Dice Rolls and Excitement

[Emiljan]

Just played my first game of TI4 on BGA. It's an excellent implementation and I'm very thankful that this has been brought to us online.

For me, when playing twilight imperium with my friends, the most exiting part is when a player is about to make a big, risky move. They announce their decition, they start moving over the board and more often than not big piles of dice start rolling. This results in tense moments where all players are holding their breath following each dice roll and cheering or groaning depending on how the battle seems to go.

When playing a game of TI on BGA some of that is lost in my opinion due to the results of combat being simulated in the background and a final result of nr of hits being presented almost instantly. Me personally I would have loved an option where all the ships are lined up against each other and the individual dice results are being shown one at a time, or one group of ships at a time. That way me and my friends can get the same tense experience online as in real life.

Another separate thing that would be nice especially for async games with strangers is a log of all the latest actions taken visible when loading the game. It might just be me doing something wrong but in my game the log only displays the last action. If I want to see anything before that I have to replay the latest moves, which only shows each action momentarily.

Cheers,
Emil

[GTSchemer]

Another separate thing that would be nice especially for async games with strangers is a log of all the latest actions taken visible when loading the game. It might just be me doing something wrong but in my game the log only displays the last action. If I want to see anything before that I have to replay the latest moves, which only shows each action momentarily.

Thanks for the comments. Answering this comment first, all log information is in the History tab: https://snipboard.io/ihoQOM.jpg

This has a few features:

* You can expand and shrink the game log to show less and more information.
* You can filter the game log by player(s) who were involved in each event.
* You can quickly load more of the game log, and even load the entire game log if you want.
* You can sort the history tab in forward or reverse order.
* You can view it without needing to scroll down the whole webpage, which can be required on certain screen sizes with the normal game log.


If you want to see the History tab each time you load the game, you can use this option (clicking the gear near the scoreboard):
https://snipboard.io/WHhUzj.jpg

[GTSchemer]

For me, when playing twilight imperium with my friends, the most exiting part is when a player is about to make a big, risky move. They announce their decition, they start moving over the board and more often than not big piles of dice start rolling. This results in tense moments where all players are holding their breath following each dice roll and cheering or groaning depending on how the battle seems to go.

When playing a game of TI on BGA some of that is lost in my opinion due to the results of combat being simulated in the background and a final result of nr of hits being presented almost instantly. Me personally I would have loved an option where all the ships are lined up against each other and the individual dice results are being shown one at a time, or one group of ships at a time. That way me and my friends can get the same tense experience online as in real life.

Now for the more difficult topic. You may want to vote for this suggestion and add your own specific comments: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=176179

In particular, showing dice animations requires addressing a lot of different problems. They may be solvable, but these problems do need considered to avoid annoying a lot of players. Just for example:

* For a real-time game it may make sense for all players to be excited about a dice roll. But what about turn-based games, which are most of the games for Twilight Imperium? I am not sure if those players would want to see dice rolls that happened between their turns, and if so, how they would want to see the animations each time they check the table.

* Some players play many simultaneous turn-based games, e.g. 50 at a time. Being forced to see dice animations while trying to quickly resolve your turns in a bunch of games could get very tiresome.

* Some combats have a huge number of dice rolls, especially towards the end of the game. For example, I made a note that I once saw 40 dice from one combat. Showing 40 animated dice in the top bar might not be very meaningful because it is such a large amount of information, and it might make the top bar temporarily jump in size just for an animation. This might be even worse on small mobile screens.

* Twilight Imperium, whether in person or online, can easily take 4-6 hours to play at minimum. There are players on BGA who actively do real-time games. In these real-time games, each player only has 3-5 minutes per turn. If that limited turn time is used by animation, it might cause a player to lose time on their turn. As far as I am aware, player clocks keep ticking even if animations are happening. This is a concern because there is already a problem of players getting kicked if they run low on time. This is more of a risk late in the game with difficult decisions, and that might also negatively coincide with a 40-dice combat causing a large animation.

* On a similar note, if a player is examining different parts of the game state to plan their next turn, they may not want to suddenly have the interface covered with a dice display. This could interrupt what they were doing / reading.



Long story short, I am open to suggestions but have to make sure it provides good player experiences for all types of games. The most feasible idea I have had is to use the "Current Activity" tab during tactical actions to show combat details like dice rolls. There might be a way to do this so players who want to see the dice can do so, but other players could ignore it to play quickly if needed.

[Emiljan]

After finding the history tab it seems to fill all my needs. I was just looking in the wrong place for it.

When it comes to dice rolls I understand why it would be bothersome for some groups. I think it's most relevant for casual friendly games. Me personally I would use it in async too. If such a feature was added it would have to be optional though. I will check out he link and leave my take there if it is not already represented.

[El Hobo]

Space battle cut scenes you can only opt out of with premium