Quicker game mechanics

[Caeb]

another problem with allies moving simultaneously is that it would give a turn advantage to the allied team that moves first... that's why you see team games with 1221 instead of 1122 as the default turn order of players...

[Noy]

Caeb wins.

[TruePurple]

*gives Caeb his prize, a rubber chicken*

Thats rather a minor issue, one that exists just as well in a 1vrs1 as it does with team game. Even with staggered turns it exists to a certain degree. (still someone first on list and still someone last and with 4 or 6 or 8 turns thats going be rather significant, verses just 2 or 3 turns with this idea)

But it would be worth it for many people I think. it would simply make things so much quicker.

Kestenvarn is right that it would require good communication to make sure you respect each others movements plans, But then thats required to a certain degree anyways. Even with single turns if you don't talk to allies about what your doing your not going to do as well.

[Jetrel]

Allowing all players to move simultaneously would be one of the single greatest improvements we could ever make to multiplayer, since it would make games of any number of players all take the same amount of time. It would level the playing field between TBS and RTS; currently an RTS game takes a (literal) fraction of the time a game of wesnoth does, because everyone moves at the same time. Many larger games right now (>5 players) are basically unseen, because they take too dang long to play.

Unfortunately, it would not work without significantly altering the basic game mechanics of wesnoth as it is, because of conflicts like "if two players move something to the same hex, then what happens?" It would be such an invasive change that it wouldn't -be- wesnoth, proper. This is not reasonable to do to wesnoth at this late hour.


However, any future TBS games I make will absolutely have this as a design point. For whatever that's worth.

[TruePurple]

I'm just talking about allied games though jetrl since it eliminates issues of fast clicking and zone of control.

"if two players move something to the same hex, then what happens?"

Dang nabbit! I replied to that one already, several times. And noones said that solutions unfeasable. In what way would it be "invasive" Such grandiose words without much specific meaning ("wesnoth, proper" *scuffs* Oh yeah that really adds reason to the conversation)

Imagine for survival/RPG games especially, since everyones on the same team. Those would be much faster with many people.

[zookeeper]

Allowing all players to move simultaneously would be one of the single greatest improvements we could ever make to multiplayer, since it would make games of any number of players all take the same amount of time. It would level the playing field between TBS and RTS; currently an RTS game takes a (literal) fraction of the time a game of wesnoth does, because everyone moves at the same time. Many larger games right now (>5 players) are basically unseen, because they take too dang long to play.

Unfortunately, it would not work without significantly altering the basic game mechanics of wesnoth as it is, because of conflicts like "if two players move something to the same hex, then what happens?" It would be such an invasive change that it wouldn't -be- wesnoth, proper. This is not reasonable to do to wesnoth at this late hour.


However, any future TBS games I make will absolutely have this as a design point. For whatever that's worth.

Just remember that if a player gains and advantage by being quick in a TBS, it's not really a TBS anymore (exception: turn time limits).

If you'd ask me, the right way to do simultaneous turns is for each player to just mark their moves at the same time, and then, when they all have signaled they're ready or when the turn timer runs out, the game resolves all the moves and sorts out conflicts according to rules at the same time. Basically the system used by many board games; all players write down the orders they're going to make, all of which are then revealed simultaneously and then resolved in a deterministic manner. Allows for simultaneous turns and doesn't give anyone an advantage for being a fast clicker.

A really bad way would be to just pretend to have a TBS but allow players to do their moves and have them applied/resolved simultaneously. In a skirmish, it'd basically deteriorate into a contest of who's fastest, because whoever acts first tends to have the advantage. At that point, it's really an RTS; fine, but it probably shouldn't pretend to be a partial TBS either nor have TBS elements which would mostly just get in the way of the game-deciding RTS action.

For instance, if one took Wesnoth, implemented rules and mechanisms that would eliminate the problems of two units trying to move to the same location and so on, and then allowed players to do their turns simultaneously, it'd be unimaginably lame. Whoever hadn't toggled all animations off, for instance, would have an immense disadvantage since watching them takes away precious time you could have used to ulf the enemy shaman before the enemy shaman slows your ulf, because which happens first is just a matter of who's faster to click. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean that you'd do things like this exactly, but I felt like rambling a bit about it anyway.

[TruePurple]

Zookeeper please keep on topic. We are talking about simultanous allie turns. Noone of what you talked about applies then. Thus it becomes much simplier and we wouldn't need to use your suggestions.

[Dave]

IMO simultaneous ally moves would be a great feature to have. I wanted to implement it a long time ago, but never got around to it. (Unfortunately, we've never become near as good at writing things involving network code as we have at things that are entirely local).

Simultaneous ally moves would allow things like 4 vs 4 games to be rather feasible, and would make co-operative campaigns significantly more fun.

David