Changing a message

ckotchey · #1 October 9th, 2002, 05:23 AM

Ok, maybe I'm dense, or SEIV is simply missing an unbelievably simple option. I'm playing a simultaneous PBW game, and I send a message to an ally, then I spend 15 minutes taking my turn and I think "hey, I want to change that message I typed in to my buddy"...but it appears that there is no way to re-edit an outgoing message once you've told the game to send it, and no way to totally delete it and start over!

Can such a simple thing be missing? It's hard to believe that you have to totally re-play a turn to change something so minor.

PvK · #2 October 9th, 2002, 08:23 AM

Yep, hard to believe, huh?

Indeed, there is no such thing. No way to send more than one message per turn to the same empire, either.

PvK

PsychoTechFreak · #3 October 9th, 2002, 09:10 AM

That's why I do politics at the very end of a turn. But you are right, it would be a nice to have, also a kind of "reply with history" which can be only done by a copy/paste workaround at the moment.

Arkcon · #4 October 9th, 2002, 03:23 PM

Yeah, no edit of sent Messages is allowed. It's a side effect of only allowing one message per turn. Apparantly, it's this way to avoid some sort of exploitation of the AI -- multiple Messages getting sent, and more trades happening, or some such foo.

I really got to admit that I don't really understand the issue. But I still have an opinion on it

. IMHO, MM shouldn't spend so much effort on protecting the AI from exploits. Just playing carefully, with good planning essentialy murders the AI. So exploits might as well be left to our own conscience.

If an 5 star can see a way edited or multiple Messages can ruin a person's day on PBW or email. I'd like to hear it.

Baron Munchausen · #5 October 9th, 2002, 04:55 PM

Because treaty changes happen 'instantly' when you accept the new treaty (or break the old one) you could possibly exploit a change of treaty status and then 'take back' the change before your turn was finished. The solution to this is to NOT make treaty status changes instantaneous. I wonder why MM can't do that. Would it hurt to make treaty changes wait till the next turn? Sure, you couldn't declare war & then attack on the same turn but what the hey? Maybe it would be possible for ONLY treaty change Messages to be irrevocable? hmm...

Stone Mill · #6 October 9th, 2002, 04:55 PM

I have to agree here...

While playing a huge game turn that takes 2 hours late at night after work, I can't tell you how many times I wanted to retract, edit, or resend a message... or how many times I wanted to refer to a question or comment that came with the preceeding message.

I am just very paranoid

now, and I make sure sending Messages is the Last thing that I do, with the least chance of having to re-do it.

Let's say a player asked me 3 questions and I've answered 2, but I can't remember what #3 was... I copy the current content from my drafted response, close the window, and open up the original communication. Then I select reply and paste in my draft-in-progress and add to it. I find that for particularly verbose communications, I have to do this several times to send ONE response! Clunky.
I've seen players that actually copy your original message into the header of their response... not a bad idea, but they can get big.
A great idea

would be to implement a communication history log file, especially for support of the role-playing element in the game, you may have to refer to a communication made several turns ago:
"I allow exclusive colonization rights to system X in return for a colony ship as well as 2 tech levels in X, when you acquire them." It would be nice to view past communications so you can keep track of things.

And Last but not least would be the wish to keep multiple windows open. I seem to remember that that may be difficult to do... but it is a wish nonetheless. For example, keep that communication window open or minimized when you are sending a gift/trade, so you can open the original message from a player with the trade proposal, and also search around on the quadrant map for ships and planets involved in exchanges, and also check you research tech levels. Same problem as above, you have to pretty much write down the names of ships/planets to exchange before you open the communication dialogue. If you forget the name and location of one item, you can't exit the window and browse for it on the map. Also Clunky.

Just my experience...
And hey, I still love the game, I just adapted to some of the clunky stuff.