the one problem Firaxis has with Civ - they CAN'T go back and start over just to get the very fine-tuned things the players want. You guys have that opportunity.



So LAN, LAN, LAN, and all the turn cycling methodology options the players can name. All of the above.



And while we're on the subject - it's also wonderful how Civ V has options for what KIND of player: AI, Human, Human Required, Observer, etc.

I would of course have no problem with it being included as an option, though it would be a disaster for sequential to be the only choice.



I'd rather have a multi-player game in which I was able to get games completed, even if the mechanics are too chaotic for my sequential mind (I suffer in simultaneous), than to have one where I am comfortable during my turn but the games never play out because the pace puts people to sleep.

Quantum, there are multiple 4X games arguably better than Civ5 that also allow LAN play.



The problem is that Amplitude does not have nearly the same means as Firaxis... and is likely to choose the most popular option, even if it's not necessarily the best one (depending on your definition of "best")



Dalwin, one solution to that is PBEM.

Have done a few PBEM games and for something like a WWII grand strategy game with monthly or quarterly turns (30-60 total turn range) you can sometimes finish a game. For a 4x game with hundreds of turns, it would take years to finish one and none of the players would maintain interest that long.

It is a problem, but people play it nonetheless. Space Empires 4/5 has, if I'm not mistaken a record of the longest game having taken more than a year. It also tended to have game turns in the daily - weekly range (that's with simultaneous turns).

The secret I think is to find people that are dedicated and / or to make replacement of players easy.

I agree with the OP, #3 is retarded and the worst one.



Why the hell would anyone want "click first, go first" in a TBS? I see it as lazy development rather than intentional design, I don't believe any designer would seriously argue that it's better.