Longturn

Planning and discussing Freeciv Longturn gaming
Ozor Mox
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Re: Longturn

Post by Ozor Mox »

Arbogast wrote:So now we have
1) Stand alone FreeCiv (single and multi)
2) FreeCiv-web
3) longturn.org (something else altogether) not to be confused with
4) Stand alone FreeCiv "turn/day".

Am I getting closer to the truth? :?
1 and 4 are really the same thing. All that needs to be changed is the timeout server option to allow for one turn per day, but both just use the standard Freeciv server.
2 is a web implementation of Freeciv that (as far as I know) is not compatible with the desktop version.
3 and 5 (as monamipierrot mentioned) are separate forks of Freeciv to better support the turn-per-day approach to gameplay.

It might seem a bit confusing, but that's the nature of open source. It allows anyone to grab the base game and make whatever changes to it they like! Whether that allows freedom or fragments the community is up for debate I guess, but what other games that have been around nearly 20 years are still actively played today?! :)
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Arbogast
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Re: Longturn

Post by Arbogast »

Thanks to monamipierrot and Ozor Mox things are looking a little clearer :D
And I welcome the variations to the game, I think That is the reason for the longetivity of Freeciv.
ifaesfu
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Re: Longturn

Post by ifaesfu »

Basically you have "normal" freeciv, freeciv-web and freeciv for android.
With the base of "normal" freeciv you can play GreatTurn and Longturn. They let you play with many human players around the world with 23 hours each turn.
You can't play with many human players in a multiplayer freeciv game, as not everybody has 2 or 3 hours or more to play a whole game.
ahfretheim
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Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:29 pm

Re: Longturn

Post by ahfretheim »

Caedo wrote:Longturn gaming is online multiplayer(not Freeciv-web) with 24-hour-turns, so a big group of people from all over the world could theoretically play together. You log on at least once a day and make your moves, maybe have a conversation with the leader of a different civilization etc...
That sounds horrible. :cry:
monamipierrot
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Re: Longturn

Post by monamipierrot »

ahfretheim wrote:
Caedo wrote:Longturn gaming is online multiplayer(not Freeciv-web) with 24-hour-turns, so a big group of people from all over the world could theoretically play together. You log on at least once a day and make your moves, maybe have a conversation with the leader of a different civilization etc...
That sounds horrible. :cry:
Well, it is not.
It is much funnier than a single player game. Never played online without longturn, but I really can't imagine how can you play a whole game in a run, without interruptions, and without limiting to 2 or 3 opponents.
With longturn kind of game, human players are usually around 30 (often ranging between 20 to 40), and the pace is VERY slow (althou we use to set, e.g., x2 or x3 multiplier to unit mps, which also makes much more interesting the terrain georgraphy) but the game is infinitely deeper. Invasion plans has to be discussed for days with allies, and when you prepare a military campaign you draw "scenario" maps for allies convenience.
OR - and this is how 90% of players play - you can just login some 15 minutes daily and make your move.
Games last usually some 3-4 months.
In GreatTurn website, privee forums for alliances are provided, and you can also find a history section where you can leave the annals of your civilization, and which will be automatically published when the match is over.
Also, as in Longturn.org, each match has a preparation period of several weeks, in which everyone can discuss and vote game settings about map, rulesets and so on. Greatturn has a senior administrator (Davide) who fix technical problems and who we call our Benevolent and Almighty God, cause sometimes use his superpowers during the game to solve some issue (kind of voyeuristic God, I have to say :P )

I can't explain properly how deeper, more challenging and more involving is to play with many involved human players, and how "poor" will you find to play alone once you tried longturn games.
Longturn games are Freeciv at its best, you should definitely give it a try.
Ozor Mox
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Re: Longturn

Post by Ozor Mox »

monamipierrot wrote:Never played online without longturn, but I really can't imagine how can you play a whole game in a run, without interruptions, and without limiting to 2 or 3 opponents.
The same problem plagues the commercial games and is the reason the multiplayer communities for these kind of games are so small compared to less time-demanding games like RTS and FPS games. For example in Civ V, even set to quick is ~450 turns which, with a turn timer of 60 seconds per turn is still 7 hours and 30 minutes of gameplay. I never have more than 2-3 hours at a time to play games so to spend the equivalent of a working day playing Civ non-stop is never going to happen (nor would I really want it to!) Of course this is fine for 2 players, you just find a time to reload and continue, but each additional player makes it exponentially harder to find a time to reload if you don't play in one sitting.

Longturn style games really are the way that Civ-like games need to go for multiplayer. For Freeciv, it would be nice if it could move towards a less admin-heavy approach so that it's easier to casually set up a game without what seems to be an amazing level of dedication to managing the game, writing scripts, dealing with issues etc. that is currently needed.
monamipierrot
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Re: Longturn

Post by monamipierrot »

Ozor Mox wrote:
monamipierrot wrote:it would be nice if it could move towards a less admin-heavy approach so that it's easier to casually set up a game without what seems to be an amazing level of dedication to managing the game, writing scripts, dealing with issues etc. that is currently needed.
I agree, but this wll be achieved when the LT or GT communities will grow to such a weight that things could be easier.
cazfi
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Re: Longturn

Post by cazfi »

Ozor Mox wrote:move towards a less admin-heavy approach so that it's easier to casually set up a game without what seems to be an amazing level of dedication to managing the game, writing scripts, dealing with issues etc. that is currently needed.
Well, I'm playing with friends with the standard freeciv (current game has now been running over a year). You can add all these external scripts and stuff if you want, but it's not like they are absolutely necessary.
Ozor Mox
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Re: Longturn

Post by Ozor Mox »

cazfi wrote:
Ozor Mox wrote:move towards a less admin-heavy approach so that it's easier to casually set up a game without what seems to be an amazing level of dedication to managing the game, writing scripts, dealing with issues etc. that is currently needed.
Well, I'm playing with friends with the standard freeciv (current game has now been running over a year). You can add all these external scripts and stuff if you want, but it's not like they are absolutely necessary.
I did the same thing with a friend and it turned out very well, although because we trusted each other we didn't even use authentication on the server so cheating would have been easy if we wanted to. I'm guessing when you are playing against randoms something more than the built-in server authentication is needed, since there are the heavily organised Longturn and Greatturn games, but nothing organised more casually on this forum for example. And of course the metaserver, while great for normal multiplayer games, would need some work to support setting up 24-hour turn games.

Either way, Freeciv's support for playing this way is still better than Civ V's!
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Nimrod
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Re: Longturn

Post by Nimrod »

monamipierrot wrote: You missed:
5) GreatTurn (a pseudo-fork of longturn.org and the one I like most),
It is a very open and friendly community (well, at least while you're not engaged in a total thermonuclear world war, of course!). Give it a try at greatturn.org!
Monami ! Nice to see my former ally from GT01 :D

Sadly, I think perhaps that GT (GreatTurn) may be dead. It's been 5 days since the forums and game servers have been down, with no news. Hopefully, I will be proven wrong. Otherwise, I've decide to join the LT (LongTurn) community in order to get my turn-a-day play fix.

Hope to see you there :)
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Nimmy
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