I've been playing another similar game lately on another site which uses turned based movement even on the campaign type games. Everyone typically moves in a day and there is never any double turns. Sometimes you might even get in 2 or 3 turns if everyone is around. It might be worth considering here. That is the main reason I haven't been playing here because I can't stay up until 2am EST every night to make the tick.

i would give it a try, because I realy think this double turn stuff( deliberated or not) ruin the game!

but I have a few questions:
- how many hours do you have to do your turn? because the others cannot wait indefinitly for you.
- if I understood corectly you can make your turn only after the player in front of you? so you have a specific turn position(ex. 5) and you will always play the 5th?

i do have another suggestion(but i think your is better). To reduce the 6h recovery time to 2h or the other way around to increase the waiting time from 18h to 22h.

Last Edited : Wednesday, 23 June 2010 - 05:06

The amount of time between turns is adjustable but the default is 24hrs. Most people log in everyday and take a turn so it typically works out. Occasional it takes 2 days if someone is missing. You can send a notification to the missing player or kick them from the game if they are tardy.It makes it nice if you are going to miss a day since you can send a message and let everyone know you'll be out for a day or two. I would mention the game I'm referring to but don't want to be advertising other games here. Requiem might get mad at me. You can email me at jbjnc63@gmail for more info.

why not each person get their own turn to go...just like a duel...once player one finishes his/her move, player two turn begins and so on... if a person is away for more than 24hrs, the person following him can force his/her turn if needed...
if its a small camp(6-8 players) then the game may go rather quickly if all folks are all actives and online...there wouldn't be a wait for the click...6 active players could finish a camp in days or weeks instead of months... larger sized camps may go slower but will be fair... this would totally eliminate double turning...

i fully agree with lothar...there needs to be change to make things fair...
getting up at 2am to play an online game sucks... its the biggest reason i don't play camps...

Last Edited : Wednesday, 23 June 2010 - 11:21

If you don't play on the tick then it doesn't matter when in your 24 hours you take your turn, really. Just don't get used to being there for the tick, your opponents can't double you any more easily.

I've already explained in other post that is very easy to get double turned even if you don't play on the tick...simple math!
I would go for lothar suggestion!

the problem is not just double turning itself, it is the fact that if you get double turned once then you are out of game. in other games it is not such a big loss if you are attacked 1-2 more times than you attack...you can continue playing...but not in this one!
One good double turned and you are gone!

Last Edited : Thursday, 24 June 2010 - 01:09

I said "any more easily" about being double turned, yes it is bad in most situations, but it is not any more likely if you play "off-tick".

Feel free to post the URL so we can check it out and see how it works.

I'm not sure full turn-based would work for Campaigns. Even at 10 players, with a 24hr limit, you could end up waiting 10 days to take 1 turn.

Lets not forget we get lots of newbies sign up and disappear.
Even first joining the game, it could be 5 days before you even get your first turn!

It also means you never know when your turn is. And if your turn comes an hour or so after you login, it might be another 20 or so hours before you can log in again, (if you log in only once a day) and so everyone has to wait 20hrs because you just missed playing your turn.

I would think that full tick-based might work best for Campaigns. Basically a slowed down RTS.

So every hour or less you get %'s of things. This way it doesnt matter when you log in or how often.
The key is to make sure a player cant make too many micromoves as was possible in earlier versions of WoL.

I was even thinking of a "Command" resource type that you spend to "activate" a troop. So you gain Command Points every hour, and can spend them to activate a troop (which is like giving the troop 1 full turn). Activating the same troop twice is possible but costs 5x as much the 2nd time.

And if you spend all your Command Points you cant move any troops until you save up more. If you have a huge army, you'll definitely want a lot of Command Centre's (to get Command Points) otherwise you wont be able to move all your troops each turn.

It also means if you lose lots of troops in battle, and end up with less troops than Command Points available, you could move a few troops twice in the turn (or save those points for later use).

The Command Point Thing Sounds Good Req.

I agree Pro, that would be excellent. I take it that theres no way that somehow a bunch of us could test that for you in one Camp Req?

Last Edited : Friday, 25 June 2010 - 18:55

the two other turn based games I've been playing are weewar.com and warnet.ee
Both use full turn based play and games with 8 players seem to move along fine. You can change the time to 12 hrs to speed things up. Most people log in at least once a day to take a turn.

Req: "Even at 10 players, with a 24hr limit, you could end up waiting 10 days to take 1 turn"

that is possible, but unlikely... it is more likely to get in 4 or 5 turns in one day... who ever creates the camp could set it up where only experienced players could join, to prevent newbie/inactive lag! some camps with newbs would and could take longer... but once the inactives are eliminated the game would get rolling along...

making double turning cost more doesn't eliminate it... no matter what the cost, there are times when a good double turn totally changes the entire game's outcome...

Last Edited : Friday, 25 June 2010 - 21:05

With 8 players, turn-based could work.
With 10+, I dont think it could.
Imagine a 20 player game, or more.

Also, new players joining up would quickly get discouraged if they cant take their first turn for 3 days because those before them were slow.

With Command Points, you could move 1 troop twice in 1 turn, but then it would cost as much as moving 6 individual troops once each. Is that worth it? Maybe, but isnt that part of the strategy? Sacrifice moving 5 other troops to move 1 troop once more.

There's no way you could move your entire army twice in one turn either. Or even the majority (unless you have a very small army and large command points income)

Hi Req!
The game I have been playing lately is battleforces.com and they have a variety of turn speeds available for the campaigns. They have turns that go in 8, 12, 24, and 48 hours or even a week per turn. The standard is 24 hours.

The clock starts whenever the last player finishes their turn or action. So, for a 24 hour game, the 10th player signs up in a 10 player game and all the players have 24 hours from that point to pick their capital. As soon as the last player picks their capital, the clock resets for the first turn in 24 hours. With this system, the absolute longest it takes to complete each turn is 24 hours, and any one who doesn't make their move misses a turn.

On most weekdays we play one and sometimes 2 turns in a 24 hour game...on the weekends, we sometimes get in 5 or 6 turns a day if everyone is online to complete the turn. One person being gone will hold things up, but only by 24 hours at most.
Regards,
H.

Sounds interesting Hwatta.
Isnt it still possible to double turn someone though?
You could play your turn after your opponent in one turn, then before them on the next turn.

In a tick-based sense, yes. But, the other game is truly turn-based. Each player puts in their inputs for the move and then after each player has input their moves (or the time expires), you play back the last turn to see how everything was resolved.

If you try to keep the tick-based aspects of the game, this probably will not work because of the double turn issue. If you like the suggestion of converting to a turn-based system, this is worth taking a look at.

Ahh, you mean one of those systems where all players moves are logged but not actioned until the end of turn. At which point it calculates all players turns at once.

How do you account for player A moving a troop to attack player B, but player B moved that troop away during their turn. If combat doesnt resolve until the end of everyone's turn, what happens to that attack?

Doesnt that also mean that you never see actual combat damage as you do it, as its all calculated later?

Yes, it is one of those systems. And I'm sure it would be a huge amount of effort to set up a new way of operating WoL that way.

If one player moves back and the other forward. The second player now has the other player's position. If they both move forward at the same time, or one stays put and the other mvoes in, combat must be resolved.

For your third point, yes. In WoL we generally try to protect our strongest pieces by attacking with fodder or setting up a screen...thus, better forces are preserved and we take the loss to our most expendable units. In the other game, the losses generated by combat are automatically taken from the least valuable units first. So, it sort of removes a bit of the manual tactical play, while maintaining the overall strategic idea behind the moves. Only in a crushing defeat or when all of the fodder is gone are the better units at risk.

Again, this is all just an idea to consider if you want to convert to a turn-based format and eliminate the double attack problem that way. It would really change the dynamics of the game and might just be too hard to do.
Regards,
H.

When I first saw this I thought someone dug up an old suggestion: I thought switching from battle points to the current system WAS switching from tick based to turn.

At any rate, I see that value in the suggestion: the duels timing is great, you can get a whole bunch of turns in if both people are online but still have the flexibility to take a few days and not miss anything (provided you ok that with your partner). It ends up being a true "one player moves only after the other" turn based rather than everyone having a set amount of time to take their turn. It is both flexible (allowing potentially much faster/slower gameplay), but also (as was said) unreliable. With low player numbers the former outweighs the latter, but as we move into the 10-20 player games the unreliability becomes a bigger factor.

That said, I think it could be feasible for these larger games. If you use the 24 hour limit (for example), one might argue it could take up to 20 days to take a turn. However, if we allow players to limit themselves to a "time bracket" in which they will normally take their turn the game could be sped up quite a bit. For example, most people have a regular 12 hours in which they're available to take turns (which differs depending on time zone and schedule); if you allow people to declare something to the effect of "if I haven't taken my turn between 0-12 (or 12-24) I will not be taking it for the day." At that point, though the 24hour limit may not have been reached, the game will move to the next person in line (allowing them to take their turn, though you can still get yours in if they haven't moved yet). Though people sometimes end up getting less than 24 hours to make their move, one must remember that many of those hours are dead hours: if I know I'll never be taking my turn after 2am (lets say) or before 10am why does the game need to wait for me during that time? I think it's fair to say, if I haven't taken my turn by a certain time (of my choosing) then I won't be taking it that day. At larger player numbers the slight loss in flexibly (not having a full 24 hours at times) leads to great gains in reliability (and speed).

So, whatever the standard turn limit is, a player would be able to choose a block of time of half that amount (12hrs out of a 24hr day) in which they are able to take their turn (before it becomes forfeit). If your turn becomes available in the last 1/4 (or whatever) of your time block you'd have the turn be available through your next block (since it's not fair to have 30min to make a move in a 24 hour game). Since most people will still be checking the end of their turn-period (since they decided when that is) you really don't loose much functionality (plus they can still take it outside their block before their next one starts). With this model I think it's important to allow players to chose their own time blocks rather than forcing them into preset ones: it's like the airlines realized, letting people board in a random order (i.e. first come first on) was actually faster and easier than trying to fill them in from back to front.

I think something like this would not be a huge change to implement (the only real difference would be when players could take their turns...and setting up the interface by which to handle that). But even with the above system I described, players must realized they are sacrificing regularity for fairness: there will be little ability to force double turns, but you may be waiting 3-4 days for your 10 player game turn (yes, you may be able to make that up on other days, but then again you may not, and the odds against it go up with the number of players). No one wants to be "that guy" who went on vacation the weekend everyone else was there and held up the game (and with the game being as small as it is we know who you are ).