PBEM

In!!

that would be all kinds of awesome. And yes, I imagine it would open up for diffrent gameplay types than your normal games. Perhaps with the ability to add a "timer" of sorts, so that you could force a move every 24 hours for instance, so that the rest of the people playing wouldnt have to wait longer than what the timer is set for

Yes, defo.

Having an epic game story from Civ that lasted years is just insanely awesome. Each decision requiring real calculation!

Great idea, I am in the National Guard as well as some of my friends and we are often places with poor internet that is suitable for email only.

Hey, if you are interested you can check out the forums of dominions community to get a feel of how PBEM contributes to create a different type of games. Such that can involve anything between 8-60 (and more probably) players at a time. All viying for world domination in games that can last many months. Just imagine huge armies of mighty empires backed by dozens of mages duking it out, that's the sort of stuff the PBEM lands to.

I would LOVE a PBEM function.

Sammual

I really hope for PBEM as well.  Really expands the market to those of us with jobs and from a business perspective this is a group with disposable $ .  I had never tried PBEM until Dominions and now really wish I had tried it out with some other games like AoW.  Would be awesome to have this on Elemental.

A PBeM capability would be great. Thsi is what is keeping the AOW SM community alive after all these years. Plus, it is great for us people who don't have so much free time and like to get some above AI level competition.

By the way, DC, you can definitely get some great AOW PBeM action at AOW heaven. Come and join us!

I would love to see PBEM as well.

count me in for this as well

I'm not sure I'll mess with any of the multiplayer stuff, but PBEM definitely sounds like it fits with the idea of a game that can take 3 years to finish.

But if the multiplayer stuff is going to be centered on "the cloud" (curse that stupid term), PBEM might be kind of a dirty, primitive thing to ask for.

Can somebody explain how playing by email works? I've never heard of this before.

Thanks

you play your turn then it creates a file with all your orders.

You send the file to the host. When the host has the orders of everyone it launches the turn, then send back to each player the new turn .. and etc ...

I'm very much in favor of this, as it allows much larger player count games than can realistically happen if everyone has to be online at the same time.

thanks.

That could be very interesting to say the least

Being as this is a TBS game lends itself towards makeing the support for PBEM straightforward.

One thing that must happen for PBEM to be possible is that the game support also a non-human-controlled tactical battles. i.e that it would be posisble for the AI to manage the player's armies in battles. Of course the game can support it in a primitive level or in a sophisticated manner with "smart", "configurable" and "adaptable" AI.

Being as AI is one of the strong points of stardock the 2nd piece falls into place. Making PBEM possible for this game.

I think it will do so much to enrich the game.

PBEM only really works with simultaneous move systems. How are turns resolved for Elemental? I'd say that one central game mechanic is already set in stone.

Tell us pleeeeeeeease, I want PBEM mode, too

Devs said in another thread that it would be simultaneous turns.

As I understand the Impulse hosted games it will be sort of PBEM then, you just don't send your turn as email attachment but via Impulse / from within the game.

Where is that thread? I couldn't find it :/

I don't remember sorry .. But I'm sure I've read it.

If it will allow multiple players to take their turns at a schedule to their liking (24h,48h etc) then this would indeed be equivalent to PBEM.

It will have the drawback of the making the whole player community dependenant on this server. Server breaks => No MP for whole comunity =

PBEM is more flexible but centralized server that emulates PBEM MPing would work as well and indeed be awesome

I like the idea too

My only hesitation to PBEM is what do you do for the real time tactical battles? I'd hate to think you'd have to sacrifice controlling your own troops in favor of auto-resolving everything.

That was my one qualm with AOW PBEM.  A lot of that game (and probably this game too) was in your strategy during the tactical battles.  It's not really a balance issue because everyone has the same problem, but it can certainly be frustrating.

That can be solved by allowing the players to configure or script their armies for the automatic battles. I'm not talking about an elaborate mechanism for specifying every single unit step but something more along the lines of:

Some examples

-> Archers,

Move to withing range and fire at enemy archers for X rounds, if enemy infantery/cavalry is closer then Y then retreat behind melee units.

-> Mage,

Buff your self; Cast evocation spells at enemy flying units.

you get the idea.