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Comment by Rendello

1 day ago

I haven't had an issue with that personally (played on and off for almost 10 years), though I imagine it could be an issue on some older hardware. Massed units will cause lag in big team games where there's 4 armies clashing, though that might be more of a network thing.

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Rendello

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yohannesk  1 day ago

I am curious as a non game developer, are these types of games deterministic? If so if I send to the server that I moved huge units to attack another huge units, can the server determine what the end will be? Why do we face a network issue?

  • matsemann  1 day ago

    This article is a classic, 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond

    https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/1500-archers-on-a-...

    Edit: original where the pictures work https://web.archive.org/web/20180719170411/https://www.gamas...

    > Rather than passing the status of each unit in the game, the expectation was to run the exact same simulation on each machine, passing each an identical set of commands that were issued by the users at the same time. The PCs would basically synchronize their game watches in best war-movie tradition, allow players to issue commands, and then execute in exactly the same way at the same time and have identical games.

  • HideousKojima  1 day ago

    Many (not all) RTS games use a networking method called lockstep synchronization that requires the gameplay to be deterministic, but has its own downsides. One of those being that if one player lags, everyone lags. I know AOE 1 and 2 use it, and I assume 3 as well

    • NortySpock  1 day ago

      For Beyond All Reason, it seems the Spring/Recoil engine will eventually decide to "close the action window", so that if one player is lagging hard, they simply submitted no actions for that "round" and the rest of the players keep going.

      I know because I've gotten to the point in the late game where my computer can't simulate at realtime, and I can no longer control my units, but everyone else keeps playing.

      Conveniently you can even still sort of chat in this state, and ask a teammate to assume control of your army on your behalf.

  • arlort  1 day ago

    They can be deterministic but I think you might be confused about the kind of game

    In RTS games like 0AD or AoE you don't just send a single huge unit to attack and wait for the result, you send many tens of individual units near enemy units, then the "battle" goes on in real time and you can micromanage units to influence the outcome. You can't just simulate it on the server because the server can't simulate the thought process of the players