I'd rather have MM work on AI as opposed to TCP/IP

Puke · #1 January 10th, 2001, 10:48 AM

what about serial play? when's the Last time you played a game with that, huh? its better than hotseat, you are face to face, but you have two keyBoards! they could make a serial / simultanious mode, that would rock! or how about MIDI mode? anyone remember the Atari ST? anyone here ever do a midi-maze party?

lets have that instead, i dont like the Internet anyway. why not IPX? I dont have an apple, but I can run appletalk as a protocol, lets have appletalk play!

woo-woo!

jowe01 · #2 January 10th, 2001, 11:24 AM

Improve the AI !!! I mean the hard-coded AI algorithms, not only the text files (moders are doing a very good work on them already).

TCP/IP is second priority. I will love to play over the net, but I remember from CIV that my counterparts never showed up again after a game had to be saved,

BTW, the serial play would be great. If TCP/IP gets implemented, I hope that this serial will be possible , too.

Master Belisarius · #3 January 10th, 2001, 04:33 PM

I go for the AI too... And I don't care if the AI cheat or not: I only want a challenging game.

I have played Moo2 Online, and I was unable to finish ONE multiplayer game! (I have played near of 10, and always somebody lost the connection, or somebody have not intentions to continue the game, or simply was very boring wait during 20 minutes per every player, to do your own moves).

But playing Moo2 against the AI, I have finished hunderd of games... Also, depending of your race and your luck, the Impossible Level could be really very challenging.

Master Belisarius · #4 January 10th, 2001, 04:33 PM

I go for the AI too... And I don't care if the AI cheat or not: I only want a challenging game.

I have played Moo2 Online, and I was unable to finish ONE multiplayer game! (I have played near of 10, and always somebody lost the connection, or somebody have not intentions to continue the game, or simply was very boring wait during 20 minutes per every player, to do your own moves).

But playing Moo2 against the AI, I have finished hunderd of games... Also, depending of your race and your luck, the Impossible Level could be really very challenging.

igoblin · #5 January 10th, 2001, 06:24 PM

I would have to disagree, TCP/IP would be great for SE4 because unlike Master of Orion 2 it has a simultaneous mode. This way everybody takes their turns at the same time so the only waiting would be if someone takes exceptionally long for their turn. You can also play with more than 2 people in simultaneous unlike turn based games.
I will probably still do play by email though because its hard to schedule times for everyone to play together. I haven't tried PBEM since the demo, I hope the bugs were fixed.
-igoblin

Daynarr · #6 January 10th, 2001, 09:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by igoblin:
I would have to disagree, TCP/IP would be great for SE4 because unlike Master of Orion 2 it has a simultaneous mode. This way everybody takes their turns at the same time so the only waiting would be if someone takes exceptionally long for their turn. You can also play with more than 2 people in simultaneous unlike turn based games.
I will probably still do play by email though because its hard to schedule times for everyone to play together. I haven't tried PBEM since the demo, I hope the bugs were fixed.
-igoblin

IIRC MOO2 had ONLY simultaneous mode. You would give orders and when you click end turn button, they would be carried out, just like SE4 simultaneous mode. I have played several games of MOO2 on Heat.net but they would never be finished. It would just get too long and boring to wait for all of the players to finish your turns (they would get really long if a player had some large tactical combat). That is a problem with turn-based games, AFAIK.
However, I do think that SE4 should have TCP/IP multiplayer, but I believe that the majority of players will play it SE4 in singleplayer or hotseat, so AI should be addressed first. Personally, I don't have any preference, as I like to play both multi and single player games, so I would vote for both.

dmm · #7 January 10th, 2001, 10:04 PM

My $0.02: First improve the AI.

Selfish reason: If I'm going to play humans, it will be members of my own family, and for that I can use hot-seat. So I personally don't care about TCP/IP.

Unselfish reason: Improved AI will also improve TCP/IP games (and hotseat games, and PBEM games), unless you're going to play with only human players. No, even then, it helps, because strategic combat will be better. So improved AI benefits everyone, whereas putting in TCP/IP only benefits one segment of the market.