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Civilization nerds: it’s time for Giant Multiplayer Robot

Civilization nerds: it’s time for Giant Multiplayer Robot

As you know, Civilization is the greatest gaming franchise in the history of gaming, but the newest iteration, despite its many massive improvements—like hex grids and the elimination of stacking—had a single glaringly massive flaw: no non-synchronous multi-player mode. The only way to play a multi-player game was to sit at the PC for 78 hours straight or find a scheduled time that all the players could make it to every week, which is hard enough to schedule for a few people (much less a full game of 12). If one person is missing that week, no one can play. Civ fans everywhere have been lamenting this for two years, while the devs promise that non-synchronous multi-player is coming ‘eventually’.

With a recent update, they finally delivered in the form of ‘hotseat mode’, designed to allow players to play at the same system, but also allowing for play-by-email, a cumbersome system for many reasons—so still no real viable way to play.

Giant Multiplayer Robot screen shotEnter Giant Multiplayer Robot. Developed by Civ fans and released for free, this program, along with the website, will manage PBEM games for you in a manner similar to the old Civ IV PtBS mode, but without the need for someone to host.

How it works

Organize a game on the website, where you can invite players, pick civs, and discuss set-up options. Then player one sets up the game in Civ V, being careful to match the player order, civ choices, and other stuff that was set up on the website (there is no way to auto-populate the options into the game, unfortunately), then starts the game. That player takes his/her first turn, then when GMR detects that you have finished your turn and saved the game, it closes CIV V, and sends the turn to the next player on the list you made on the website. That player gets a notification from the GMR client, and can then load their game and take their turn. When they’re done, GMR sends the turn to the next player, and so on.

There are additional features like the ability to roll back turns (GMR keeps the last few turns stored on the server in case something gets corrupted or otherwise goes wrong) and the ability to resign from the game (even if it’s not currently your turn), or remove a player who has left (or is a jerk) by majority vote.

So, it’s taken a third party developer to make it happen, but finally there is a viable non-synchronous way to play the newest game in the greatest gaming franchise.

Here’s a video which explains the system:

Giant Multiplayer Robot is available free on their website. Thanks to Icrontic community member Zanthian for pointing me to the service.

Now, let’s finally play some Civ V!

Comments

  1. Annes
    Annes That's just fantastic. Thanks for mentioning this, CB and Zanthian!
  2. CB
    CB I expect to be starting a massive Icrontic Civ game any day now. :)
  3. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas Ich rufen Deutschland!
  4. CB
    CB I started a game on there for us to try. Everyone who wants to play, let me know when you get signed on to the site, and I'll invite you to the game. We'll get started in a few days.
  5. Colgere
    Colgere Definitely in on this :)
  6. Zanthian
  7. Gate28
  8. CB
    CB I know there are more Civ players on Icrontic than this. ;)
  9. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas I'll sign up soon as I have the game installed and updated (So later tonight it's been awhile)
  10. NiGHTS
    NiGHTS I'm signed up!
  11. PirateNinja
    PirateNinja Oh man, I'm totally in.
    Reinstalled Civ 5 on Steam, signed up, registered my email address.
  12. Annes
  13. pragtastic
    pragtastic I think I'm now signed up, can't wait!
  14. NiGHTS
    NiGHTS FYI, this will be my first Civ. multiplayer game. I hardly know any strategies and will probably get rolled, but I'm looking forward to it.
  15. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas Same here, heck I don't think I've ever played a difficulty higher than standard either.

    Want to team up NiGHTS? We can be the noob alliance :D
  16. Basil
    Basil Well, so long as my fellow noobies are going for it, I'm down for some Civ multiplayer.
  17. CB
    CB I don't think anyone on this roster is a Civ expert. ;)
  18. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas Alrighty just signed up on GMR
  19. TheRedburn
    TheRedburn HOW TO SIGN UP!?!!?!?
  20. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas Follow the link in CB's article, sign up through your Steam account, list here that you've done as such and in time CB will send you a link to the game.
  21. CB
    CB Further note: It's not really clear on the site how to sign up for e-mail notifications, and how to set your in-game password. These are both done by clicking on your own avatar in the upper right corner of the site.
  22. RyanFodder
  23. CB
    CB Once Redburn gets in, and everyone accepts the invite to the game, the game will be full, and I'll get it started. Of course, since a game with this many players will end up with maybe about one turn/week, I'm not opposed to being in more than one game at a time. :)
  24. PirateNinja
    PirateNinja I'm also open to being in up to say 3 games at a time. Maybe we can arrange a 2vs2? or if anybody wants to do a smaller game with 3 players .. etc. I'm totally open.
  25. Ilriyas
    Ilriyas I'd be up to one or two to learn some of the finer mechanics and such.
  26. CB
    CB I made the mistake of not counting myself, so one of the folks who expressed interest in the thread will not be making it in due to the 12-player limit. Though, as I said, we can have more games. Anyone can start a new game and start inviting people. I certainly wont turn down any invitations.

    I'm wondering if each game should have its own discussion thread, since there will likely be a bunch of call outs and such as the game progresses.
  27. Basil
    Basil I'd be happy enough to sit out the 12 man and go with a smaller game or two.
  28. NiGHTS
    NiGHTS I would like to stay in the 12 man, but welcome a secondary game as well.
  29. CB
    CB Okay, then we're just waiting for Redburn to get signed up, and for he and Prag to accept the game invite, then I'll start the game.
  30. CB
    CB
    I'd be happy enough to sit out the 12 man and go with a smaller game or two.
    Wait were you in the game? I removed someone with a username I didn't recognize from the thread assuming it was you, but now I see there was another person in this thread who is not in the game by their IC username, so I might have just kicked that person?

  31. PirateNinja
    PirateNinja http://icrontic.com/discussion/95602/civ-5-seeking-1v1-tournament

    If anyone wants to get some 1v1 games going in the mean time we can set it up with rules over in that thread. Could be fun.
  32. CB
    CB I re-invited Hammercock, whoever that is, just in case kicking him/her was a mistake.

    Game will likely be starting in a few hours. Whoever is left with 'other' for their civ will be getting 'random'.
  33. Basil
    Basil
    Wait were you in the game? I removed someone with a username I didn't recognize from the thread assuming it was you, but now I see there was another person in this thread who is not in the game by their IC username, so I might have just kicked that person?
    Don't think so, didn't get a notification about an invite or anything.
    I re-invited Hammercock, whoever that is, just in case kicking him/her was a mistake.
    That would be PirateNinja.

  34. PirateNinja
    PirateNinja CB always kicking me from online games because of my malfeasance. :P Glad I got invited back.
  35. CB
    CB The game has begun. Here's a place to talk about it as it goes:

    http://icrontic.com/discussion/95611/civ-5-icrontic-ffa-001-discussion
  36. midga
    midga crap, wish I'd read this thread again =/
  37. CB
    CB There will be more games. :)
  38. GHoosdum
    GHoosdum How do you set the map options in a GMR game?
  39. CB
    CB You don't do it through GMR. GMR only handles passing the turn around. Whichever player is in the Player 1 slot is tasked with setting up the game inside the Civ V interface.
  40. CB
  41. CB

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