I highly agree with gaelicWarrior. If 5 players have to wait for more than 1-2 min for each battle the others fight, no one will play MP.
playing one on one with a friend is great fun with long strategic battles, but its not MP.
I played many Amplitude Games and the first and legendary and highly recommendable Endless Space had that problem that MP was difficult, not due to the battles since they were autoresolved, but simply because a game could be over 300 turns and roughly anywhere between 3-8hrs.

So I would agree that a Combat system, that allows players to progress the Battle while others wont need to wait (maybe a battle over several turns? one movement/attack for each unit, each Overworldturn?), would be great for MP!
And why not have a slightly different combat mode for SP and MP? Let us choose wether we want just autoresolve or a quick combat Mode in MP. In Endless Space you could put ships in different positions and give them different fire modi while therer were 3 kinds of dmg and according defenses. Maybe Humankind can have something similar.

For Example, before the Battle you decide where your infantery, artillery and bowmen stand and wether they act aggressive, guarding, passive... And you give similar orders to your cavalry, then the battle goes on and you can only once maybe change each units tactic? Your bad luck if you ordered your Cavalry to charge in on the left side and then find out your enemy had his spearmen waiting there.

blaze051806 wrote:

in the Civ 6 world. we simply use a who ever click first gets a first move in the combat. the combat is based on numbers but is 100% instant. sometimes players can get 3-4 moves off before another can react this style of rush war fair is very fun and it adds new levels of stratigy to this style of game. all id like to ask is you really test both systems out before going into one fully because picking one really removes tactics from the other thanks for reading

I compleltely disagree that "whoever clicks first gets the advantage" is a fun, fair and tactically meaningful battle system.

I can see that it saves time, and I too am worried that the current humankind battle system may lead to problems in multiplayer. I hope they can reach a balance between deep and meaningful combat, while also not becoming boring for everyone else. Of course they can adjust the amount of rounds per turn, but even then having multiple frontlines can make a turn take long.

I think it's not as bad as you may expect though, because of several reasons:

1. Units tend to be grouped in armies, leading to fewer battles with more units (but all units in an army take a "round turn" at the same time.
2. Armies near each other can join the same battle, leading to even fewer individual battles.
3. Battles have a limited amount of rounds per turn, meaning the game will never grind to a halt.
4. There is a soft-cap on total number of armies.

GaelicWarrior wrote:

WARNING: IF MP battles are in Endless LEgend style this game will die online as fast at that game did. Civ style fighting is the only style that works online for turn based games. A game of MP civ takes 3-7h+ as it is. Adding more time for mini combat screens isn't viable. I loved Endless Legend but it died online. I loved AOW Planetfall but it died online. In fact it never had anyone playing it past the frirst week.If Amplitude are smart they will adopt the civ style, perhaps improve it with smart balanced units and player choices and we can have a real competitor to Civ.

Is the concern that if your friend is having a battle, you have to wait, if he has 2 or 3 her turn could take a long time, or is it that player to player battles take too long?

You're incorrect on the turn modes. What you describe is the dynamic turn mode. This mode allows simultaneous play until war, when the warring players go into phased turn mode. Its very rare for this mode to be used in mp Civ, because of the turn lengths and the other players having to wait. Simultaneous mode had everything happen in real-time within the turn. This gives you the potential for "horror clicking game" you refer to. 

I feel the phased combat system of HK is a major drawback to online play. You'd have to have dedicated groups playing as major battles will take considerable time online with the phased combat system. Some players will find the phased combat a major part of their game enjoyment experience and not play online if not included. I believe many players will tire of the waiting game if the phased combat system is used. I would be interested in viewing a video of the players doing the testing of the multiplayer game, to get a feel for the pacing of the online gamer.

Yes, I though about dynamic turn mode, you are right. And yes, I would love to test MP too! I am playing competitive since 2001, mostly in RTS. And I do not like playing Civ6/HK like a RTS game, because that is not what it build for.