True multiplayer campaign map

[_Tristan_]

Yes, what would do to have CA issue the next installment in the TW series with a full-multiplyer campaign map ?

Personnally, I would sell my soul to the

Imagine a cross between a paperboard Diplomacy game and the computerized battles of the TW series...

My dream come true...

I know that some palyers of the MTW-community have started playing PBM to be able to play like that, I've never been tempted.

I used to play tabletop wargames some years ago and with friends we had designed a whole set of rules to play between the fights (mostly based on Diplomacy)

What I liked on discovering the first installment in this series (STW) was that it enabled me to play almost the same game with less effort (no figure painting, no table installing, no dice-counting) but I found the AI lacking in many ways compared to my human co-players...

Now, the real revolution in TW games would be to go fully multiplayer...Not only on the battle map but on the campaign map... Imagine the challenge involved if all factions were driven by a human mind.... No more AI bashing, real diplomacy and


So to the gods of CA, hear my prayers....
Make MTW2 fully multiplayer

[TinCow]

There has been a lot of discussion about this over the years. The basic problem with a multiplayer campaign map is speed. If you've ever played mulitplayer Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, or other such turn-based strategy games, you'll be aware that they move very slowly and take a lot of time. Throw in multiple real-time battles per turn, each of which can take 30 mins to an hour to play, and you've got a game that would take weeks just for a 2 player game. A 10 player game would likely take several months, even if it was played for several hours a day.

There's nothing wrong with this. I would gladly dedicate myself to a long game like that, but the question is how much would it help game sales? A multiplayer system like that would be so long that few people would be interested in it and it wouldn't likely have any impact on sales. So CA is faced with extensive work to create a multiplayer campaign that won't give it any extra profit. Not a good move from a business perspective.

[Ethelred Unread]

How long to large MP battles last? The biggest problem I could see with a live campaign (apart from the coding natch) would be the turn time.

e.g. If you were HRE and fighting on several fronts then you might have a couple of large battles to fight = couple of hours?

That's going to make turn time equal a couple of hours, so unless you get everyone to commit to playing in certain time slots each week (for people like me with g/f and a job) or every day (if you're hardcore), then it would be well tricky.

Anyone else thought about how it could work? (and take as read that the coding isn't going to be a problem)

[_Tristan_]

I fully understand the time and involvment it would need to play such a campaign but barring an all-out match between factions, it could be played maybe two factions at a time and the turn resolved when all fighting was over...

Unresolved battles due to absence of one of the players could then be autoresolved or fought against the AI.

Moreover not all fights would have to be fought by the players the rest being autoresolved.

My main point being not so much in the time needed to fight those multiple battles rather than the effects of diplomacy against a human opponent or (opponents) rather than a less-than-enlightened AI.

From my point of view, I think the game would then be much more strategic and a bit less tactic, the cost of going back on your word would be much more severe (human players tend to bear a grudge) and if you decided to attack you would have to be sure to gain something because any human player that I've known would make you pay that outrage the most severe way.

Thus field battles or sieges would be much rarer so the time question won't matter so much...

Anyway, glad you wanted to participate in that debate...

Any other thought on the subject is welcome...

[sbroadbent]

The simple solution to multiplayer campaign would be using a STW/MTW style risk map. Each player takes their turn, moving their pieces and hits end turn. A box pops up to show which players have finished their moves and which haven't. to prevent one or two slower players from holding up the game, a timer ticks down after a percentage number of players have hit end turn. Alternately players could select an amount of time for giving orders (such as 5 or 10 minutes per turn).

Regarding battles, a setting can be selected when the game starts that they are either auto-calc'd, or if there is a player vote. Players would vote to decide whether a particular battle is played out or auto-calc'd. If there are several battles in a turn, players can vote for which (if any) they'd want to have played out. Players not part of the battle can either choose to view the battle, or sit out. For those players who have larger empires and would like to sit out, they could go back to the campaign map to use that time to instead plot strategy.

In a RTW/M2TW style of map/gameplay it would need to be somewhat different. Since players can move all their units around all at once, making several moves before other players can even take their turn, this definately needs to be adjusted. Each player would make his moves normally, except the strategic pieces wouldn't move until everyone has hit end turn. At that point, the game would move all pieces until 2 pieces came into conflict. Once that happens that phase of the turn ends. Once the conflict has been resolved, if pieces still have movement points remaining, the units can continue to move, and players can if necessary give or change additional orders. Essentially having potentially several mini-turns in the main turn based system.

[Dead_Like_Me]

now your idea might be good but i think that its not the best idea...
TinCow how many battles do you fight a day ?
i believe not that much ... try imagining a small map that would be in the size
of France only with some cities and 3 players.
now if you got only 4 cities in the starting turns building times in the game
wont take that much. if you don't have a lot of cities you can't support
to much armies which can be bad but its like a Cap limit in other strategy games.
so instead of supporting 4 huge armies you will have 2 full armies.
so you will have to decided whether to send to huge armies in to directions
or divided each army or send the two of them on the same player.
now for the family members problem rate of years will increase so they will
die after more turns and breed less :D.

a game like that can be with a limitation for turn time like in Civ4.
and with battle time limit so each player will hurry up a bit in battles.
players who see that they can't reach max results when rushing will
prefer to auto-resolve. as Sbroadbent said not all battles must be played
and besides as i said its hard to find a Multiplayer game and it takes a long
time ... so instead of doing 8 games a day you will do only 4 huge good
battles were you have build the army in your own money and you have
chose where to go before getting into the battle.

games like this with 4 players can be fast and if players leave then you will get
AI that can be switched back to a human player like in Civ4.

read my ideas here :
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...oto=nextnewest

the up coming expansion of medieval 2 will bring with it a small campaign maps
and maybe the ability to create your own like in other RTS games.
this small maps can be perfect for MP games.

besides if they do my idea it will be very good and will be worth it.
its like risk online but better :D

[alex9337]

Heck, I'd even go for a strategic map multi-player game where the battles had to be auto-cal'ced.

But to be honest, it would be best if it was a toggable setting before the start of the game, where the participating players could decide amongst themselves prior to starting.

[KingKnudthebloodthirsty]

autocalc is probably the only solution fr a mp game on vanilla. But wat about on the crusades and the britania camp, where there's only five players? maybe then battles could be included and maybe the battle speed could be doubled or something.

[Heinrich VI]

Personnally, I would sell my soul to the

+1

I'm longing for years, TW game after TW game for a full multiplayer campaign game.

Sure most players would never play out a campaign in MP or use the feature at all and an Internet game with all faction slots manned by human players would take ages. But so what! I don't even want CA to spend massive amounts of time to balance the whole deal. Just give us the ability to simply play the campaign game via IP and play out the battles. No balancing no extra stuff. Modding could take it from there.

Unfortunately I doubt we will see a real (full fledged not some special scenarios) MP campaign in E:TW...