7 days of MP and these are my concerns 2KGreg

[shozum]

Been running MP with 4 other players, 3 on average, and I've logged over 7 days of time in CiV MP now. Thought 2K/Firaxis might appreciate some opinionated feedback

1) Saves. Please allow us to manually save games and to name our saves, as this reduces the hassle of flipping through save files or losing previous sessions due to starting new ones.

2) Loading. Allow us to load a game as private since I can almost guarantee that if we started a game as private, we wish it to remain that way when we renew the session. Random peeps in a game that is 1/2 way through just causes disappointment for the new guy and frustration for us since we get kicked to the loading screen when he DCs from the game.
2a) Allow us to load a game without all the previous players present. I might have an extra 20 minutes or so before a renewed session where I want to just look over the map, my massive empire, troop layouts and such. I don't mind the game restricting me to only logging in as my own civ, but I hate waiting for a few randoms to join my game just to load it up and then explain to them that they just wasted 5 minutes of their time in load screens because this game is 1/2 way through and all I'm doing is taking a peeksy at it.

3) DLC as MP content. I paid for DLC that was advertised on Steam as MP. It is not. I haven't heard from anyone that it will be, that it's in the works, nothing, nada, zilch. If you are working on it great! Let your community know. If it's never going to be an option for MP, let your community know. I bought it thinking that I was adding a civ to my line-up for use when I logged into Steam, I also thought the map packs I recieved because of where or how I purchased my copy of CiV would be avaiable in MP. No where on the box, in the manual, on your site, on steam, or in the game does it list that these are SP only options and I find that disturbing to say the least.

4) Pings. Please list each players latency in relation to the host not only in the game hosting screen when we first go to start a session but as a dropdown while in game. This way we can optomize sessions based off of latency hopefully reducing DCs, lag induced turns from bad connections, and random bumps to the loading screen.

5) Here come a new challenger! Allow an invited player who isn't on the roster currently to pick out and play an AIs slot. If an AI can take over for a human player, the reverse should be true both mid game and during the hosting screen at the start of a session. I could see some issues with a random peep joining, but an invited player is obviously being invited for some reason. Another suggestion is to allow a recently defeated player to take over a remaining AI slot.

6) Turn timers. Bring back more options for faster speeds on these please.

7) End of Turn. While I am waiting for my opponents to end their turns, please expand the options available to me. Even if the effects don't happen until the next turn, I should still be able to see that the game has registered my qeued decision. I should be able to SEE the adjusted units automated movement path, SEE the adjustment to my citizens working in my cities, as well as SEE which tile I just clicked to purchase or which building I just clicked to burn. The audio clues are nice but they should be combined with visual ones. Having a window for qeued diplomacy would also be a big benefit as well as allowing multiple offers to be sent to different civs during this time. I would suggest you designate a color to qeued commands and changes so that the player can easily determine that while he has 670 gold currently (during his waiting on other players phase) the 540 in red beside his gold means that 540 gold will be spent at the beginning of the next turn on qeued commands.

8) Hotseat. Nuff said.

[shozum]

These are MP specific concerns and requests that I personally would like to see addressed. I am sure there are more from other players.

[Sombra]

Not to be sarcastic but do you really expect an answer?

Up to now there are no promises to fix multiplayer. For all that we know for Firaxis MP is fine. I thnik you can count on one hand the number of answers given in this part of the forum by the moderators and even less by a programmer.


I thnik all your points are valid and important and I would love to see a statment but right now I dont think MP will be fixed soon or not at all.

[shozum]

A response, meh, not really. Something along the lines of "I'll forward this to our team" would be awesome lol. Even a "It's under discussion and these observations help but it'll be another year before our backlogged patch schedule can handle additional items" would be ok I guess.

I agree though Sombra, MP feels like the redheaded step child of a downs syndrome family at the moment.

[Wavemanmav]

Just to help you out on one issue (until and if mp gets fixed), you can load a originally private game and still make it private. You have to "host game" as private, then load your game.

[shozum]

We've tried that and for some reason it doesn't host it as private upon reloading since we've had randoms join us as an AI civ on several occasions. Both in game and at the host screen. Works well when the game is initially created and if it's only human players left and they have joined another player cannot then join in, but if a single AI is left...well, it can be taken over.

[Wavemanmav]

We've tried that and for some reason it doesn't host it as private upon reloading since we've had randoms join us as an AI civ on several occasions. Both in game and at the host screen. Works well when the game is initially created and if it's only human players left and they have joined another player cannot then join in, but if a single AI is left...well, it can be taken over.

Hmm. That is odd. Let me tell you what my friend and I do, and I hope it works for you. I have hosted all the games. I create the game as private, but that only seems to last for that particular session. When we get back on the next day, I just make sure to check off the private game box, host and then load the saved game. It works every time. I know it works, because when I have forgotten to check the box, I have seen people pop in, but never when I check the private box. If this does not work for you, try exiting the game before you load again as private. Hope this helps.

[gskills]

good points but 2kforums does not read this (even tho they say they do) and its been a month of no real response so i dont think they give a dam, im sure they simply hire people for the marketing dept vs the programming dept.

[shozum]

Hmm. That is odd. Let me tell you what my friend and I do, and I hope it works for you. I have hosted all the games. I create the game as private, but that only seems to last for that particular session. When we get back on the next day, I just make sure to check off the private game box, host and then load the saved game. It works every time. I know it works, because when I have forgotten to check the box, I have seen people pop in, but never when I check the private box. If this does not work for you, try exiting the game before you load again as private. Hope this helps.

I'll give it a twirl. Generally I host, but since the game currently only allows autosaves and we have odd combinations of people every night playing, we're generally running 5-6 games at a time and some older autosaves always seem to get deleted. When we almost lost a 15+ hour 4 person game due to numerous restarts in a smaller game of only 2, we started spreading out who hosts. Hopefully by passing this on to others, we can avoid the randoms joining and leaving in our personal games.

As for 2K/Firaxis reading this thread, it's here. If they read it so be it, if not, their loss.

[Bantams]

I'm Supprised that a fully functional region free games lobby wasn't on your'e list

[lbfelix]

1) Saves. Please allow us to manually save games and to name our saves, as this reduces the hassle of flipping through save files or losing previous sessions due to starting new ones.

To workaround this issue I usually use the "CTRL + S" trick.
It works, no need to search the right game through anonymous autosave games; but for a little cost: to be able to load games saved with CTRL+S you need to:

1) put it into the right folder
It should appear like this
C:\Users\***YOURWINDOWSUSERNAME***\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\multi\YourSavedGameViaCTRLS.Civ5Save
You must copy it into this directory
C:\Users\***YOURWINDOWSUSERNAME***\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\multi\auto\

2) rename it according with the AutoSave_*.Civ5Save filename standard. So it should became
C:\Users\***YOURWINDOWSUSERNAME***\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\multi\auto\AutoSave_YourSavedGameViaCTRLS. Civ5Save

Ok, work is done, you will find your manually saved game in the "load" menu

[shozum]

Another great tip here. Thanks a bunch and I'll pass this on to the group!

[shozum]

I'm Supprised that a fully functional region free games lobby wasn't on your'e list

Not until I get a ping detector do I want to even try a region free game of any sort. No thank you good sir!

[domicron]

1) Saves.
unnecessary for save we have auto save and games should all be completed in one session anyways so whats prob

2) Loading. Allow us to load a game as private since I can almost guarantee that if we started a game as private, we wish it to remain that way when we renew the session. Random peeps in a game that is 1/2 way through just causes disappointment for the new guy and frustration for us since we get kicked to the loading screen when he DCs from the game.
you should welcome your civ5 player brethren into your games i dont understand prob dont you want pubbies in your games it fosters community spirit


2a) Allow us to load a game without all the previous players present. I might have an extra 20 minutes or so before a renewed session where I want to just look over the map, my massive empire, troop layouts and such. I don't mind the game restricting me to only logging in as my own civ, but I hate waiting for a few randoms to join my game just to load it up and then explain to them that they just wasted 5 minutes of their time in load screens because this game is 1/2 way through and all I'm doing is taking a peeksy at it.
this is cheating and violates eula you should not laod without everyone there and no AI allowed either cheater learn to play fair

3) DLC as MP content. I paid for DLC that was advertised on Steam as MP. It is not. I haven't heard from anyone that it will be, that it's in the works, nothing, nada, zilch. If you are working on it great! Let your community know. If it's never going to be an option for MP, let your community know. I bought it thinking that I was adding a civ to my line-up for use when I logged into Steam, I also thought the map packs I recieved because of where or how I purchased my copy of CiV would be avaiable in MP. No where on the box, in the manual, on your site, on steam, or in the game does it list that these are SP only options and I find that disturbing to say the least.
you cant buy multiplayer advantages all dlc content is not balanced bc we rushed it out to make a few more bucks since you were dumb enough to buy unfinished game but we cant let you buy multiplayer advantage cheater

4) Pings. Please list each players latency in relation to the host not only in the game hosting screen when we first go to start a session but as a dropdown while in game. This way we can optomize sessions based off of latency hopefully reducing DCs, lag induced turns from bad connections, and random bumps to the loading screen.
game is region locked to ensure you only play with people in your region with good ping the archaic days of seeing ping are long gone friend welcome to the future

5) Here come a new challenger! Allow an invited player who isn't on the roster currently to pick out and play an AIs slot. If an AI can take over for a human player, the reverse should be true both mid game and during the hosting screen at the start of a session. I could see some issues with a random peep joining, but an invited player is obviously being invited for some reason. Another suggestion is to allow a recently defeated player to take over a remaining AI slot.
no this idea is not a good one because

6) Turn timers. Bring back more options for faster speeds on these please.
we carefully crafted tuirn timer to be exactly as long as it needs to be it took extensive testing and i take offense that you sugest its wrong maybe you should reevaluate your turns in this complex game there is much to do

7) End of Turn. While I am waiting for my opponents to end their turns, please expand the options available to me. Even if the effects don't happen until the next turn, I should still be able to see that the game has registered my qeued decision. I should be able to SEE the adjusted units automated movement path, SEE the adjustment to my citizens working in my cities, as well as SEE which tile I just clicked to purchase or which building I just clicked to burn. The audio clues are nice but they should be combined with visual ones. Having a window for qeued diplomacy would also be a big benefit as well as allowing multiple offers to be sent to different civs during this time. I would suggest you designate a color to qeued commands and changes so that the player can easily determine that while he has 670 gold currently (during his waiting on other players phase) the 540 in red beside his gold means that 540 gold will be spent at the beginning of the next turn on qeued commands.
what does this queued mean

8) Hotseat. Nuff said.[/QUOTE]
archaic throwback to 1990 just buy another computer they are cheap look at dell

[shozum]

LOL Domicron. Here is my rebuttals good sir
1) Game too long, ragequit
2) Pubbies hard to coordinate additional sessions with, ragequit
2a) When we resume a session, nothing has changed but I don't need to spend 30 minutes reviewing my awesome l33t empire which makes my companions ragequit
3) Rushed DLC is bad mmkay, non MP DLC for me is bad mmkay, pure SP will make me ragequit
4) While I have a multitude of international friends, none own CiV as of yet so this isn't a problem since I only play with EST peeps
5) ??? um....ragequit?
6) When turns are taking 15+ mins a piece for the turn timer to tick down yet everyone is consistantly finished in 5, well, ragequit
7) qeued means to put in line, or to be next to ragequit after the person in front of you does so
8) I wouldn't own a Dell if they gave one to me. Besides, not sure if a Dell brand PC would even run CiV correctly which would make me ragequit.

[Masterpinpin]

after lot and lot of Mp i agree every thing you said Shozum, Domicron for being disagree seems you didn't play the multi a lot.

For 5 i think someone can join via steam. Some people can just join your game taking ia.

Totally agree for the saves. Using some stupids specials actions on windows while we should just name a game ???
Personnally i'm with 5-6 players and we have turnovers. Sometimes we have 2 games on play but the autosave by turn isn't working well and still saving all turns so the last game is erased.


Close to your 7. Why suspending action when we clicked end turn ???? End turn button is set for giving the info to the game we are ready but we have an exemple pretty stupid :
Wars. The players allways wait a turn you made fast to declare war and attack you. Seems there is one turn with no defense for your troops.
Allowing to move the troops after the end turn button clicked should avoid stupid situations (sometimes players just wait to play after you to profit you static...)

[shozum]

Close to your 7. Why suspending action when we clicked end turn ???? End turn button is set for giving the info to the game we are ready but we have an exemple pretty stupid :
Wars. The players allways wait a turn you made fast to declare war and attack you. Seems there is one turn with no defense for your troops.
Allowing to move the troops after the end turn button clicked should avoid stupid situations (sometimes players just wait to play after you to profit you static...)

This caused some serious issues when our previously cooperative game went into a raging PvPfest due to the last AI being eliminated and one of our group holding a grudge from a Civ IV game back in January (lol inorite). The only way I could explain it is to say that the attacker always has the advantage of first strike in that the defender must react to his initial aggression and invasion force. The defender gets the advantage of being in home territory though as a ton of combat bonuses can be gained due to being inside your own lands.
But yes, there were plenty of turns where both sides refused to move until one or the other had ended their turn.

[Masterpinpin]

Agreed on the fact that being defender often give huge bonus but just few turns with "no mover until the end" are enough to take seriously on the nerves. When the turn time is 5 minutes on late era and you are not engaged on the war, the thing can be very upsetting.

[shozum]

Agreed on the fact that being defender often give huge bonus but just few turns with "no mover until the end" are enough to take seriously on the nerves. When the turn time is 5 minutes on late era and you are not engaged on the war, the thing can be very upsetting.

HA! You should feel lucky with only 5 minute turn timers. We do Epic speed on Large map and that thing runs about 20 mins a turn during modern eras...