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[GL] Playback/Replay/Rewind/Review/History Game Feature

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[GL] Playback/Replay/Rewind/Review/History Game Feature

Postby smloh on Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:47 pm

chapcrap wrote:This suggestion will no longer be considered rejected. Regardless of policy, there is a real issue with server space with this suggestion. However, it had been determined that it should not be rejected based on that reason. Feel free to discuss this option further. Please read the summation that was previously made by agentcom below.


agentcom wrote:MOD EDIT:

This feature has been suggested and rejected many, many times. At the time of this post (July 30, 2012) I am merging over 20 topics, some of which are already merged topics.

There are two main formats of this suggestion. First, players would like to see the ownership of territories over the course of the game. This is not available as a site feature, but the necessary information can be deduced from the Game Log. Unsurprisingly, some users have created a tool which allows you to "visualize" the "Game History." It is available here: viewtopic.php?f=527&t=123669. As a site feature, this feature has been promised before, but it has never been implemented. In fact, all such suggestions have been moved to rejected by previous moderators.

The second type of suggestion along these lines goes further: It would allow a user to replay the game but also includes the troop counts on the territories. In addition to the fact that the previously mentioned and more basic suggestion has been rejected, this augmented suggestion requires data that CC traditionally has not stored during the game; namely the results of dice rolls. In the early days, the wait for Subject: Game Log 2.0 was often cited as the reason for the delay in implementing this suggestion. However, 6 years later, it is anyone's guess whether Game Log 2.0 will ever come about. A limited amount of dice roll data is now stored in order to provide user's with their Dice Stats, but not enough is stored to allow for the type of replay suggested. As Tech Contributor ender516 explains:

ender516 wrote:
Herbas wrote:
ender516 wrote:As I understand it, the biggest stumbling block for Game Log 2.0 (or at least, the level of detail required to replay a game) is the enormous amount of data storage. Recording every action would take a lot of space -- much more than the space now required to summarize dice results.


I don't think that it needs much extra space when:
1) all dice rolls are already saved in "My dice stats" (exact dice rolls, your and particular opponent's matchups, etc.);
2) non-dice info is already saved in the current game log.

What else is needed in addition to such information in order to have a replay?

Collecting dice statistics is just a matter of accumulating counts of how many rolls are wins and how many are losses, and that might be enough to get things done, if we are willing to look at generic representations of dice rolls (e.g. a 2 troop win in a 3 v 2 roll, or a 1 troop loss in a 2 v 1). But this information is recorded on a per-player basis, not a per-game basis, and it is a summary, not a complete record. Also, to recreate a game action, you have to record which territories were involved, and for complete recreation of the game, the precise order of the attacks. There might be some savings if only net effects of a turn were recorded, that is, the change in the number of troops on each territory over the course of one player's turn, but I would much prefer to see which attack an opponent pressed first, and when he or she stopped and changed tactics.


Ender does suggest a solution to this problem:

ender516 wrote:If the replay information were to be sent in a PM, the storage problem would tend to be self limiting. The server could keep it available on request until the game was archived. But I do like the idea of an exportable format. A game review page could let you replay games that were still on the system, or in a PM or forum post, or from an exported file, possibly by direct access on your system, or by uploading.


In addition to the server requirements criticism, I can see one other important criticism that has been levied. That is the ability for future opponents to analyze a player's moves more easily.

Others have suggested making this only available to premium players or as downloadable files for a CC replay application.

On the other hand, the benefits of such a suggestion are obvious: it is a great way to review your games, to teach others and would be a great tool for C&A mods like Evil Semp.

Despite these benefits, both versions of this suggestion have been previously REJECTED. Feel free to lend your support to this idea or continue the discussion here, but if you would like to post a similar suggestion, we ask that you review the history of this one to ensure that your idea has not already been suggested. Please post in this thread or contact a Suggestions Moderator if you see any threads that should be merged here.

Finally, this suggestion is similar to suggestions for automatic BOB-style snapshots between rounds/turns/attacks that allow a player to review the flow of a game based on what he could see if he checked and snapped between every round/turn/attack. An example of such a suggestion is here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=153100. This type of suggestion falls more appropriately under the heading of integrating BOB features into the site rather than the current topic.

If you see any topics that should be merged here, please post a link to them or inform a moderator. Thank you. --agentcom


[--------------------------BEGIN OP----------------------------]

wondering whether it might be possible to implement a playback / replay mechanism to help make sense of completed games.

yes, a lot of relevant information is not logged, but i think it might be possible to provide a good idea of the flow and conquest of territories just using the information currently in the game logs and animating it on the screen.

the very first problem that is run into = initial territory ownership is not logged. i think this could be figured out by starting from the endgame position and working back reversing all the "x conquered from y" reports.

the next problem is that troops losses from conflicts are not logged. this i cannot think of a solution. maybe we can give a "good enough" idea of the flow of the game just by showing deployment and fortification troop movements?
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Postby SMITH197 on Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:52 pm

i love the idea but, not knowing much in the ways of programing and coding and all that jazz, it seems like a difficult task. On that note, I'd love for someone to prove me wrong. Maybe Troy could do it, he's made stuff before....
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Turn by turn screens.

Postby strike wolf on Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:26 pm

I think this would be a helpful screen for those who want to look at the game and how it progressed and it could also be used for cheating & abuse reports to get a better idea of whether there was a secret alliance or not.
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Postby wcaclimbing on Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:31 pm

good idea, but it would take a lot of work to make that happen for every game, and it would eat up server power storing every round of every game.
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Postby strike wolf on Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:34 pm

Yeah I figured it probably was a problem for the server but still had to post it.
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Postby wcaclimbing on Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:11 pm

if you knew it wouldnt work, why did you post it?
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Postby reverend_kyle on Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:36 pm

in case it did.. etiher way landgrab has it.
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Postby AtomicSlug on Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:59 pm

Why is it hard on the server? The info is already in the log. You don't have to store the graphics, just a compressed text form of each turn (maybe for xx days then purge).
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Postby strike wolf on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:20 pm

wcaclimbing wrote:if you knew it wouldnt work, why did you post it?


I didn't know and I was going to put it on here a couple of months ago, the server upgrade that lack received convinced me to put it up. (once I remembered that is)
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Postby wcaclimbing on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:35 pm

if someone can make a program that can turn the text in each game log into indavidual screenshots of game on command, there wouldnt need to be a pack of pictures for each game, and there wouldnt be any extra server use because all the information that would be needed to make the screenshot is already saved in the game log.

this program would be fairly complicated, but if someone could make it work, it would be a great help for busting secret alliances and multis.

Edit: i just realized that even if the game log could be used, there would not be any information in the log regarding the numbers of armies on each country (since the log doesnt keep track of armies advanced after attacks and armies lost in attempts to capture a country)
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Postby sully800 on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:45 pm

the game log also doesn't keep track of who starts with which countries or where the neutral armies are. That's the reason why Tr0y can't include data on continents in his grease monkey program because he doesn't have enough info. I believe lack said that he was thinking about adding a more detailed log that would give all the info discussed in this thread as well as possibly a history of the dice rolls. This would allow you to not only see a different map for each turn but to replay the entire map like a video. That would be awesome.
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Postby wcaclimbing on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:58 pm

yeah a map video would be cool.

you could make one yourself if you took each picture of the map made during a realtime game and inserted them into some type of animation software and then play it back at slow speeds so you can tell whats happening.


look if you played these one after another it would look animated!
:D :lol: :) :| :( :cry:
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Postby gavin_sidhu on Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:01 pm

sully800 wrote: This would allow you to not only see a different map for each turn but to replay the entire map like a video. That would be awesome.

I have also been thinking of posting a suggestion like this, and yes it would be awesome, especially for those extra long games. Wouldn't you just have to have space for the different coloured numbers, not the map?
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Postby AtomicSlug on Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:10 pm

Well, the log itself is an example. It contains some info, but I agree, not all that is needed. I guess my main point is that screen caps don't need to be saved, just the player/turn#/country/armies/owner/etc.

Then the map could be recreated based on the text for each player's move.

Would take some database space, but no need for graphics, just on the turn by turn display itself which would only update the map graphic.

Just a thought.

A simple 2-4 table normalized and (maybe compressed) DB should be able to handle this I think.

Could even do it with a flat text file... Just nuke the file after the games expire from "Recent Games".
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Postby AndyDufresne on Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:27 pm

Lack has something to give you a more 'play by play' for each game. Check out 'Game Log 2.0', which is on his To-Do List. ;)


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Postby strike wolf on Sun Aug 20, 2006 12:17 am

Oh I had checked the to-do list to make sure it wasn't up there, I guess I overlooked it.
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Postby AtomicSlug on Wed Aug 23, 2006 11:30 pm

I guess that answers my question. I was just thinking of some matrix-like structure at game start and then only saving the changed entries for each turn. Just start/placement/end turn. But ic ur into going all the way down to dice rolls which is even cooler :D
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Postby AtomicSlug on Thu Aug 31, 2006 4:39 pm

Any progress on this? b4 I spend $$ 2 join, I woud love 2 c a few improvements like this...
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Postby AndyDufresne on Thu Aug 31, 2006 6:21 pm

It's on the To-Do list, don't worry.


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replay after game has ended

Postby Jrus on Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:24 am

It would be a great option to see your game in replay after finishing up.
Within a couple of seconds you see your just ended game start, evolve and finally end.

...but perhaps difficult to program.

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Postby ZawBanjito on Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:28 am

Aw, dude, I've totally dreamed of this... but I've always been afraid of asking since it seems like it would eat up space... seemed kind of frivolous...

Stiiiilll, if the log was made to contain enough information, couldn't something be programmed to play back a map based on that?
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Postby AndyDufresne on Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:59 pm

I think once a few of the next updates come out, it will be possible to make 'movies' of the turns taken in a game.


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Postby kc-jake on Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:04 pm

AndyDufresne wrote:I think once a few of the next updates come out, it will be possible to make 'movies' of the turns taken in a game.


--Andy


With third-party apps, of course. :-D

This is something I'd do, and maybe even a script-kiddie like Tr0y.

And Tr0y, I'm just kidding, you know we love you.
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Game replay

Postby Lanceyboyuk on Tue Dec 26, 2006 7:51 pm

Ok im not sure how this would work or the effort that would go into it (guess alot and may not be possible). But it would be nice to have a way of setting up game to a certain point and play from that point again etc to see how it would have turned out if you tried a different way to attack. May be something you could add for another layer of prem i dunno. Ill think about when im not so tired and explain better in morning.
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Postby AndyDufresne on Tue Dec 26, 2006 7:56 pm

Eventually users will be able to make a script to make videos of the game, once we go through more updates in the future.


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