Some suggestions for MP (not balance)

[exsonic01]

1. Chat for the MP lobby.
There's pros & cons for MP lobby chat, and there should be someone to control and watch the chat. But at least it would work as a way to inrease the MP player number, not decrease.

2. Pre-made decks before the game.
Wargame Red Dragon and their franchise used the 'deck' system. This system allows the players to consist the deck based on given units and points. For example, like 'armored, 2000pt' or 'airborne, 3500pt'. Then, players select a proper deck from the their deck list for each games. This way, players can save some time for thinking of which units to bring.

3. Non-PBEM multi
On top of the PBEM mode, how about introduce an additional MP mode to play MP game continuously, without waiting for the oppoent to send the file? This type of PBEM is like 'Hot seat' game, but players will use each of their PC. Plus, let's introduce some time limit for deployment phase and command phase (depending on game size), and let the game continuously flow without any disconnection. IMHO one of the drawback of PBEM is discontinuity during exchaning files.

Good example is XCOM / XCOM2. (I know that the XCOM series is single-play-oriented game, and not much ppl enjoy MP. However, there's still something that this game might adapt.) MP in XCOM franchise is no PBEM. Players find each other, and play until the end of the game, instead of sending any files to server or each other. In XCOM MP, deployment phase & command phase are limited to 5 minutes. Usually the games are over within 30min, some long games goes to around 1hr, but very rarely. Time limits to the command / deployment will bring another interesting aspect to the MP game. Continuous MP game will be very helpful for the recording or live brodcasting from Youtube or Twitch, and will greatly help the sales and fan-base expansion.

I'm not saying 'let's kill PBEM' but I'm just suggesting one more type of MP games to this game.

4. 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 and cooperative game
I know that it is hard to introduce the 2v2, 3v3, or larger-ppl MP game modes for turn-based games. And I'm not sure how much the Slitherine sever can cover. However, 2v2 ~ 4v4 would be greatly helpful for the game to expand a lot in MP. To prevent the alpha-strike of a single side, one can design the turn order as a zigzag of each players on the other side, such as following:
(A,B,C,D vs E,F,G,H situation)
A->E->B->F->C->G->D->H and making it random from next turn, like A->E->B->F->C->G->D->H in turn 1, then B->E->D->H->A->G->B->F in turn 2.

It is also possible to introduce the order like (All of the A team -> All of the B team) but in this case, there should be some system or some limitation to prevent the alpha-strike of the first-turn team which could decide the fate of the game in turn 1 or 2. There are good example of 2v2 Tabletop 40K games in youtube. 2v2 in turn-base is possible IMO. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRq3tDnlAPU) If 4v4 is not feasible, then at least 2v2 or 3v3 would be good enough.

Also, I'm seeing "cooperative games" option from MP lobby for this game, but it seems that cooperative MP is not installed yet in this game.... May I ask when this game will introduce cooperative MP? And how many players can join the cooperative game at a time?

If this game can introduce cooperative MP mode, why not 2v2 or 3v3? I think 2v2 or 3v3 MP would bring a lot of attention to this game...

5. Please make custom-point/size game also possible for public (non-password game).
Sometimes I wish to play crazy games like 10000pt v 10000pt, but all of those custom settings are limited to password games. Is it possible to remove this limitation?


ps) Wish to add number 6.
Please give us a MP replay option, for the entire turns of the game. Replay, from the beginning to the end, would be greatly helpful to learn the MP game plus it would be easy to upload to Youtube.