I disagree on the only-feasible-for-gunboat-thing.

You could still just make some quick offers, like: "DMZ Piedmont, Western Mediterranean and Gulf of Lyon?"

Of course save your moves first :)

It's just a different kind of diplomacy, basically.

That's not a lot of time when dealing with 10+ units. But then that could make it fun as the bigger countries wouldn't be able to put as much thought into their orders and may not even be able to get all of their orders in.

It would help if you could have it retain orders from the previous turn for any unit that hasn't moved or that was supporting/convoying a unit that hasn't moved.

It would also help to have the units in order by west-to-east, north-to-south, or alphabetical as alternates to being in the order they were created. Vdip has this piece I believe.

And don't forget that with retreat and build phases, sometimes you might have a whopping 3 minutes to negotiate before something interesting happens :)

Alderian, we cross-posted, but I don't think any of those changes are really needed for this...

You could just go down the list and give all units an order immediately, then save, then check again if time's left..

It would be near impossible. Even 5 minute phases become near-impossible for diplomacy at a point. 1 minute phases might not even be possible for gunboat. Maybe with realtime chat windows at the bottom of the screen for each country, but not having to refresh the page, etc.

You just have to stick around all the time, giving it some of the immersion of a shooter game or something :)

Well it would be impractical at best for full press, sending and getting responses from the three people closest to you and then possibly changing your moves is not going to be easy for anybody in a minute, and possibly impossible for most people. Basically it would just become gunboat where you know what the other people want, if that makes sense.

Hm, I hear you erist, but I disagree 5 minute phases ever become near-impossible for diplomacy... Not for me, anyway... Hold in mind it would be gunboat-ish unless you have some time left every now and then.

I'm pretty sure I could do it in a gunboat with relative ease. I almost never use more than about three minutes to put in gunboat orders

steephie22, note I didn't say "need". I said "it would help...".

And that assumes you want larger countries to be able to get all of their orders in. If you want larger countries to struggle with getting orders in, well, that could be fun too.

An alternative would be phase length based on 20 seconds * size of largest country with 1 minute retreat and build/disband phases. That would be 80 seconds for year 1 due to Russia and then likely 2-3 minutes for most phases there after, creeping up to 5 minutes as someone comes close to soloing.

And even then, chaos is fun too :)

Every minute may count if war breaks out right now, why not in this game? :P

I suppose I misread, Alderian, although I wasn't dismissing your opinion either, just giving mine about the same thing, but I misread nevertheless but as for your alternative, well, I'm fine with that too, although I would prefer 15 seconds, and, well, I'm fine with just 1 or 2 minutes the entire game too. That's easier to implement as well.

You better use the new "wait for orders" feature or any little network glitch will result in NMR. Don't let anyone "ready up" either or everyone else will lose precious seconds.

Would not using "wait for orders" would defeat the whole purpose? It seems like the purpose, is much like speed chess. You might lose, not because of a lack of ability in playing the game, but a lack of ability in playing the game fast.

Christ man, I even find 5 minute Gunboats hard...

I guess if you reckon you could do it fine. But I just don't see how you can analyse a position quickly enough, and then input orders for 10+ units.

I think it would revert to what bullet chess becomes (1 min chess games) Just a case of who can enter some logical moves the fastest. With no real strategy involved, as long as you move quickly enough to survive.

⬆ Yes The point, as mentioned by Alderian, is not to make people have enough time, it's to get in a quick game that can't be stalled for a long time. And I personally would never join a live game that was "wait for orders" because that can be exploited.

That last point was directed at bob.

steephie, I would like to see you do one minute phases and do half decently. there would be absolute chaos and extremely hard until we get a click and drag, or something easier than a click and drop. with up to 3 clicks for each unit, itd be crazy. I don't support this idea. with utter chaos with big countries, stabs wouldn't go well, turns would be incomplete and I imagine plenty of nmrs and cd's. you can do this in person, but seriously. in my honest opinion this is unrealistic.

Am I the only one who needs 30 seconds 10 orders or so?

So yeah, if you have 17 SCs you need to hurry, but one order every 3 seconds is doable, right? With 9 seconds left to think, send some press...

And don't forget we could do 2 minutes too.

And also hold in mind it's not a big time investment, so if something goes wrong every now and then it's not a big deal either...

Lastly, you don't HAVE to play it obviously.

Steephie- just because you are able to send press doesn't mean you or the other person will have time to read press, or act on the press.
And there are plenty of people (mostly gunboaters) who could pretty easily enter orders in a minute for the whole games duration. You don't have to act like you are something special to get your point across :)

Steeplejack I can see you are not used to making a lot of moves looking at your stats. I can imagine that most of the moves you need to make are done with plenty of time to spare, as you improve as a player you may find that the fog clears and you think about what you are saying as well, it's all there for you .... soon, be patient :-)

seth24c: well, it did get me where I wanted to get. It's possible. I don't think I'm special (not in this context anyway :P), but you guys acted like it was impossible, so I pointed out it is possible for me at least. Yes, you can't handle a lot of press in one phase, but it's definitely not impossible or not fun (note:it's definitely not not fun, so it is definitely fun :P). And I think it would be more fun. Now that is of course arguable, but I think this is enough reason to add 1 and/or 2 minute phases.

NigeeBaby, I know my stats suck etc, but there are other reasons for that, one of them being I don't have the time for 5 minute phases and often something turns up in a month or so causing me to be unable to play. That's why I need 1-2 minute phases I think.

I think it would be fun, and on a cost of time invested per enjoyment of the game it would probably be more fun than some other games...

But technically i do think there would be some issues, i understand that there is often a delay in processing orders ( perhaps of 10 seconds ) at least from my memory of games showing 'Now' as when the end of phase is, it could be done, along with ajax to give instant messaging and update orders, but at present i think a 30 second delay in realising the map had been updated would cripple a player in a 1 minute game - but i see that as a technical challenge...

Well, doesn't the new minute start when processing is done? If so, there's no problem is there? You just get a little extra negotiation/thinking time, don't see the big deal.

If the timer starts again as soon as it starts processing, all you need to do is program the order of the processing a little different, so the timer restarts when the rest is already done...

Or does that not work? Am I missing something?

my point was that you can't start entering orders until you've reloaded the page and know that the timer has passed... and i'm not sure that the timer counts that precisely, or when it resets, because it was designed for a 24 hour/phase game, and may need some tweaking to operate on a sub-minute scale...

I see... Well, from my experience, you're doing fine when you just press refresh all the time from the moment it says "Now".