Improved Multiplayer

[Gandalf Parker]

As a moderator on forums, and customer service, Ive learned that its better to seem abit naive than to take something as a joke when it wasnt meant that way.

I was letting the conversation progress abit before bringing up that the needs of doing stale turns as AI have been discussed. And the idea of allowing a player to be turned AI while they are away doing something then coming back to play. But apparently both have problems. Switching a player to AI sets many variables for the nation that apparently cannot be set back again as far as the way the code is presently written.

However, as far as the "tired of waiting" thing..
I have suggested creating a game of "musical chairs" with 10 players where the game automatically hosts whenever it gets 9 files turned in. The last person to do their turn always gets left out. For some reason I get a picture in my head of the chess games where they slap the timer after each move.

You would do only the minumum actions then rush your turn in and curse over every second that passes waiting for it to host thinking that you could have done one thing more. But then next time you try to squeeze in another action and the game cuts you off.
MUHAHAhahahahahahh A very evil blitz game.

Gandalf Parker

[Maltrease]

I really like that idea Gandalf. Actually what would most likely happen is you do your most critical turn elements and submit it. Then go back and do more things and hope to have time to resubmit your turn.

Another idea would be to make the last player pay some kind of fine. Like 20-50 gold to each player depending on how many people are playing.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well the musical chairs thing can be done now on a linux server. The fine couldnt.

[danm]

I like your the mind-reading game server idea better Maltrease.

In fact, once implemented, you could extend the idea so that after submitting my turn, the hosting logic could change it so that it does what I SHOULD have done that turn instead of whatever idiotic thing I actually did.

I think there's some real potential there )

[Agrajag]

Wow, that's a really cool idea Gandalf. Though I know there's no way I could survive in such a game

[paradoxharbinger]

i don't understand the changing of a person to ai if they take too long, wouldn't this eventually devolve into an sp game for everyone? so say someone doesn't get done before you, are they booted out of the game, or forced to take the actions the ai decides for them? and in the case they are forced out of the game, what happens on thier end? 'woops, you took to long, you've been booted.'

on the other hand i do like the musical chairs idea, though maybe set the threshold at a fifth of the players in the game, so for a 15 player game, the last 3 get cut off. i think it would keep any one person from getting thoroughly trounced if they are especially slow, even out the battlefield a bit, so to speak.

[PashaDawg]

Why don't you play a blitz in the IRC channel? That's fast! You can play the game all afternoon... no waiting...

[Meglobob]

Maltrease said:
Gandalf, perhaps my post is a bit of a joke. I have a few minutes to kill while eating lunch and I DO NOT have any MP games available where I can submit a turn.

I have a solution for you, join more MP games, just like I do. I am currently in 8 (was 10 at one point), you always have a turn to do!

A couple of problems however, sometimes you can get overwhealmed having loads of turns to do, which can result in substandard play. Getting your head around playing so many different nations can result in headaches, as your brain overheats...

Seriously thou, I would like to be able to hand control to the AI for a time and then switch it back to human control. This would be a fantastic feature, great for when you take your hols, there is NO WAY that any 'mere' computer or machine could play like me or any other human. They just have not got the creativity or original thought.

[HoneyBadger]

I think what Maltrease is suggesting, paradoxharbinger, is that the game should have the ability to split into 20 or so independent SCs-more as the game's AI begins cloning itself.

When the number of worlds reaches 38, new players will be invited by the AI into the "game-matrix" and the AI will directly interface with those players' minds, spawning more and more worlds at an ever-increasing rate. When the number of independend game "worlds" grows to reach 1481, portals will begin to appear throughout the many alternate worlds, which units and nations can pass through.

At this point, the "AI-Overmind" will achieve full sentience. As each of the 1481 spawned worlds is conquered, it will collapse in upon itself, creating a "black-hole" anti-world, from which undead hordes will begin to crawl, sweeping through and consuming all life.

One of these portals will lead to our world, allowing the members of this forum ourselves to enter in our real bodies into the "game-matrix" and communicate with the "AI-Overmind" directly. The "Ai-Overmind" will grant us magical power and supernatural abilities directly related to our own personalities and icons.

We will be viewed by the populations of these positive and negative worlds as Pretenders, and will do battle against each other, using whatever abilities and technologies we can discover or invent.

When only one of us is left alive, that one-known for reasons of simplicity as "The One" will gain immortality and ascend to Dev-hood, alongside Kristoffer and Johan K in Sweden.

[Gandalf Parker]

Just another step in the plan for eventually playing Dominions as plugin to the Matrix. I want to BE my pretender!