Slitherine

Where is this ?

I am writing this in the mod / scenario section because 1, i want to play multiplayer but 2, None of the maps suit what I want to play and I need to be able to make maps/ scenarios that can be played by others ..

So far all I have is a huge list of unplayed unjoined games from attempting to use this extremely poorly implemented multiplayer feature..

As one of many players that bought this game 100% to play multiplayer I am hugely concerned at the current state of this game. I need help to make scenarios or maps that will work in multiplayer REAL multiplayer ... not pbem ..

The multiplayer needs extremely urgent attention ! I have been trying to use the chat button and am getting not one single answer in the multiplayer chat room .. with out communication its impossible to try convey to people to stay in que for a game it seem people are rapidly making rooms have no clue whats going on and give up.

The options for multiplayer hot seat are also extremely bad it will only allow 2 players in a hot seat game even tho their can be 8 players total and NO options for even the 2nd player to choose his country .. The Ai in random maps is extremely bad it will rush at enemy held hexes with out any scouting and get surprised ..

DEV you must at least have a setting to we can choose for Ai to only attempt to move to a hex it can see ... I have an infantry in a city hex clearly showing my flag I only just moved to that hex so unless I had used a recon to take the hex then moved on its 90% likely my unit is still their .. Also why has AI making crazy choices in attacks .. tanks trying to attack my infantry that are in a city .. The Ai has no concept of order of operation .. it wont use artillary to weaken targets b4 attacking ..

Please the reason we so so desperately need multiplayer is the Ai is so extremely bad .. We need to be able make scenarios or random scenarios to play REAL people in REAL time with options to the parameters from the Multiplayer Area of the Game.

I suggest urgently we need a Multiplayer lobby to organise games to see who is here .. this was availble 23 years ago with PG2 ..

I Tried to use the editor and found it extremely hard to understand ... I have made many many scenarios on PG2 with no trouble at all using their built in Scenarios editor then using a 3rd party ( luis guzman )sorry for name spelling ... app to edit the parmeters further ..

I tried to random gen a map ... I wanted a random gen map with 4 players but it only let me have 8 ? I go to edit the paramters I try set to 4 players 2 players on side 1 2 players on side 2 .. I try set player 1 and 3 to allies (human) players 2 and 3 to Ai ... i set some stuff like dates etc etc but the map still has 8 armies .. I try use the validate the scenario tool . It says no errors .. I try test play and it just crashes ... I have made many custom scenarios in Pg2 with no problems at all but cant even make a very basic one to work here.

Can you let me know if any of this stuff is going to work soon please post a road map of intentions for REAL multiplayer because for many this is the ONLY reason we want to play this game.

Regards. REAL Person,

P.s anyway I can help with ideas I am glad to do.
And im sorry this maybe seem critical but I can only write what I expected to see what I had hoped what would be in the game and What im trying to achieve as a player.

I find the better multiplayer experience is to communicate with the people you are going to play with beforehand. Arrange your games, don't rely on random people to join randomly.
Good place to start looking is the discord, or on steam forums.

Yes it would be nice if the game had a perfect quick join system, but I think it's also true that doesn't feel fit into Panzer Corps. It's not a game of quick joining where you hop in and out of games on a whim. Games are much more deliberate, as shown by the original system of PBEM still in place. Think of the new True Online mode is purely a bonus added on top.

There's plenty of 'real' multiplayer in the 10 hand crafted multiplayer maps. They're built for replay value, not just a 'once and done' experience. So I do recommend sticking to them if the randomly generated content is not to your liking. It's not unreasonable to have critiques on the random generated multiplayer, and maybe it can/will be improved. But I'm not entirely sure what you expect from content that is randomly built by machine logic either.

I'm struggling to think of a strategy game with outstanding randomly generated multiplayer content. Xcom maps were hand crafted and borrowed from the campaign map pool as I recall. Even in big daddy Civilization, I was never impressed with their randomly generated maps. Always so many problems from their terrain generation...
I'd always stick to 'desert/plains/no oceans' types just to have a prayer of a decently playing map, and even then I'd probably have to 're-roll' the map a dozen times over before it generated something worth playing on. Otherwise it's just a nonsensical throwing up of endless dense terrain and awkward and unplayable water layouts.

But if you want to demand a multiplayer roadmap.... well I can't help you with that.

Maybe there will be ways for user content to be accessed through multiplayer. It raises a lot of concerns that need to be addressed, such as how to make sure they're balanced, curated, and available to more players. Last thing we need is a Steam workshop full of '10 King Tiger vs 1 Polish tank' jokey maps.

OK this is a serious question. Have you ever played panzer general 2 online game ... not a play by email game. or single player ? Because I dont really think you understand what the multiplayer community of online gamers want.. You seem to only be thinking that play by email or single player or Historical games?

We had many many multiplayer games using SSI own multiplayer maps and scenarios .. and we had many many multiplayer games played in real time using player created maps and I can tell you the more fun game and many times more balanced games were the user created ones . Also there were many user created maps which took a lot more effort to make. Your own map creation tool looks to make it very easy to make maps which is good.

As for random players Are you familiar with the Old M-Player gaming site or the Game site like Gamespy .. or the microsoft msn gaming zone?

These where sites like chat rooms . You would join a chat lobby that was designed to launch different games .. In that lobby you could see many other players hanging out .. chatting and waiting and organising games.. These could be Random people as you say ... or they could be the same people that you have already played with 100 times before .. You will very quickly get to know these people by talking to them .. You will know who is good you will know what game types people like to play ... who the rage quiter or guy that plays till 5 am in the morning then falls alseep at the wheel or gets very drunk and makes funny mistakes ..
We didnt have a built in voice chat but used one of the origonal Voice chat programs Roger Wilco to talk to each other .. This is 23 years ago ...

A very well known game age of empires 2 used this exact same sort of chat room lobby launch system .. but one great thing If the host wanted to play a custom map the random map script would be uploaded to the other players b4 the game started ..

A problem here I see is people try to host a game then wait for a Random as you say to join .. if they waited too long they got bored ? The host Cant see what is happening? other players might have joined they dont know what is going on.. The old system like pg2 or age of empires 2 and even the just re released age of empires 2 does is put you into a sort or waiting room . you can click ready when you are ready and then all the other players know everyone is ready and host starts the game ...


There is a lot of ways to implement this im just trying to add ideas because the biggest thing people dont know what is going on...

Online gamers like all kinds of different things but If someone made your LOL 10 King tiger vs 1 polish tank people will soon know the diffence between such scenarios . Good scenarios are easily sorted from the rubbish and soon become popular ..

The one reason so many people were excited by the Idea of Random scenarios is because with a Pre-Made Scenario people quickly learn exactly how it is set out they go ok the other guy has this this this I have my set attack order etc etc ... and replay value becomes lower and lower no matter how balanced it may have been on play through number 1.

You have a great random scenario potential it just needs this bit more work. So much potential ......

The advanced options hardly seem to work in mulitplayer.. Why cant we have commander traits we can use on turn 1? Can we have option to give weaker player more prestige etc ..

You have a very basic chat feature that most people dont seem to be able to see. Can we make it more visible as a short term work around?
You have a choice to choose random map but very limited options

I can list the things I think we really really need. ( I dont know how hard any of them are to implement so dont be annoyed at what I think we need I can only put these ideas from the view of the consumer not from the dev point of view.)_


Oh and I think the random maps are actually pretty good !! because to me its more important to be random and new every time and how you use the terrain mountain infantry bridge units to cross the rivers as well seem to be very important ... but one thing maybe a lot more roads need to be connected and bridges when roads end at a river?

I do have a question about how your random maps are created .. In age of empires it was a simple word or notepad kind of document called an rms random map script .. I found these very easy to edit and could be hugely powerful tool to create not just the map but some other trigers or events etc.

The biggest proportion of online games played in age of empires 2 is Random Map ... which is created by the random map script but these maps can be very similar they have a randomness each time so and arab type map is always very similar but never exact same and also very different to a black forest map which has a very large number of trees connected by roads many catagories or random maps..

Hopefully this can give you some insight I dont expect a reply to much of this but Happy to know if you have read some of this to get Ideas or understanding

Ps any links to information about creating maps/scenarios or how I can play them with others will be appreciated . Do I need to manually download a scenario to play with other people or does the host automatically send it to others?

NO answers ?

Discord is crap I went there ...

Still nothing .. what a joke