FG2 is a great game. The single player campaigns are super fun, but eventually get old. Multi-player is what can drive continued interest in the game. Multi-player is fun, but it's hard to find matches and the overall setup can use some improvements. Below are my suggestions for the developers. Apologies as I will also post this on the Slitherine site. I really love this game and hope the multi-player aspect is improved to keep interest in it going! Please add your ideas/feedback to mine as well.
- List all on-going games and show the current score (use tourney scoring). This shows that there are people playing. List players. Of course make this filterable so only open/non-started games can be shown as well.
- Allow play against AI's (up to 3 plus neutrals). Make them able to be on any side or neutral or for themselves only. This won't slow down the play but adds to the challenge. You can institute Co-op play too which would be cool.
- Show player time zones or country/province-state. This will allow players to choose someone more likely to be online when they are online.
- Allow for private games with a password or invite required. That way friends can play together without someone else jumping in.
- Allow for more than 1 human opponent. This would be fun, but I understand that it would make games take longer. Perhaps expand to 3 people max and see how that goes.
- Allow for direct messaging to send other players a message (or maybe just a steam friend invite) to facilitate people setting up matches at good times to play online together at the same time. This should also allow for in-game messages. For example to remind someone it is their turn. Or perhaps if no action for over 12 (24?) hours the game auto-emails that "It is still your turn".
- Auto-forfeit if over x days with no activity. X = 3 days in my opinion. Or give the opponent the opportunity to accept or reject the forfeit. If friends are playing and one is on vacation, this might be useful. I have forfeited games that the other player has quit just to get them "closed". This should be the game's job and should not count as me forfeiting either.
- Keep stats on Wins/Loses, maybe total points for/against or average points. Forfeits should not count as wins, but list how many times the player has forfeited. Have rankings. Perhaps have different tiers based on total number of games played such as Expert, Intermediate, Novice. That way people will know if they are challenging a rookie or expert in multi-player mode.
- In the points system, forfeits should not give the person a win if they were not winning when the forfeit happened. Perhaps set up a minimum # of turns required for the game to count. I do think there should be a way to surrender if you are soundly beaten and don't want to finish the game. That should give the other person the win and any points for both teams.
- Another idea for games that are forfeited would be to have the AI take over. This game would not count in the multi-player stats, but might be fun for a player to get some closure as they may have invested some time in a game only to have the other player quit. Consider this in a tournament as well. I had this happen about 5 turns in and it was a bummer. I automatically got all the points but would rather have at least played the AI for the points.
