Turn-based
In turn-based games, game flow is partitioned into well-defined and visible parts, called turns. A player of a turn-based game is allowed a period of analysis (sometimes bounded, sometimes unbounded) before committing to a game action, ensuring a separation between the game flow and the thinking process, which in turn presumably leads to better choices. Once every player has taken his or her turn, that round of play is over, and any special shared processing is done. This is followed by the next round of play. In games where the game flow unit is time, turns may represent such things as years, months, weeks or days.
Turn-based games come in two main forms depending on whether, within a turn, players play simultaneously or take their turns in sequence. The former games fall under the category of simultaneously executed games (also called phase-based or "We-Go"), with Diplomacy being a notable example of this style of game. The latter games fall into player-alternated games (also called "I-Go-You-Go", or "IGOUGO" for short), and are further subdivided into (A) ranked, (B) round-robin start and (C) random—the difference being the order under which players start within a turn: (A) the first player being the same every time, (B) the first player selection policy is round-robin, and (C) the first player is randomly selected. Some games also base the order of play on an "initiative" score that may in part be based on players' attributes or positions within the game or other, outside factors as well as dice rolls. Power Grid is an example of this style.
The term turn-based gaming is also used in Play-by-mail games and to refer to browser-based gaming sites that allow for game-play to extend beyond a single session, over long periods of time—often taking months for complex games like Go or chess to finish.
Read more about this topic: Time-keeping Systems In Games