The Orion Nebula

a need to set a time limit per turn might be an option to speed up game play, esp at later stages, simulating how hard it is to run a huge empire. I hate having to wait 10 mins for someone to pop planet to planet, speed up or get on with it... combat excluded of course.

maybe /time 5( for 5 min turns)

LB said he could quite easily implement such switch.....if it is just a hidden timer.

JESUS! I always thought such a timer was one of the few Moo3-Improvements.

And now we can have it.....in our old Moo2!!!

OMG !

Cyber or Dmitry wouldnt do such long moves no more

PK

PK, I am gonna get you for that....

it would be nice to have a scaling timer of some sort...

the problem is, some turns take a lot longer even if u are not some psycho micro management freak well into the game (aka cyber).

perhaps a time bank could be established where we can draw on unused time for long turns and deposit when we are done first, with a maximum withdrawl per turn. so that once all the other players have finished thier turn u start drawing on your time bank.

for the timely player this system will have virtually no effect on play, however for the slower players, once the time bank is consumed your turn ends when the other players are done theirs.

I have to go with Dirt-Bag's idea of a "time bank", though I can easily see this being difficult to implement, though I don't have experience enough to know the challenges LB faces when trying to reverse engineer the code.

(side note: Cybersaber is far from the slowest player on Kali these days...as I've played a more diverse group of players in 2005 than I ever have before, I find his speed of play to be solidly in the middle of the pack. Whether he's faster now, or I'm slower, or everyone else is slower, or something else, I am not sure, but Cyber is not the icon of tortoisism some make him out to be. If a player's turns consistent take only 30 seconds at t90 and beyond, then he or she is probably lacking in some MOO2 skills.)

Anyway, sometimes a player simply NEEDS extra time. The two biggest examples are getting a new tech that needs to be built everywhere, and preparing a defense against a major attack. If I've got a major fleet headed to one of your colonies, I have no problems with you taking a few extra minutes to prepare a reception, and I expect the same courtesy from any opponent.

It's kinda funny...everyone's idea of what is slow is at least loosely based on the speed of play they prefer. In other words, if your average turn length is longer than mine, YOU'RE SLOW!!!

-Gusset

icon or tortism or not his skin is particularily thin in this area, and i have a name to live up to!

The time bank idea would be useless with a hidden timer?!

Actually, I would prefer time limits similar to chess...

But when a hidden timer is so far easier to implement....we should try such solution first.....IMHO.

Hidden timer questions/concerns:

- how do you determine what the setting should be? Time limits would need to be somehow incremental, because as the game goes on the meaning of "reasonable" time limits will increase. Maybe this means two variables or more, such as /initial_time_limit=x and /time_limit_increment=y, where every turn sees the time limit increase by another y seconds. Shaky.
- Is there no allowance for the occasional "long" turn, due to defensive preparation? If not, then all of us will need to spend more time just on "normal" turns to keep ship designs up to date JUST IN CASE some evil opponent comes after us. I mean, if nasty Siron fleet is inbound and I only have 90 seconds to complete my turn, then the game just ended.

-Gusset

IMO Jbs initial proposal (5 min) looked like a good first try for this idea.

When such tool is implemented....i guess many will watch turn length then and we will receive further info for time bank values.

- Is there no allowance for the occasional "long" turn, due to defensive preparation?

OK. Yesterday I had this idea...about timeouts.

For example, when you declare war...or your opponent declares war both players have a (or several) timeout(s the next turns).

gusset that was the whole thrust of my time bank idea.

long turns are ok, so long as every turn isnt a long turn...and the bank only starts withdrawing once all the other players have hit turn so that the timer is automatically scaled to meet the game speed of the current universe, as oppsed to some abritrary figure based on turn #.

if u routinely take 1 minute per turn longer than all other players, u wont have the luxury of a time buffer. and your turns will start ending abruptly...

I understood that, DB. My last post was in response to the concept of a hard, inflexible timer.

Personally, my vote would go wtih your time bank proposal. Seems to offer the best of all worlds. Only remaining issue would be how a player can keep track of how much they have left in their bank.

-Gusset

This is one feature I have been looking for and am curius if anything has been created based on these ideas?

The "time-bank" idea sounds like a good idea. Best, if not hidden.