Questions about Multiplayer

[Savior59]

So I am very new to Turn Based 4X games land I have never played an Age of Wonders game before. With that being said, I am very interested in picking up the game upon release, but I have a few questions about Multiplayer.

1) In AoW games, does each player take their turn then pass it on to the next player? Is there a time limit on a player's turn?

2) When two players start a battle, what happens to the remaining players in the game? Do they watch the battle or do they have their own scenario fights they can do? Or do they take their own turns?

3) If a player loses all of their bases, do they have the opportunity to take over an AI faction? (Similar to Stellaris).

4) Can players hot-join?

I know this game is still early in development, but I am curious about any announcements on how Multiplayer works or how it worked in the past 3 AoW games.

 

[Fluksen]

Well obviously I can't help your with Planetfall as I know as much about it as you. But I know AoW3:

1.) There are basically two fundamentally different types of Multiplayer in AoW3
1a.) What you probably have in mind: Live multiplayer: Can be played as you just described with each player taking turns consecutively, but it is more common to play simultaneous turns. In both cases turn timers (typically 3-4 minutes) are common but not mandatory, it depends on the host.

1b.)"PBEM" (Play by e-mail) you take your turn. When you have done your turn the savegame is automatically uploaded to triumphs servers that then sends a mail to the next person whos turn it is. Needless to say that PBEM games take long. E.g. the 1v1 PBEM tournament that started in 2017 just recently ended. That being said "turn timers" are common, but that turn timer is measured in days (1-4 days typically)

2.)
2a.) In live MP when a battle starts it depends on the settings the host chose everybody always watches or only those that have vision on where the battle is fought can watch. In any case no other action is possible until the battle is resolved, which unfortunately means waiting for everyone not involved. Also there is no turn timer in battles, a final big battle can easily take 1 hour. Battles against independent armies are basically always resolved in autocombat so you only play out the battles against other humans.

2b.) PBEM is just the other way around. Battles against independents are fought manually while battles against human opponents are taken over by the autocombat. That being said which battles are fought in autocombat and which manually is completely up to the host, what I describe here is pretty much how PBEM and Live are played in practice.

3.) If a player looses all their bases the game is not necessary over if your leader is still alive you can retake your throne and/or take your opponents throne and kill his leader. There are also other victory conditions, though the first one (kill leader and take throne) is always true. Once a player has lost, the game can be saved and rehosted with the lost player joining a faction that before was played by the AI (or someone else who has to go to sleep or whatnot). But unlike stellaris most AoW multiplayer games i played don't involve Ais

4.) In AoW3 the answer is no.

 

[Fenraellis]

Minor addendum to "2a", the devs are considering allowing minor adjustments, such as designing unit setups, or sending diplomatic requests, but nothing that affects the game in the moment. It's largely due to the game's infrastructure(adjacent hex logic, applying effects on armies that may or may not be there, and several other factors) that progressive actions are not possible.

 

[Savior59]

Thank you very much for the responses, but I do have one more question. If players make their turns simultaneously, then how are battles fought if I decide to attack an army that another player chose to move?

Does the game resolve the turns in order? Or all at once?

 

[Fluksen]

Nicely done you found the biggest "problem" of that mechanic it is first click first serve - As soon as an army attacks the game pauses until the attacking army redraws or the combat is resolved, so if you attack an army that army can't run, even if it had movement.
The simultaneous turns make some more cheese possible like drawing in the last second of the current turn and attacking in the first second of the next turn leaving your opponent basically no chance to respond to your "double movement".
There are "gentlemen agreements" in use like "No attacks during the first 15 seconds of a turn" or announcing attacks on cities and hero stacks beforehand giving your opponent time to run or scramble together defenses if units with mp are near. But the last Live tournament used classic and not simultaneous turns for exactly those reasons.