Turn Timer - A Quick Fix for Slow Multiplayer

[Papa John]

Here's my idea:

The turn timer should remain at 30 seconds up until the year 1000 CE. After that year, it should revert to 60 seconds.


This will greatly speed up the multiplayer games. It's frustrating to wait the entire sixty seconds just for someone to end their turn when the game has only just begun. There's no need to take a full sixty seconds early-on.


Some may not agree with the year 1000, so maybe even the year 0 would do. It would just be nice to cut the timer down for the first half of the game. Perhaps this would increase activity in multiplayer as games would not take three hours to complete.

[ShadowXOR]

Definitely should be capped at 30 seconds for the early game, great idea, doubt we'll ever see it happen though...

[Leo]

yeh, i have been in games with players online who's entire strategy appears to be to bore everyone into submission by using 60 seconds on every single turn right from turn one.

it works too, because ill be damned if im going waste my time waiting for these people.

on the other hand, ive had guys ***** at me because i took 5 seconds on the first turn, moving my workers to 4 production, heh.

[deadbuffalo]

While I generally think some people take way too long with their turns early on, i think the turn timer is fine as is. 30 seconds wouldn't be enough time for someone who had rushed warriors and had to sit through combat animations every turn. Some civs/players just have more to do early on. I got made fun of one game where no one else was exploring and I was accumulating tons of cash for taking my time early on. Kinda hard when you have horsemen, galleys, settlers, archers all spread out over the world because everyone else is too lazy/lousy to actually explore.

I think the slow turns happens from people who stare at their city screens or diplomacy without realizing that this un-ends their turns for the most part though.

[eireksten]

I think the slow turns happens from people who stare at their city screens or diplomacy without realizing that this un-ends their turns for the most part though.

Very true. When I'm waiting for someone to finish their turn, I immediately open diplomacy (to see who's still doing something). I don't think this should un-end turns until you actually choose to do some diplomacy.

I can imagine there must have been a deadlock several times where two people were waiting for eachother like this...

[NorrecV]

You can tell who has not ended their turn by looking at the color of the turn timer itself. Each color is a differnt civilization that needs to press B. White means everyones ended and will only last for a second before the Cogs pop in. Unless there are two people playing the same civs and one of them gets white.

Sometimes there is a lot to do in the early game. Such as deciding where to put cities and what not. I think the people who sit in games saying "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up..." are just noobs that don't know the game well enough to fill up their turn. Eventually you'll reach a point where the turn timer is too short to get everything done in one turn. You'll have units not getting moved or a city you don't get to capture because your screen was jumping around before you got to do it. Who is to say how long it takes each player to reach that point?

[xbman22x]

i whole heartedly agree with the op.

[MorteEterna]

I need some seconds for the first turn, I'm fast but sometimes when I have a lot of warriors and barbarian villages I could need 40-50 seconds in the first 30 turns, so I think it's not a good fix.

[Leo]

you know what would be quite cool, some extra stats, how about an 'average turn time' stat next to people's name (along with some other stats, this game feels lacking in viewable stats for a strategy game, other things could be average victory time, % of games as tech leader etc).

would be kinda cool i think.