Simultaneous turns? (turn-based strategy)

Both valid options. Depends what you want to make, more competitive like starcraft or more leizure paced like civ? I like the real time better, but not necessarily to compete. Turn based online is just too slow for me, I tried it before and I always do efforts to not make the others wait too long, but when the opposite is not true, I lose patience.

This is not about realtime VS turn-based gameplay.

The gameplay is turn-based. Im asking about how to make SIMULTANEOUS TURNS should work.

I don't like games where I give orders and then have to wait for them to be carried out. It's "realistic" - in real life, the all units are going to move at the same time instead of sitting around waiting for other units to move - but it just doesn't feel very satisfying.

You know how in action games, the controls feel sluggish when there is a noticeable delay between pressing the attack button and the attack actually happening? Strategy games where you give orders that aren't carried out immediately are like that, only on a much larger scale.

I don't understand your first example approach. If turns are simultaneous, there shouldn't be a "first to move" player. If you mean that units move immediately as players move them, without waiting for the turn to end, then it's no longer turn based, it's just real time with extra steps. It would also be imbalanced towards the player that moves early, or late, depending on the rest of the game.

Simultaneous turn based games that I have seen so far would have both players plan their entire turns, and then everything would resolve at once.

2 hours ago, 1024 said:

I don't understand your first example approach. If turns are simultaneous, there shouldn't be a "first to move" player. If you mean that units move immediately as players move them, without waiting for the turn to end, then it's no longer turn based, it's just real time with extra steps. It would also be imbalanced towards the player that moves early, or late, depending on the rest of the game.

This is how multiplayer in civilization works (in simultaneous mode), and some other games. This is also how singleplayer works in most turn-based games (you select any unit and move them, you dont need to wait for the turn to end for units to move/resolve action).

End-turn normally just gives you income, random events and moves units that have "go-to" (multi-turn) orders.

It DOES have the problem of (possibly) be a benefit of moving early in a turn. But since it's the same for everybody, this might be ok. The other option (everybody gives only orders, then everything moves/resolves "at the same time") also has alot of problems (mainly you dont get direct feedback on your actions, exploring gets wierd as you have to give order before you know what you will discover etc).

You just need to find consistent and intuitive rules that fit your needs.

For example, if you have a game similar to Master of Magic or Civilization, with complex armies of specific units that roam a mostly unoccupied map they can simply walk around simultaneously (turns processed after players give an order to each available unit), switching to a separate tactical scale "battle mode" when armies they meet.
In this case you have to ensure that separate battles, should they occur on the same strategic scale turn, have no influence on each other and can be resolved in any order and provide interesting rules at the tactical level.

On the other hand in a game about large and small stacks of abstract military force, like Risk, you can exploit the simultaneous resolution of multiple battles to introduce influences between adjacent locations in a graph (e.g. friendly units behind the frontline support the fighting ones) and perform heavy computations (e.g. ensembles of Markov chains)

Age of Wonders 3 has simultaneous turns with immediate feedback. (Well, not always immediate feedback, but close enough. I think actions go into a queue when commands are given while another action is being executed, so sometimes you have a wait a few seconds for your action to complete.) When I first saw this, it offended by sense of purity, but when I actually played it, I realized that I care a lot more about having near-immediate feedback without waiting for my opponents to move than I care about purity. It does introduce a realtime element where the first player to move sometimes has an advantage, but this doesn't really bother me.

On 10/1/2019 at 9:19 AM, suliman said:

(you select any unit and move them, you dont need to wait for the turn to end for units to move/resolve action).

That's not turn-based.

A turn is literally that. You do however many actions you can in a turn and then "pass" on that turn.

I think you're confused.

@Talvysh

Aaaand I think you are not being helpful. I see you have replied in several threads just complaining and not adding much.

About your comment: So "civilization" is not turn-based? It's probably the most well known turn-based game in the world. Also games like xcom (the combat part), you move and resolve one unit at a time and it's resolved DIRECTLY. That's still turn-based.

Also, why argue the semastics instead of adding to the actual question? (how to implement / pros&cons of different styles of simultanous turns in multiplayer-games). Also, the wording has already been discussed in the thread.

On 10/1/2019 at 6:48 AM, 1024 said:

I don't understand your first example approach. If turns are simultaneous, there shouldn't be a "first to move" player. If you mean that units move immediately as players move them, without waiting for the turn to end, then it's no longer turn based, it's just real time with extra steps. It would also be imbalanced towards the player that moves early, or late, depending on the rest of the game.

This is the same reasoning I'm talking about.

On 10/1/2019 at 4:28 AM, suliman said:

The gameplay is turn-based. Im asking about how to make SIMULTANEOUS TURNS should work.

I don't understand what you mean by "simultaneous turns". If you're saying I can move my units while another person can move theirs, then there are no "turns". Is there a language barrier issue here? Please elaborate. What is sounds like is you want a RTS instead of a turn-based strategy game.

3 hours ago, suliman said:

Aaaand I think you are not being helpful. I see you have replied in several threads just complaining and not adding much.

I'd honestly say you're not being helpful as I don't understand what you're trying to ask. From the sounds of it you want an RTS to be turn based. This doesn't make any sense.

I'm sorry you feel that way about my other posts where I'm just "complaining". ?

There is "normal" turn-based gameplay. In this mode a single player act and all other players wait.

This thread is about simultaneous turns. Not all multiplayer turn-based games use this, but some do (and some, like civ 3 allows usage of both modes of turn-based gameplay in different modes). In simultaneous turns, players' actions can overlap to some degree, but the game is still not realtime (in realtime, such as starcraft, units can all constantly move at the same time, and there is no "end of turn" were specific things happen like refilling unit movement points, do income etc). In turn based, typically only one action is resolved at a time (which makes simultanous turns tricky to implement). Also, when no players are issuing commands, the game is not moving forward (in realtime games the game goes on all the time).

That was some explanation on what simultaneous turns are.

In this thread, Im asking about how to best implement simultaneous turns. There seem to be two major ways of doing this, and some feedback has been given on both as you can read in the thread. If you are not experienced in simultaneous turns, maybe you are not the right person to offer help on the subject.

1 hour ago, Talvysh said:

I don't understand what you mean by "simultaneous turns".

When you don't understand something, you ask for clarification, or look it up, or just don't join the discussion. What you don't do is try to convince the OP that they don't know what they are talking about.

Games with simultaneous turns exist, and they are very much turn-based. Two examples off the top of my head are Frozen Synapse and Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock. There's more examples (and more nuanced subtypes of turns) on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turns,_rounds_and_time-keeping_systems_in_games

20 minutes ago, 1024 said:

you ask for clarification,

I did. Phase-based sounds more reasonable than simultaneous. Now that it's clarified, I know exactly what OP is talking about.

Quote

Do players move there armies at the same time, and (since there is battles when armies meet) it's first come first serve? Meaning when a new turn starts, all armies refills their movement and the player who moves first simply moves first (actions are resolved directly).

Or would all players assign orders, and when complete, all actions resolves in a seperate "mid-turn phase" where no players have the ability to interact further?

1. Move Phase begins
2. Players Assign their units destinations
3. Move Phase ends
4. Combat Phase begins
5. Units will auto fight each other if within range while moving to their destination.
6. If there are units moving to the same destination then they will fight each other until one unit can take the destination.
7. Combat Phase ends
8. Turn Ends

On 9/27/2019 at 8:04 PM, suliman said:

Do players move there armies at the same time, and (since there is battles when armies meet) it's first come first serve? Meaning when a new turn starts, all armies refills their movement and the player who moves first simply moves first (actions are resolved directly).

That is called real-time, However, it is a strange variant of real-time.

On 9/27/2019 at 8:04 PM, suliman said:

Or would all players assign orders, and when complete, all actions resolves in a separate "mid-turn phase" where no players have the ability to interact further?

The second one seems more fair but also makes the game slower.

Compared to Civilization, this option would make the game faster because you can make decisions at the same time as everyone else. However, if you attack a unit in front of you, but the enemy decides to move away, how would you handle that situation? If you start a path around a large obstacle, but the enemy decided to move their units off of a bridge (a shortcut), how would you handle that situation?

You don't want the player to waste their turn. These are very tough game design questions.

I'll also add that I think Civilization is one of the worst games I have ever played--along side Atari's E.T. because in a multiplayer game, n / (n+1) of your time is spent WAITING!

I used to play the old letter based "play by mail" games, where you would plot your units movement orders, (which hexes they move through) and set their aggression level and retreat threshold etc. You would get a letter back with the turns results a week later...

The computer moderator would resolve turns by putting everyone's orders and movement plots and resolving them in order (faster units move first, combats resolved as they happen etc) in strict order. So a unit with movement 12 would move two hexes in the time with a unit with move 6 would move for example.

This system creates a very realistic and tactical experience, but it's not a game for those short of attention span or players who require instant feedback.

4 hours ago, TheBlackRattie said:

You would get a letter back with the turns results a week later...

And you'd probably finish the game before Civilization 5 entered "mid-game".

If you're making a single player game, there's also that style where the computer moves in time with the player. See 'Nova-111'. It's an interesting real-time-turn-based hybrid.

As I see it the purpose of simultaneous turns is to focus more on strategy and less on micro management of specific combats as the range of possibilities expands massively compared to dealing with a simple dice throw. It potentially makes for a more "realistic" experience, but is a significant step up in terms of challenge for the resolution manager. The old board Game "Diplomacy" is an example of a simple simultaneous turn game.