Multiplayer

Implementing Tactical Battles or Multiplayer would destroy the AI.

If you tried to shove tactical battles directly into the game core then yes. It would be possible to create a seperate 'mini battle game' similar to what is used in that old game 'Lords of the realm 2' It is a turn based game but with real time mini battles. You can choose to auto calculate the battle if you don't wan't to take the feild. Not that i am suggesting it is somthing i would want in Galciv, but just to show that it would be possible unlike what you suggest.

Multiplay already works using cheat codes but only on the same machine. Nothing more needs to be said.

All of the rest, including CIV4, are bug infested piles of cow feces that got that way by poorly implementing multiplayer and/or tactical combat

Your post is a little narrow minded for somone with your alleged experience.

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If you tried to shove tactical battles directly into the game core then yes. It would be possible to create a seperate 'mini battle game' similar to what is used in that old game 'Lords of the realm 2' It is a turn based game but with real time mini battles. You can choose to auto calculate the battle if you don't wan't to take the feild. Not that i am suggesting it is somthing i would want in Galciv, but just to show that it would be possible unlike what you suggest.

The AI would not be able to win the tactical battle against an experienced human player. lets say there are two fleets of 16 ships apiece (16*16) with 4 unique tactics (32*4) with weapons facing and 4 weapons per ship (16*4*4(facing))*16*4*4) on a grid that was 16 by 16 (16*16-32) by 10 turns with each ship having 4 movement points with facing costing nothing to change 16*4*4 per fleet therefore:
16*16 ship interactions
32*4 tactical choice interactions
16*4*4*16*4*4 weapon interactions
2(16*4*4)^10 movement interactions in an 16*16-32 sized field.
Now there are admittedly a huge number of interactions that can be pruned to simplify the problem space but we are pruning the following number just for movement: 2417851639229258349412352
This problem is beyond the realm of a desktop computer to optimize in any amount of reasonable time. Therefore the computer moves will have to be scripted and once scripted the players will figure them out and will win every tactical battle every time so why even bother implementing them in the first place when we can get other features.

Multiplay already works using cheat codes but only on the same machine. Nothing more needs to be said

And the AI breaks down trying to deal with two players. So the players end up competing with one another and either destroying the AI or not playing against it in the first place. Now this may not be a concern for multiplayer fanatics as they all think the AI sucks anyway

, but I paid for a TBS to play by myself with the best AI written for such a game. If I want to play multiplayer and get hacked and cheated on and end up having to quit half way through because my opponent has a real life to live I will play CIV4 modified to be spacey.

Your post is a little narrow minded for somone with your alleged experience.

no more narrow minded than:

Now - where's the multiplayer? This is not 1994 anymore people.
This is 2010. Well, almost. 2007 Quarter three.
Quit making excuses. No one is asking Stardock to host a mp infrastructure - use Gamespy for that. Just add mp into the game.

My experience pays the bills for a family of 4 living in a 5 bedroom house in Virginia on 1 salary. I could go on about this topic forever but I had hoped that:

Before anyone says that the AI SUCKS lets see their high score in the Metaverse playing the Iconians on Suicidal as a Good(ethics) player.
.....Chirp....Chirp....

Would have indicated that the post was to be understood as a combination of sarcasm and bitter experience with companies like Firaxis that had caved to the incessant whining of Multiplayer Bigots who think that human to human competitive interactions are best mediated by computer and not face to face. Oh how fondly I recall my college days drinking beer and playing Advanced Squad Leader with my Comp Sci buddies.

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The AI would not be able to win the tactical battle against an experienced human player.

Well if a human player had nothing to gain from strategic combat then there would be no point in having it. Like i said before, i don't know if it would be a good thing for Galciv or not, but i do see some potential in it.

And the AI breaks down trying to deal with two players.

Breaks down? If anything it would work more efficiently because it has less races to controll.

So the players end up competing with one another and either destroying the AI or not playing against it in the first place. Now this may not be a concern for multiplayer fanatics as they all think the AI sucks anyway , but I paid for a TBS to play by myself with the best AI written for such a game. If I want to play multiplayer and get hacked and cheated on and end up having to quit half way through because my opponent has a real life to live I will play CIV4 modified to be spacey.

Now this point has some undeniable truth to it! lol

no more narrow minded than:

Now - where's the multiplayer? This is not 1994 anymore people.
This is 2010. Well, almost. 2007 Quarter three.
Quit making excuses. No one is asking Stardock to host a mp infrastructure - use Gamespy for that. Just add mp into the game.

Ok lets see now, where to start... well i don't see a generalisation about "all the rest", i dont see an insult, "bug infested piles of cow feces" and finally i do not see him putting the game down "poorly implementing multiplayer and/or tactical combat".

Need any more help understanding narrow minded?

My experience pays the bills for a family of 4 living in a 5 bedroom house in Virginia on 1 salary.

Thats nice, but what it has do do with the price of tea in china, i do not know?

I could go on about this topic forever but I had hoped that:

Before anyone says that the AI SUCKS lets see their high score in the Metaverse playing the Iconians on Suicidal as a Good(ethics) player.

I never said the AI sucks.

Would have indicated that the post was to be understood as a combination of sarcasm and bitter experience with companies like Firaxis that had caved to the incessant whining of Multiplayer Bigots who think that human to human competitive interactions are best mediated by computer and not face to face. Oh how fondly I recall my college days drinking beer and playing Advanced Squad Leader with my Comp Sci buddies.

Sarcasm is a wonderful thing, i would never begrudge anyone a good sarcastic winge! my apologies.

Whoever said sarcasm is the lowest form of wit must have been a bit soft in the head!!

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Actually it is the fine tuning that takes all the time... so Stardock could release a 'no frills' multiplayer similarly to the map editor they released for Galciv1 without too much effort... simply enable one or more of those already existing human players to connect from another machine. Any problems or bugs, who cares, its 'no frills'.

No.

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Actually it is the fine tuning that takes all the time... so Stardock could release a 'no frills' multiplayer similarly to the map editor they released for Galciv1 without too much effort... simply enable one or more of those already existing human players to connect from another machine. Any problems or bugs, who cares, its 'no frills'.

This is so wrong that I'm having trouble forming coherent sentences to refute it. I have stated repeatedly and gone into detail why it is not trivial to implement multiplayer, let alone fun multiplayer, in the multiplayer sticky thread. Also, there is no such thing as a "who cares, it's a no frills game." We'd get crucified.

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Multiplay already works using cheat codes but only on the same machine. Nothing more needs to be said.

Also, it's not real multiplayer. It's just a cheat key to let you take control of an AI player. There's no infrastructure at all for playing true hotseat mode in the game, and after awhile of switching between multiple players you can start getting odd results.

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Also, there is no such thing as a "who cares, it's a no frills game." We'd get crucified.

Yea i can see that happening, no way to stop people looking a gift horse in the mouth i guess.

put an alias name to it! "oh but we didn't make it, it's a third party mod" lol

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Also, there is no such thing as a "who cares, it's a no frills game." We'd get crucified.

Yea i can see that happening, no way to stop people looking a gift horse in the mouth i guess.

put an alias name to it! "oh but we didn't make it, it's a third party mod" lol

There might be some unpleasant legal ramifications from causing a hapless third party to be crucified

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There might be some unpleasant legal ramifications from causing a hapless third party to be crucified

Only if money changed hands and guarrantees made.

CariElf/Kryo, do you guys regret making the map editor for galciv1? because of complaints?

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put an alias name to it! "oh but we didn't make it, it's a third party mod" lol

You still seem to be under the impression that hacking multiplayer into GalCiv2 would be trivial to do. It's not.

CariElf/Kryo, do you guys regret making the map editor for galciv1? because of complaints?

I regret that it was buggy in the first place. We didn't release it intending to not support it, but there were a lot of things that the beta testers for Altarian Prophecy didn't report. They were more interested in playing the game early than actually beta testing, and a lot of them didn't even bother making bug reports. They just stopped playing. By the time that Altarian Prophecy went gold, we were already working on Poltical Machine full swing, and we went directly from that into development for GalCiv2. At some point in the timeline, a modder made his own map editor which was less buggy than ours and posted it online, so we just pointed everyone to that.

I've really loved working on the GalCiv series, and I would hate to see it debased by a half-assed attempt at appeasing the vocal minority of people who want multiplayer.

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I'm curious, Mystikmind, as one of the more vocal multiplayer advocates here, how much experience do you have with programming, game design, etc?

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some more logic - when people want something, but know they might not get it... these are the people that scream.

That can be true! Or in relationships if the guy isn't getting somthing he want's... (if you know what i mean!) then he won't scream about it at all, he will quietly go and download porn!! lol

so what your saying is, if you know you can't get it... go get another game!!!

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had our internet go down for several days, sorry.

You still seem to be under the impression that hacking multiplayer into GalCiv2 would be trivial to do. It's not.

You did qualify that 'impression' by adding previously "Also, there is no such thing as a "who cares, it's a no frills game." We'd get crucified." I chose to run with that.

regret that it was buggy in the first place. We didn't release it intending to not support it, but there were a lot of things that the beta testers for Altarian Prophecy didn't report.

Thanks for the reply Carielf, it is good to get a better insight such as this.

I've really loved working on the GalCiv series, and I would hate to see it debased by a half-assed attempt at appeasing the vocal minority of people who want multiplayer.

Succesful game companies are the ones that find ways of doing things, or at least keep an open mind on doing things that others think are too hard or not woth doing.

I'm curious, Mystikmind, as one of the more vocal multiplayer advocates here, how much experience do you have with programming, game design, etc?

Who me? vocal? (mystikmind looks behind him, nope no one standing there). I'm not passionate about multiplayer at all, i was just here in the forum and decided to voice an opinion and suggest some ideas, i did not realise that was such a terrible thing to do - but you guys soon showed me, mystikmind signing off.

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I've seen it in other games (Il-2, flight simulator), where the gaming base is divided between those who want multiplayer and those who prefer singleplayer. In my opinion you can either make a good singleplayer game or a good multiplayer game, but not a game that is good at both.

Implementing MP DOES take away from singleplayer. Budget, like Brad said. You have to prevent cheating. You have to do more balancing (look how many balance patches Blizzard releases). You get whining from the fans of certain races because they feel that they're not competitive any more. Singleplayer usually gets lost in the process.

I like the fact that the races don't have to be balanced in GC2. I like the fact that I can just play at any time I want, for how long I want. I like the fact that singleplayer doesn't seem like some 'left over' feature.

In fact, I strongly vote AGAINST multiplayer in GC3. GalCiv doesn't need it. It's one of the last dedicated, superb singleplayer games on the market.

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like has already been said, only a handful of existing players would buy an expannsion for multiplayer, but a lot of new players would buy it, example I would buy the expansion my 2 brothers would buy the game with expansion, so thaats an additional 2 new players buying the game, and 3 expansion packs being bought all from 1 existing customer who plays singlee player. so even if just 25% want multiplayer, and they each do as I will, thats 50% extra customers, 42% of total customers buying the expansion for mutliplayer.
And I think setting up a server for multiplayer would be a lot of work and money, so why not just not balance the civs, and bring in Direct IP connect multiplayer.

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I've seen it in other games (Il-2, flight simulator), where the gaming base is divided between those who want multiplayer and those who prefer singleplayer. In my opinion you can either make a good singleplayer game or a good multiplayer game, but not a game that is good at both.

Yes games are moving in the direction of specialisation nowdays. Things like multiplayer can be dropped depending on what specialisation is sort after. This leaves an opportunity for anyone who can develop a good multiplayer which is also a good single player. In other words, any company that can find a way of doing somthing that others cannot do, will have a big advantage.

I did also consider that not having a multiplayer in itself is an innovation - if most of your competitors are still including it in their games!

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You know what?

I'd buy a multiplayer expansion--multiplayer's cool, man.

But only if it didn't affect the game. So... only in Galciv3, probably. You see... how does diplomacy work in multiplayer? Etc!

Even if you could check the multiplayer checkbox, the game would be broken.

So, only if you can do that.

And no sweat, Stardock... I don't care enough for multiplayer: I mean how often can you actually play out a game with a friend?... only do it if there's an easy solution.

...Which there isn't. Aww.

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only do it if there's an easy solution.

...Which there isn't. Aww.

Half right, The thing is You don't know for certain there is not an easy solution to be discovered and Stardock will get little aid to finding such solutions from this forum if there going to scorn people trying to put ideas forward on multiplayer.

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I agree that, no matter how competent the AI can be made to perform, it's still not as satisfying an opponent as a human being. It's because GalCiv is such a great game that I want to play it versus a human opponent. I understand that focusing on single-player made resources available which allowed the game to become what it is. But, now that it's done, I'd love it if an expansion could be made which would implement multiplayer.

One other thing--when people say "multiplayer," it typically means playing live over the internet or a LAN. However, to me, the important thing is playing against a human. To that end, I would be happy if it were simply possible to PBEM GalCiv. At least, I'd be playing a person. And, for turn-based games, PBEM is probably better anyway. I'm quite content to sit down and take my time deciding what to do on a given turn, then emailing it to my opponent and waiting to take my next turn. Before the internet, people played chess--and other games--this way via regular mail, despite the time lag. I played Avalon Hill's Anzio with a guy in Spain--it was weeks between turns. So, waiting a day or two for an email opponent to get back to me would not be a problem. And, if PBEMing a game of GalCiv isn't sufficient for you, play more than one at the same time. That's not uncommon.

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Some of the funnest times I've ever had were doing weekends with mates of Civ2, Star Trek: BOTF, and Moo2. Nothing like online gameplay, but it was great to play with my mates over lans over the course of a weekend.

I'd always try to get people to try new things like a RTS or FPS but the thing is we could always do that at home anyway so they'd just wanna do the good 4x.

At this moment we want to try something new but unfortunately nothing good has come out. There is Civ 4, which was fun but we mostly enjoyed space 4x.

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As there definitely won´t be a support by Stardock for MP, Hotseat or otherwise, aren´t there any modders out there who are going to try something in that vein?

I find it strange that GalCiv2 doesn´t seem to have a real modding community, seeing how popular it is. Of course there aren´t many things that *need* to be modded, but some sort of multiplayer seems to be the obvious choice.

And, no, I don´t have the first idea on how to do that... I rely on friendly modders like most anybody else. ^^

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Multiplayer is something that simply can't be modded, as it would require access to the sourcecode.

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Well, damn.

I guess by the time the source code will be released, we´ll be seeing previews for GalCiv3, which, IIRC, will include multiplayer.

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I hope it doesn't. GalCiv works because it is singleplayer, the last true game that focuses on it. Multiplayer would take away too much in my opinion.

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I'm torn...

I want to play this game with my friend, as she and I both play this game pretty heavily.

However I've played Civ IV and going to play multiplayer with it is... a totally fail-tastic experience. Most games are military slugfests and no more, more about who can kill who with what units fastest than actually relaxing and enjoying the game, and GalCiv would be a poor game for that.

I'd really, really love a PBEM type option, though...so much.

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Multiplayer

Don't buy the "no multiplayer needed" argument