Matrix Games Forums

Actually yes. I also have been in games that died due to this. On one hand I see people saying that we cannot do some phases at the same time as it is not what EiA is. If that is the case, why is there not an uproar over this game being EiH instead????? We already have moved away from classic EIA, and yes, doing these phases all at the same time may only save 10-20%, but that would be a huge improvement. Even with 24 hour turn around,
 
As for giving players in more games, or better ratings an in game improvement: It's an interesting idea, but i do nto think it will ever fly. How do you justify a player having a +1, just because he or she has more time to sit in front of a computer than someone else? And yes, there are many reasons players are not interested, but speed is one, no matter where you rate it personally, and is one that something can be done about. So, why not?

ORIGINAL: Thresh
The game is going to move at the speed of the slowest player, no matter how many phases in a turn are simultaneous or combined.

Think again. The game is going to move at the speed of the slowest player ONLY WHEN IT IS SIMULTANEOUS.

When it is sequential as it is structured now, the game moves at the speed of ALL PLAYERS. As long as I'm faster than the slowest player in a simultaneous phase, the slowest player dictates the pace.
No matter how fast I respond in a sequential game, I will add time to the game. This is just pure logic. It should be a no brainer.

ORIGINAL: EDDIE IZZARD
Cake or death?

Will it solve keeping players in the game? No. But then this thread is about speeding up play.

Will it lead to faster games? Can anyone provide an explanation of how simultaneous play slows down a game?

is it that whole alternate universe thing again? 

Think again. The game is going to move at the speed of the slowest player ONLY WHEN IT IS SIMULTANEOUS.

Sigh....

OK.

There are seven players in a game with Simultaneous turns,spread across the globe.

Players 1 through 6 takes 10 minutes to do their turns.
Player 7 takes 1 day, because he can;t read his game emails on the work server and can't bring his laptop with the game on it and use the work wifi.

And before you say this doesn't happen this is exactly the situation I am in. From Monday to Friday I work, mostly, 8AM to 5PM, and after family time and the like I do all of my gaming stuff at night.  While I have email access at work, I can't access the email I use for my games, nor can I download the game on my work comp.  And I cannot bring my personal laptop to work and use it.

So, how long does it take to complete that "simultaneous" turn?

As long as the slowest player takes to finish it.

Its the same answer with sequential turns, they move at the speed of the slowest player at best.

Todd

However, you are on to something in that we need to look at why players are dropping out. Perhaps some analysis can be done why players stick it out. What makes them do it?

I have a few ideas on this. The biggest one IMO is the challenge of it all.  I think there's a part of every gamer that thinks he can be the  guy who takes a country in a theoretically lost position and bring it back to the front.  Then there's the opposite of that, in which a player is to stubborn to go away.

I've left games before.  Most of them were rules/player related...

Todd

ORIGINAL: Thresh

Think again. The game is going to move at the speed of the slowest player ONLY WHEN IT IS SIMULTANEOUS.

Sigh....

OK.

There are seven players in a game with Simultaneous turns,spread across the globe.

Players 1 through 6 takes 10 minutes to do their turns.
Player 7 takes 1 day, because he can;t read his game emails on the work server and can't bring his laptop with the game on it and use the work wifi.

And before you say this doesn't happen this is exactly the situation I am in. From Monday to Friday I work, mostly, 8AM to 5PM, and after family time and the like I do all of my gaming stuff at night.  While I have email access at work, I can't access the email I use for my games, nor can I download the game on my work comp.  And I cannot bring my personal laptop to work and use it.

So, how long does it take to complete that "simultaneous" turn?

As long as the slowest player takes to finish it.

Its the same answer with sequential turns, they move at the speed of the slowest player at best.

Todd

This is not the norm, just a bad example to back up your argument.

THis is more how it goes:

7 players, spread out everywhere, some in the same time zone, player 1 and player 3 in the SAME time zone:

Player 1 waits on Player 3's turn. Player 1 checks his email between 5-8pm since he works at 5am he goes to bed early every night. Player 3 goes to work late and leaves late so he checks his email from 8-10pm.

So even though Player 1 and Player 3 live in the same time zone they are essentially 24 hours apart on turns. If the phase was simul this situation, which is VERY common, would be solved.

Why is this so hard to understand? Marshall, are you listening???

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

Why is this so hard to understand? Marshall, are you listening???

I am. I just think your example is the exception as opposed to typical.
I've been in too many to games to believe differently at this point.

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

Why is this so hard to understand? Marshall, are you listening???

I am. I just think your example is the exception as opposed to typical.
I've been in too many to games to believe differently at this point.

This must be the same line of thought that brought us the wonderful release of EiANW. [:-]

It seems the majority disagree with you yet you close your eyes and hum a song out loud while covering your ears.. great!

ORIGINAL: Thresh
So, how long does it take to complete that "simultaneous" turn?

As long as the slowest player takes to finish it.

Its the same answer with sequential turns, they move at the speed of the slowest player at best.

You're sighing at me? [8|]

If each player takes ten minutes to play his turn, you're saying that there's no difference between a sequential and a simultaneous turn structure? If one player takes 15 minutes and the others take 10, does that mean that a sequential turn will take 15 minutes to play, just like a simultaneous turn?

ORIGINAL: Thresh
Players 1 through 6 takes 10 minutes to do their turns.
Player 7 takes 1 day, because he can;t read his game emails on the work server and can't bring his laptop with the game on it and use the work wifi.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people can't play 24/7. If you're a gamer or an executive, maybe you have the time. The rest of us working stiffs have limited resources available. If there's one player causing problems, I recommend you eject him.

However, I believe it is more normal to have multiple players with jobs who don't have time to watch their email. So in this scenario, if you have a second player who only responds at night, then the game wouldn't take 1 day, but 2 days, plus 50 minutes for the other 5 quick players. Sequential times are additive. Simultaneous times would be some form of a maximum based on response time. If the two day players could respond at the same time, then the game would be processed when the last person responds.

ORIGINAL: Marshall
I am. I just think your example is the exception as opposed to typical.
I've been in too many to games to believe differently at this point.

How can it be that you don't believe there's a difference? Have you tried it?
How long does a turn take for your test groups? Time each player. Total their times. Compare that with the maximum time taken by each player. Which is longer: The total time taken or the maximum time of the individual players? Post some turn times for the test groups.

Neverman:
 
Don't read too much into my O. My O is simply the reason it is this way today. You (And others') Os are the reasons that I am trying to speed things up. I cannot say that I am definitively correct but can only speak from my frame of reference.
 
Phase skipping is a BIG change in 1.05 and it is not because of me but because fo you guys. I personally did not think it would change much BUT it did and I myself can see it!
 
So, in summary ... do not despair
 
 
 
 
 

I have yet to play 1.05 but I, personally, can't see much speedup in skipping either. Simul seems like a much better option but it's moot now that skipping has been implemented.

It seems the majority disagree with you yet you close your eyes and hum a song out loud while covering your ears.. great!

What Majority? The great silent one that's not participating on the forum?

I played two games last night as Prussia, one with skipping (Naval and in a couple of years Reinforcements) enabled, and one without skipping enabled.  I played from Jan 5 to December 08.  The second game took 20 minutes longer to play.

Is that the sort of data your looking for?

So even though Player 1 and Player 3 live in the same time zone they are essentially 24 hours apart on turns. If the phase was simul this situation, which is VERY common, would be solved.

So, Player 1 submits his part of the Simultaneous turn at 5PM, when does Player 3 submit his part of the turn.  Three hours later at 8PM at the earliest?

If the two day players could respond at the same time, then the game would be processed when the last person responds.

Which means.....wait for it.....The game is moving at the speed of the slowest player!

Imagine that....

Todd

Thresh,
 
Speaking ONLY to the issue of simultaneous vs. sequential, and using your example number:
 
Players 1-6 take 10 minutes each
Player 7 takes one day (24 hours).
 
Total time for a sequential game is 25 hours (24 hours + 10 minutes times 6).
Total time of a simultaneous game would be 24 hours. The first 6 players all finished within the 24 hours of the last one.
 
This is a contrived example, though. But, I wanted to use the numbers you presented. A much more likely scenario is that players 1 through 7 each take a random amount of time between, say, 2 hours and 30 hours. Let's use semi-random numbers, but then I'll switch them up later:
 
2
4
7
9
15
23
30
 
In a sequential game, this phase would take the sum of all these number to complete: 90 hours. However, if done simultaneously, it would take 30 hours, since the first 6 to complete their turn all completed it before the last one.
 
Let's say instead, though, that the first 3 players are all in one time zone, and finish in 2 hours each. The next 3 are in another time zone, and take 10 hours each. The last guy takes 30 hours, as before.
 
Sequential = 66 hours
Simultaneous = 30 hours

I've noticed in the thread a tendency to mix up different ideas, conflating the meanings of simultaneous, sequential, and skipping. Perhaps this is because they all start with S.
 
Anyhow, be careful. Skipping has almost nothing to do with simultaneous. They are related only in that if a player is skipped, his turn cannot be the longest one upon which the total time spent hinges. So, it reduces the odds of a long wait. It doesn't do much more than that.
 
However, skipping DOES deal with sequential. Since the total time spent is the sum of the time each player took, if one player is skipped, his time that would have been spent is not added in. So, the sum is now of only the remaining 6 players. It could have been the highest amount of time, or the lowest; it doesn't matter: His time is directly subtracted from the total wait time for the phase. This means that skipping is somewhat valuable in the context of sequential phases (which is what we have now).
 
So, skipping has minimal value with simultaneous phases, and significant (but not great) value with sequential phases. If the amount of code required for skipping vs. simultaneous phases were approximately the same, it would have been wiser to do simultaneous phases first. But, I suspect there is a HUGE difference in the coding. If those guesses about the coding time are correct, Marshall certainly did the right thing by implementing skipping right away.

ORIGINAL: Thresh

It seems the majority disagree with you yet you close your eyes and hum a song out loud while covering your ears.. great!

What Majority? The great silent one that's not participating on the forum?

I played two games last night as Prussia, one with skipping (Naval and in a couple of years Reinforcements) enabled, and one without skipping enabled. I played from Jan 5 to December 08. The second game took 20 minutes longer to play.

Is that the sort of data your looking for?

So even though Player 1 and Player 3 live in the same time zone they are essentially 24 hours apart on turns. If the phase was simul this situation, which is VERY common, would be solved.

So, Player 1 submits his part of the Simultaneous turn at 5PM, when does Player 3 submit his part of the turn. Three hours later at 8PM at the earliest?

1. The majority being me, Bear, Borner, Godo, among others. The minority being yourself (and Marshall of course).
2. Are you talking about a game against only AI?
3. Yes, he submits his turn 3 hours later. In simul, player 1 has already submitted his turn so everyone else can move on (do their turns). In seq, player 1 has to wait another 21 hours to do his turn, and hence EVERYONE ELSE TOO since he doesn't check his email again until 5pm the next day (24-3).

Maybe if you could explain to us where you are failing to understand the logic we could help.

1.  Marshall wins.  Unless convinced otherwise.
2.  Yes.  But why not assume all the other AI players were using simulataneous turns, after all the rate at which an AI processes is quite fast so as to be Simultaneous when playing solo.
3. I understand that.  The fact still remains that the game is moving at the speed of the slowest player, and given that many of the actions in one phase are dependent on what happens in another, combining some will have some drastic unintended consequnces

Have any of you ever played EiA with simultaneous turns via PbEM?  I've played in 5, that were pretty similar from a mechanical point of view, but they did cause an endless array of headaches.
If you have, how did you  deal with unintended results?  Let them be?

As an aside, whats equally bothersome, to me anyways, is that many of you advocating simultaneous turns are the same ones upset that the game is not a port of EiA, wherein sequential turns were the rule.  How do you all square that?

Todd

thresh...

regards to 3.

you are completely wrong. Computerized games should be no headache...all calculations are done in seconds.

you state, "The fact still remains that the game is moving at the speed of the slowest player"

NO! it moves at the speed of EVERY player summated the way it is now. this is the difference. It is just simple math. If you can't agree to that, then there is no way to convince you...and we will have to move on.

the point is, if the slowest player is one hour slower than the second slowest player, but they each take 2 days or 2days + 1hr....it is an awfully slow game.

Even more important...this game is made for everyone who bought it. not for EIA players...they are the ones that should and will determine if this is successful. In practically EVERY game I play, someone quits because of the time issue. That is the problem.

In practically EVERY game I play, someone quits because of the time issue. That is the problem.

Simultaneous turns are not going to be the cure all to this.   Players participating must resolve to meet a turnaround time, and if not, their turn should be skipped by the host.

In a game assume the following:
The Political and Reinforcement phases are simultaneous.

Its November of 1806. 
Prussia, Austria, Russia, and England are allied.  Russia is at war with Turkey.
England and Austria are at war with Spain.

France has surrendered to Austria, Prussia and Russia in August of 1806, after a three month campaign in which it lost most every battle. 

Austria has 6 ragged (Not full stregth) Corps with Charles in Thereseindtadt, 3 Corps in Ofen.  The Corps in Ofen moved their last turn from Vienna, it is apparent Austria is going to DoW Turkey after the stack moves to Temesvar.  There are Two Corps in Trieste with an couple of English Fleets.  Spain has control of most of Italy, and Englandis going to transport these Corps to Naples.

Prussia has 6 full Corps in Dresden with Blucher.  In October he consolidated his Corps, so all as many are at full strength as possible.  He also has a couple of Corps in Berlin, the Saxon Corps in Hesse.

Russian has three Corps in Vienna, and a Corps in Warsaw, the rest of the Army is in Turkey.

In the November Politcal phase, the only thing Austria doesis combine moves with Britain. Prussia breaks its Alliaence with Austria, and DoW's Austria.  Austria has not elected to call any allies, therefore Prussia also has none to call.  In the reinforcment phase, Austria removes Charles and Mack from the board (intending to place Charles in Temesvar next turn, and Mack in Naples.

So, now war exist between Prussia and Austria.  Austria didnt call any allies, and because of its combined movement ismoving after Prussia, which means Blucher and 6 full Prussian Corps get to pounce on 6 leaderless Austrian Corpin Thereseinstadt, winning that battle will have an open line to Vienna. 
Russia cannot DoW until his troops are out of Prussia, England could DoW next turn if it chose to do so.

So, as the Austrian player, whats your course of Action for the next simulataneous Political Phase?


And yes, this has happned before.

Todd

Thresh,
the idea of a combined diplomacy and reinforcement phase is not on the table. It was suggested by a few but not widely supported.

Simultaneous diplomacy was the only thing being considered. If you objections are based on the above assumption that rein and dip would all be done at once, than I can see why you were objecting so strenuously. Sim diplomacy would not affect the scenario you outline above.

We are more worried about a game made up of 7 professionals who do not work in a gaming company, and can only log on at night after work, supper, kids, and more work has been dealt with. This might be the story of several hundred million people in the western world. For this group, sim dip (and eco) makes a lot of sense (and is almost necessary). There is a strong business case for making these people happy. Yes, we can log on once a night, but that's it, so what happens if we miss our turn in the sequence that night by 10 minutes?