Ah the ever struggle of asynchronous gameplay.

Originally, asynch games were developed for BBS, before the internet was even born, and they've evolved. We've seen them rear back their head back in 2008 and are stuck revisiting the complex issues of asynch gameplay.

First and foremost, to work efficiently, asynch gameplay can work in one of two ways:

- 'Ticks' are rare, and players have a long period of time to issue orders for that 'Tick' (my current 4X game is based around this concept, with each Tick taking anywhere between 1 to 3 days, depending on how aggressive the game is set to be).

- 'Ticks' are common, but forgiving. For this to occur, you have to give meaningful control to players that choose to login 3-4 times a day to do so all the while keeping longer term elements.

In E.V.E., though the game was mostly as MMO with limited persistence, players would choose what they wanted to research when they were online, but these researches/training would still carry on while the player was offline.

I think your best approach to this is similar to that: consider that the player avatar is permanent, and has its own ability to 'act' and treat the player as an advisor. Whenever the player pops in, he gets to direct the priorities of what the avatar will do during the day(s). If you can/wish, abstract actual control of movement. Say ships take a while to move, allow the player to set the ship helm for a given port, but let the movement AI worry about what path to take. That way, the player pops in, says he wants to reach 'Port A', and logs off for a few hours/days until he has arrived at his destination.

If possible, include a few AI controls such as: what do I do if I encounter an enemy during this time? Should I engage or flee? (note that I'm making wild guesses since I'm not very familiar with your game concept).

In my experience, asynch gameplay, when executed well, keeps having you coming back because it is dosing your ability to drain fun from it. You can't get bored by playing too much, when means it sinks in as a habit.

I'm currently registered on Planets.nu, and I always have 2-3 ongoing games at a time. On average, I get to play approx 15-30 minutes a day (one 'tick' in any of these games) so it is not very taxing on my life schedule, and it keeps me involved.

First and foremost, to work efficiently, asynch gameplay can work in one of two ways:

- 'Ticks' are rare, and players have a long period of time to issue orders for that 'Tick' (my current 4X game is based around this concept, with each Tick taking anywhere between 1 to 3 days, depending on how aggressive the game is set to be).

Doesn't this get boring very quick? Progress is rather slow so it will take days for anything meaningful to happen. Right?

I think your best approach to this is similar to that: consider that the player avatar is permanent, and has its own ability to 'act' and treat the player as an advisor. Whenever the player pops in, he gets to direct the priorities of what the avatar will do during the day(s). If you can/wish, abstract actual control of movement. Say ships take a while to move, allow the player to set the ship helm for a given port, but let the movement AI worry about what path to take. That way, the player pops in, says he wants to reach 'Port A', and logs off for a few hours/days until he has arrived at his destination.

If possible, include a few AI controls such as: what do I do if I encounter an enemy during this time? Should I engage or flee? (note that I'm making wild guesses since I'm not very familiar with your game concept).

That would require quite an advanced AI. Right now, players could order an army to march to the other side of a continent and with pathfinding it will find its way to that spot, but that's about as far as I can feasibly go. I can't imagine the coding horrors to program armies to engage other armies that are nearby without it being buggy or annoying to the player because it has engaged a superior army or didn't take into account any reinforcements etc.

Thanks for your response BTW.

In ogame your main resource is your fleet. If left on a planet it can be destroyed by an attacker, but if flying it cannot. So, when you go offline, you put your fleet moving toward a far planet, keeping an eye to the hour of arrival, which would be an hour in which you are online.

Maybe a similar concept can be useful for you?

This is exactly what I need but in a more medieval way. Putting armies inside cities and giving them a huge defense bonus would protect both the cities and the armies. Fleets should be able to hide in harbors. Thank for your reply.

Doesn't this get boring very quick? Progress is rather slow so it will take days for anything meaningful to happen. Right?

In this approach, every tick needs to be meaty: you need to have a lot to take care of during that turn.

I believe that a 15-30 mins "turn" everyday qualifies as a lot to do. Early turns tend to be much shorter, but game generally scales (1 turn per day for the first 15 turns for example).

It gives a more turn-based fell to the game, for sure, and it may not be for everyone, but I personally prefer this to hour-based ticks where I feel I don't have the ability to be in control of what happens.

That would require quite an advanced AI. Right now, players could order an army to march to the other side of a continent and with pathfinding it will find its way to that spot, but that's about as far as I can feasibly go.

Then give the player more control over it.

Set the moving as a series of player-set waypoints.

I can't imagine the coding horrors to program armies to engage other armies that are nearby without it being buggy or annoying to the player because it has engaged a superior army or didn't take into account any reinforcements etc.

Hm. I may not know enough about your design, but if your first instinct is that it is complicated and not that it's not fun, I'd reconsider. It seems fairly straightforwards to me (armies engaging automatically). Having coded something similar in the past, I didn't find it overly complex: the base system took me less than a day, and I polished it for a number of hours beyond that, but it hardly scales as something impossible?

This is exactly what I need but in a more medieval way. Putting armies inside cities and giving them a huge defense bonus would protect both the cities and the armies. Fleets should be able to hide in harbors. Thank for your reply.

Ah, a modern-inspired social-game-like then? There were a bunch of these on Facebook at some point during the last 5 years. You might want to look into Kixeye's games. They had a fairly popular game following that model (I can't remember the name, but it was a game about flottilas engaging one another in small coves/islands).

Sorry for the late response, I completely forgot to check the website for some reason.

Hm. I may not know enough about your design, but if your first instinct is that it is complicated and not that it's not fun, I'd reconsider. It seems fairly straightforwards to me (armies engaging automatically). Having coded something similar in the past, I didn't find it overly complex: the base system took me less than a day, and I polished it for a number of hours beyond that, but it hardly scales as something impossible?

Armies engaging by themselves is definitely not impossible, but it can definitely become complex if they have to check a lot of things like human players would do, otherwise they become easy targets and the feature actually does the opposite of what it was supposed to do.

I mean that before a player goes offline, he garrisons his armies in his cities so that cities are protected by the armies and the armies are protected by the cities. This way an enemy won't be too vulnerable when he/she isn't online.