OK, so this last weekend we had our last LAN party of the Summer (I know, Summer''s technically over anyway) with about 8 people there. We had the usual: Starcraft, Diablo II, Unreal Tournament. Let me say first that Starcraft is still fun and challenging, and I have new respect for the D2 architecture since 6 of use were going through a single cable connection to battle.net with hardly any noticeable lag. But we also like playing other games. There was some X-Wing Alliance played (THE most overlooked game of the genre, and tremendous fun to play coop or vs). And to top it, I decided to "kick it old school" by whipping out the MOOII!!! Masters of Orion II. For those of you not-in-the-know, MOO2 is perhaps the best turn-based strategy game ever to be created. I remember my entire sophomore year of college almost going to waste playing this. Anyway, after training one person how to play this (I was the only one who''d ever played it), we decided to try the network version of the game: 3 player (1 comp, 2 human), small map. MOO2 is a lot like Civ & the ilk in that sometimes you just have to eat turns waiting for things to build. Well, if you throw in multiplayer, each turn takes as long as the slowest person that turn. Add on about 10 seconds per turn for mystery network access (this game comes with DirectX 2.0, so THAT''S how old it is--I''m sure the network stuff wasn''t optimized), it takes about 30 seconds per turn if people are doing barely anything. Needless to say, after 4 or 5 hours, we hadn''t even gotten attack ships up yet (not to mention we got hit by Space Flux, but that''s another issue altogether). Is it possible to package the fun of turn-based strategy into a multiplayer game without always having to wait for the slowest player? Seems like a contradiction in terms. Maybe there needs to be some all-new way to do things. It''s just that sometimes I feel like a nut--that being real-time strategy and hours-on-end of intense clicking--and sometimes I really don''t. I like playing turn-based games. I like being able to take time to think about what I''m doing. And I''d like to play multiplayer, because as slow and painful as those 4 or 5 hours were, they were still fun. PS: I know MOO3 is in development (vaporware). Maybe they''ve solved this?

Its possible to have fun with Turn-Based Multiplayer games. Best examples are most tabletop and card games. The problem that games like MOO,MOM,CIV have is that they are economic/strategy games. You have to do a lot of stupid stuff over and over again (e.g. you have to build barracks in any damn town, buy that hydroponic farm on that planet,...), that does only affect the ''enemy'' indirect.

In MOO3 the problem will be solved partial.
1. Every player can only do a ''given'' amount of things per ''round'' (ImperialPoints)
2. The battles are realtime.
3. The economic part is much more intelegent (Comuter does routine stuff for you)

IMO the problem can be solved much simpler. Make the actions of any player affect other players direct. Don''t force the player to make routine things. Make it easy for the player_at_turn to do his turn quick.

A good example is chess. The enemy is always affected by your turn. And the waiting time is very short.

Yes, MOOII rules!

Some solutions to speed the game up:

- let the players give as many orders as possible after their turn is complete - there''s no reason why a player wouldn''t select the next technology to be researched or the next ship or planetary structure to be built or the target destination of a ship. This way, when a players turn arrives, much of his work is done automatically: the ships that have orders to go all the way through the galaxy move by themselves, the planets with long build lists build the next thing on the list, etc.

- make a system like timed chess: a player has a limited average time to think every turn (something like 30 seconds; this can be customized). This thinking time can be stored up to a limit (one - two minutes or more). So, if a player plays five turns each in 5 seconds (because he added all the orders in build lists, he just had to press end-turn) he saves 25 seconds each turn for a total of 120 seconds (the maximum limit - two minutes). Meaning that if he wanted, he could think what to do in a turn for the whole two minutes. If the thinking time goes out, the turn ends automatically. This way the game still is turn-based (you can take the time and think) and it is a lot faster too: everyone tries to store time for when it''s needed most.

- an idea is to use simultaneous turns - the VGA Planets way (btw, VGA Planets is my official best game I ever played, a play by email empire simulation just like MOO only much better - designed for multiplayer - if it wasn''t for its 10 years ago interface the game would rule) Simultaneous turns work like this: players give their orders, at the same time, then all the players end their turn and the orders get executed at the same time. Again, maximum time for a turn could be used here to speed things up.

I''d like to add some things to what Diodor said.
Adding on to his first thought. Get as many moves as you want or can make set up while everyone else is taking their turn. When your turn comes you simply Confirm or Change the orders you already selected. This helps towards the beginning durring routine resources building etc.
I like the idea of timed turns. Anyone played Lords Of the Realm 2 on internet? That''s exactly what that does. Whoever set up the table sets the time allowed for turns. Good for those times someone leaves their comp out of the blue to get the phone or something.

Last thing I want to say(not as a flame or anything), to Jonus. I personaly like games like MOO and CIV because of micromanagement. It part of the fun for me. Personal opinion...

Just to clearify some things up:
IMO MOO2 is one of the best games ever and i think i have played it ~1000 hours. I like micromanagement too, but what i don''t like is that amount of routine like it is in MOO2. When you play a very large map, you get stuck in the unimportant part of the game by just doing the exctly the same things over and over again. The managing part is challenging at the beginning of the game (build automatet factory OR hydroponic farms first, when do i build my next Colony Ship?), but when you colonize your 100redst planet this is nothing more than BORING.

I have to agree with that.

You absolutely have to look at the game "Stars!" ... which also have a sequel coming out soon (crossing fingers) ...

In it ... You set up a DEFAULT queue for your planets ... so even if you colonize a new planet, and then miss 5 turns ... it did 5 turns worth of default activity ... you can set you ships on complex routes ... including giving them orders to merge with one another into a single fleet ... you can set your attack ships battle plans so they behave like you want (run from enemies ... attack starbase ... etc) ...

HERE was it''s trick ... there is NO real time action fighting in the game ... so it can be played by email .... since the computer computes battles and shows you a "Recording" when it''s your turn ... the whole game can go one for many turns without interaction ... IF you want to ... so if your playing 1 turn a day ... but have a vacation for a week ... you set up really good queues ... then leave ... you come back .. and hope the enemy never knew you were gone ...

It seperates out the play interface from turn generation ... you run the client to play ... the server to host ... and you can have 2 servers running 7 clients ... whatever you want .. all on one machine ... it DOES NOT have the ability to store up unused time .. but you can set it to autogenrate turns after a specified amount of time since last turn ...

The game does NOT suit itself to good fast multiplayer games like we all try to make happen on MOOII .. but if the game had a little less micromanagement (which the new one does) ... and allowed time storing (ala the chess sugestion) ... then that would be a start ... BUT they would also have to solve the problem of SYNC issues ... when you''ve made changes but the turn gets generated before you send them ... this would be no problem in a ACTIVE game .. cause the server can freeze game for a few sec while it processes turn ... but in a game that can be played by email .. there''s no way to request the last minute changes from each client ...

But I have an idea for that too ... you would MERGE the turn comming in (generated by server) with the changes the client has made ... using a philosophy much like CVS or source safe ... in areas where the incoming turn doesn''t change the validity of the command ... it keeps it ... in areas where there is trouble it generates a verification list .... hmmm

Simultaneous turns, if they can be done, are a great solution. The advantage is obviously that everyone is playing pretty much all of the time, which alleviates the waiting. Another cool advantage is that planning is brought to the forefront as you have to anticipate what will happen, rather than always reacting to the previous round of actions.

If you need to have consecutive turns, I think a system whereby pretty much any non-movement action should be stored, but the effects won''t happen until the end of your turn. This means that you can use the other players'' turns to do most of the things you would do in your turn, but without the benefits of being able to hike taxes up and down within a single turn to your advantage, etc. Hopefully such a system comes as close to having simultaneous turns as possible, without removing the consecutive turn model as seen in games like Civilisation etc. I believe CivNet does much of this, but not as well as it should (to my recollection).

Check out planetarion Or rather, you should have checked it out... It''s pay-to-play now

Anyway, it had superb ''turn-based'' gameplay... Every player got to do everything they wanted anytime, any place (you could always log-in), and every hour all the planets would be updated (ships would move one tick towards their target etc. etc.)

It had nice gameplay. No graphics at all, but heck, it is a start

You can also check out empirequest (www.empirequest.com). When you can put this kind of gameplay into a ''real'' game, I think you got a winner

Take a look at Combat Mission a simultanous turn based tactcial war game. Fun multiplayer turn base games can be done, but they have to be adapated. The best adapataion seems to be a simultanous turn system. I expect such a system can be applied to turn based strategy games (MOO, MOM, etc) as well. Just using the same system as CM, adapted to a X-COM game would make fun multiplayer X-COM games a real possilbity.

-ddn