Multiplayer Campaign

[ImperatorXVIII]

As the title - what about the multiplayer campaign? Is it implemented yet or? Have not seen it in any case.

[ScottyMac]

Is this on another thread? I can't believe there are no other posts on this.

CA, how about a multiplayer campaign update? How would it play though?
1) Do you serialise the turns?
ie. same as the single player, each player makes all moves and then ends turn. Very stop/start and would be frustrating waiting later in the campaign.
2) Allow all human players to move/play at once, use the "field of control" mechanic to control battles.
ie. If both armies move, if they pass both players are asked if they want to engage. If one says yes then the battle screen pops up. Same for navies. Retreat is still an option on the battle screen (if they haven't already). Would make trapping armies harder as they can run away when you try to attack. Bit more realistic though.

[PrimeChaosVC]

I head its only for 2 players, if your faction fights against the ai army, your "friend" gets to control the ai army. So if he is good, you will suck...and if he is bad you will be Napoleon.

[Vern]

Intersting idea, I assume it would work on a per-battle invite system?

What I would like to see is some way of saving in-game battles as custom battles, not just as replays.

[ScottyMac]

I hope it's not just 2 player. It doesn't even sound as if that is a true campaign multiplayer. Does the friend control the campaign map as well? Even a hybrid control and schedule mechanism might work and be better.

Serialise would be easy to code (I assume that is what the game has now, instead of AI logic the commands are issued from a remote PC). Would make the game slow though.

2 phases of human campaign map interaction.
1: All human players can change settlement options, research and build requests.
2: A single person, in the current order of the country moves, can make army and agent moves which trigger battle requests for the other players. Once the current country is finished the next country makes its moves until all are done.

The coding would, of course, have to cater for a human player building a building in a settlement before the person currently controlling their armies taking the settlement. The system should take action such as crediting the cost of the building as costs would only be confirmed during the persons actual army control phase.

Serial nature of army movement is kept, but at least the other players have something to do in the mean time.

[Not]

If it is released it will be for a max of 2 players, this is what CA has said in the only press release I have seen about it.

[ScottyMac]

Hmmm, unfortunate if that is what happens. Will end up being 2 world powers, one on one...don't get me wrong, better than nothing, but I would have expected up to 4 players as a minimum. Adds that extra level of dirty tactics (ie ally with another human player against a third then stab your ally in the back when they are at their most vulnerable). In the end, a 2 player campaign will help the game a heap and will mean at least some battles won't have stupid AI decisions. Might have stupid human decisions but you can't win them all.

[Ike]

My recollection of CA's press releases, etc is that it will be 1 vs 1 human players ... sorry, two human players each with a different faction, all other factions AI. So, it seems it will be the single player campaign for two players then. I confess extreme disappointment, even as I confess ignorance as to how difficult it might be to program all factions -- or at least all 12 major factions -- to be controlled by a human player. That is what I'd like to see.

Disappointing, as I don't think a mod could affect the player limit, but it could be programmed to be 12 humans vs AI for the minor factions and anyone who drops out, their faction gets picked up by the AI. But, I don't know how they programmed the game in the first instance and don't know enough about programming games in general to comment intelligently on what they could do with what they have in the game already.

But, better than no multiplayer campaign, and we could work up a round-robin structure where we play 1 vs 1 in a Grand Campaign with winners vs. winners and losers vs. losers rather like a long-running chess tournament. Those who drop out without something that sounds like a good reason don't get to return. Points for wins, fewer points for draws, zero for losses. Use the points total - not a rating system - I'd rather try to run the U.S. Treasury! - as a basis for the next round robin. List players by points total, most to least, and pair the upper half with each other and the lower half with each other for the first round then winner vs. winner and loser vs loser, etc. Have a forum for bragging etc, maybe a blog for "official" MP Grand Campaign Tournament rules and news ... I don't know for certain, but if we wanted to, we could make something work even with 1 vs 1 MP campaign limitations.

No, we couldn't do that; we'd rather whine and complain that the game program doesn't give us what we want. Right?

[dmcheatw]

so basically IF we get an mp campaign, which we will need to pay for via an expasion no doubt, then it will be at most two players, and the second player may not even have control of a faction, but rather just gets to hotseat battles. is that about right?

[FearofNC]

with 200 turns... countless battles.. time to build and think... i dont see how a full scale real time mp campaign is possible..

id prefer them to focus on a small map with fewer factions.. similar to vikingtw..

limited tec tree and building options... get rid of the real time element.. you need play by turn.. let each player decide on 1 battle per round to fight manually.. make option to turn faction control over to a new player or make open for some1 to join in mid campaign from lobby... make option for all parties to save at same time and return later..

this is not that hard... we hosted a mp campaign with forums and html.. and that was 8 years ago... somehow i think that even with all this time to work on it... ca wont get it right... if you want to play a good mp campaign ... you need the community to host it.. with todays technology.. an interface could prob be designed to work with the game that would be accessible from an internet browser or in game.. like the steam overlay...

[this_is_sparta]

IF ITS not released i want my money back for false advertisement, its the whole reason i got this game to play campaign agaist my best freind

[Tyr3ll]

Personally if it's going to be released I'd like it to be like this:

Everyone can queue up their construction and recruitment tab while waiting for other players to finish, kick ministers, basically everything without being able to move your units on the campaign map. This lessens the feel of waiting since you can perfect it and when you get your turn, you are most likely done with it already and all you really gotta do is move the units you want and pass the turn again and hopefully the next player will have done the same or has at least started managing his faction while he's waiting on you

And for the battles, you get to make your own rules with this "Autoresolve it when less then 5 units vs 5 units, else it's boring and waste of time". This can cut the wait and slowness of the campaign DRASTICALLY and still make it fun to play.

[Lechuza]

^ What he said

Give us options, if players want a slow paced takes forever game, give the option. If they want a quicker game give options for that. Also I wouldn't like to play a weird hybrid campaing. Make it like the singleplayer one, but with other players controlling other major factions, that would do it for me. I'm still kinda disappointed its only 2 players though, was expecting to be able to play with my 3 best friends which all love the game (or its potential in its current state). But its better than nothing I suppose.

[FearofNC]

a campaign game is supposed to take 40 hours or so to play ..... who is going to sit that long... and if the ai isnt making all the moves but one... a full scale campaign with 12 players could take 480 hours... thats 20 days to play if you dont sleep eat or do anything else ... its just not possible

a hybrid, smaller, watered down version is the only way to really pull it off...

but i agree with lechuza.. whatever the format is... i hope there are lots of options!

[Tyr3ll]

Ever heard of saves? Come on. You don't have to play it through in 1 go, just find a reliable friend.

Edit: Maybe you can choose a smaller map if you don't have much time or something but a full scale campaign is really something I want to play online Just have both the options available. (Besides I hope you can mod the multiplayer so that it isn't a problem in the first place.)

[Not]

Multiplayer GC sounds fun in theory, but as FearofNC says the timescales involved would be ridiculous. I'd be happier with some smaller sized scenarios, the size of the american or indian theatres seems like a good size for two to three players, maybe make a larger version for for or more. That's just what seems to me like it would be fun to play.

[dmcheatw]

well people have played chess through correspondance for 200 years each taking their own turn. only difference is here the players would need to meet up and do the battle phase of their turns together. a campaign can take a matter of months to complete, imo

[Stryda1989]

I do remember reading that the campaign would:

a) feature 2 players
b) support game saves for both players
c) set time limits for eachplayers turn (so your opponent doesn't spend all day contemplating his strategy and/or kicking ministers)
d) rules can be set up for the game so that certain battles HAVE to be autoresolved.
e) mid-campaign players can vote to autoresolve
f) opponent can control AI armies if he so desires (or spectate)

Other than that maybe it is even possible for BOTH players to win (in terms of completeing their campaign objectives) although I'd have to admit I'd be an :wub: and capture my friend's target countries, aka Gibraltar if he is a Brit

Other than that I'm looking forward to it! Have faith in CA they'll make it work. You have to appreciate NOTHING of this scale has been done before in terms of multiplayer, short of something you may have to pay monthly for. Be patient and I'm sure it will work out... although don't expect it to be bug-free when it is first released

Also, people are testing it now (or at least very soon - they advertised it not long back)

The multi-campaign has also been mentioned in the daily update a few times too, check it out:

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425

Stryda

[ScottyMac]

Personally if it's going to be released I'd like it to be like this:

Everyone can queue up their construction and recruitment tab while waiting for other players to finish, kick ministers, basically everything without being able to move your units on the campaign map. This lessens the feel of waiting since you can perfect it and when you get your turn, you are most likely done with it already and all you really gotta do is move the units you want and pass the turn again and hopefully the next player will have done the same or has at least started managing his faction while he's waiting on you

And for the battles, you get to make your own rules with this "Autoresolve it when less then 5 units vs 5 units, else it's boring and waste of time". This can cut the wait and slowness of the campaign DRASTICALLY and still make it fun to play.

This is what I was talking about on post #5 (well sort of).

Depending on the coding in the background, speed on the map could be no different than a normal campaign. Only army/navy/agent moves would be sent to the other human players when they are made and if a battle is between the human player and the AI only the result would be sent to the other users. The changes on the campaign map (ie build commands, tax changes etc) could be cached locally on the PCs of the human players not commanding their armies until it is their turn and they click the End Turn button.

As someone else said, I don't know how it is coded so there could easily be reasons why this couldn't be done.

[Ritterlichvon86]

it's the one thing I'm looking forward to the most