Board Game Arena

Hello, the harvest phase of Caverna being turn-based for every single one of their multiple steps, many times per game, makes Caverna an awful experience in turn-based mode. I have created the suggestion to implement simultaneous harvests:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115339

This would make the experience of playing Caverna in turn-based mode so much better.

Alloran wrote: ↑21 February 2024, 17:24 Hello, the harvest phase of Caverna being turn-based for every single one of their multiple steps, many times per game, makes Caverna an awful experience in turn-based mode. I have created the suggestion to implement simultaneous harvests:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115339

This would make the experience of playing Caverna in turn-based mode so much better.

Very unlikely to happen. It would imply a tremendeous amount of change in the code.

Tisaac wrote: ↑22 February 2024, 15:50

Alloran wrote: ↑21 February 2024, 17:24 Hello, the harvest phase of Caverna being turn-based for every single one of their multiple steps, many times per game, makes Caverna an awful experience in turn-based mode. I have created the suggestion to implement simultaneous harvests:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115339

This would make the experience of playing Caverna in turn-based mode so much better.

Very unlikely to happen. It would imply a tremendeous amount of change in the code.

Not sure I understand why it would be a lot of changes. It could be as simple as, instead of each person doing one step of the harvest, each person does the entire harvest in a row. Then it's just one turn per person each harvest instead of one turn per person per step of each harvest.

Alloran wrote: ↑23 February 2024, 21:33

Tisaac wrote: ↑22 February 2024, 15:50

Alloran wrote: ↑21 February 2024, 17:24 Hello, the harvest phase of Caverna being turn-based for every single one of their multiple steps, many times per game, makes Caverna an awful experience in turn-based mode. I have created the suggestion to implement simultaneous harvests:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115339

This would make the experience of playing Caverna in turn-based mode so much better.

Very unlikely to happen. It would imply a tremendeous amount of change in the code.

Not sure I understand why it would be a lot of changes. It could be as simple as, instead of each person doing one step of the harvest, each person does the entire harvest in a row. Then it's just one turn per person each harvest instead of one turn per person per step of each harvest.

That's a completely different thing than your initial suggestion. Simultaneous means everyone can do it in parallel, and this requires a lot of extra coding because the existing code is basically always single active player.
On the contrary, taking turns for playing the harvest would be pretty easy to do, but would seem to me stepping away a bit further than a simultaneous harvest option.

Tisaac wrote: ↑23 February 2024, 22:02

Alloran wrote: ↑23 February 2024, 21:33

Tisaac wrote: ↑22 February 2024, 15:50
Very unlikely to happen. It would imply a tremendeous amount of change in the code.

Not sure I understand why it would be a lot of changes. It could be as simple as, instead of each person doing one step of the harvest, each person does the entire harvest in a row. Then it's just one turn per person each harvest instead of one turn per person per step of each harvest.

That's a completely different thing than your initial suggestion. Simultaneous means everyone can do it in parallel, and this requires a lot of extra coding because the existing code is basically always single active player.
On the contrary, taking turns for playing the harvest would be pretty easy to do, but would seem to me stepping away a bit further than a simultaneous harvest option.

Sure, the point is that everyone should be able to do their own harvest without having to wait for everyone else, sort of like the very first step of Castles of Burgundy where everyone picks where to place their starting castle; as soon as everyone is done picking, the game starts. It doesn't have to be literally simultaneous, just however the implementation would have to work so that you don't have to do every phase of the harvest in order, while waiting for every player in turn order for every part of it.

So I am imagining something like, when we go into the harvest, every player is given the option to do their harvest. Then, as soon as every player is done with their full harvest, the next round starts.

Alloran wrote: ↑23 February 2024, 22:08It doesn't have to be literally simultaneous, just however the implementation would have to work so that you don't have to do every phase of the harvest in order

What you're describing is exactly what simultaneous (or parallel) is.

This is one of those things that's really easy to do in person. You just tell everyone to do their harvest step at the same time. If anyone has questions, you can stop and help them, but otherwise you just need to know when everyone's done.

If it's so easy to do in person, it must be very easy to implement in BGA, right?

Wrong.

Behind the scenes, this is a massive change to the code and its execution for individual games. It takes several hours to implement and potentially disrupts or destroys games in progress. It's one of those things that's not too bad to include during the game's initial development, difficult to change during alpha, and pretty much locked in place thereafter. For a fully-released game that's been running for over a year, most developers will consider it too much risk and effort for the payoff.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Tisaac is a prolific developer here on BGA and he's telling you the same thing.

I don't really understand all the argument around implementation overhead - This should be doable - And given that it'll make game A LOT more playable this work should start. It's pointless to wait for other players while there is no dependency in harvest. This is a horrible implementation, this is not a small problem that we can ignore.

In Terraforming Mars similar stage of new generation card selection (without draft) was implemented in right way, and this makes game a lot better online.

thereisonlyone wrote: ↑26 April 2024, 06:49 I don't really understand all the argument around implementation overhead - This should be doable - And given that it'll make game A LOT more playable this work should start. It's pointless to wait for other players while there is no dependency in harvest. This is a horrible implementation, this is not a small problem that we can ignore.

In Terraforming Mars similar stage of new generation card selection (without draft) was implemented in right way, and this makes game a lot better online.

I dont understand what you dont understand. Is it doable ? Yes. Is it easy based on current codebase ? No. Is anyone going to pay a dev to do that change ? No.
If you dont like the current horrible implementation, you basically have three options :
- dont play it turn based
- dont play it at all and wait for someone to to fix it
- try to fix it yourself (code is open to contribution)

I think it is hard to understand for people who have never had to handle multi-threaded coding or something similar.

If you allow multiple players to act at the same time you have to decide how you isolate them.

1) Do you make it so that no one can see what the others are doing until the phase is over ?
This means that the server must retain information from the players, that's extra work to define exactly what is retained and form which players.
It also means that players have to wait longer until they can see what the others have done.
(This is what 7 wonders does)

2) Or maybe you can see what the others have done once you have submitted your turn even if the game still waits for other players ?
Here too it means that the server must retain information from the players.
And you cannot allow players to cancel after they have completed their turn even if the table is still waiting for other players because that would give extra information just to the players that do a cancel.
(This is what railroad ink does)

3) Do you allow players to see what the others are doing as they are doing it ?
This can be problematic in some scenarios where there is an advantage to wait for other players to decide...
And you might get interruptions if other players are playing at the same time as you (like in It's a Wonderful World)
Here you have to make sure that pushing the information related to one player is not disrupting the other players clients because those clients now have to be able to receive information about other players while the player is acting on the client. And it has to work even if the player does a local cancel of their actions.

4) Other...
Some games like Puerto-Rico allow the player to force a return to sequential play.

---------------------
IMO, systems 1 and 2 are much more comfortable as a user. (1 or 2 is best depending on the game)


No matter what the global approach is, there might be some specific elements in the game that compound the difficulty of implementation.

Take for instance Race for the Galaxy, it mostly goes smoothly with simultaneous turns (mode 1) but many powers (like draw and discard effect in phase II) are handled via extra steps that must be done before anyone else can do the main part of the phase and the rare PvP conquests are bugged bugged of this and it hasn't been fixed in ages because it's delicate (maybe it's fixed now, I didn't check recently but my point remain). You want phase 3 to be simultaneous but those rare PvP conquests cannot be and the military power of someone is impacted by what they play in phase 3 so those impacts should be "put aside" until the end of the phase so that those fights can proceed as according to the rule. And still for RFTG, for a long while, there were also problems with objectives because hovering on them could give you information about what other players are doing during their simultaneous turn which is very relevant in that game.

It is not rare for a real life game with simultaneous turns to have special rules or FAQ entries about what to do in specific scenarios where one suddenly really wants to know what the others are doing before doing their own turn and vice-versa and or how some specific cards or actions are to be handled in such situations...

To go back to Caverna, there are many things that you can do during harvest depending on the tiles, gems and resources you have. And some of those things will inform other players as to your intentions for the next round. So deciding what is visible when, is relevant.

thereisonlyone wrote: ↑26 April 2024, 06:49 And given that it'll make game A LOT more playable this work should start. It's pointless to wait for other players while there is no dependency in harvest. This is a horrible implementation, this is not a small problem that we can ignore.

Everyone agrees that this would be an improvement.

Just to clarify, are you saying that you'd like to implement the changes yourself? Or are you suggesting that someone else should do it for you? And also insulting the developer's "horrible implementation" while asking him to volunteer a dozen hours of free work?