How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

I'm curious how the mechanics of multiplayer are working out for folks. Especially since there appears to be several ways to run a game.

So far I have only experience with PBEM and mailing files back and forth. This is pretty straight forward and works with no problems.

But I am intrigued with the network-Online variant some of you guys are running. I also see some jargon like "quickhost" game and abbreviations for settings and such and am wondering how it works.

Are all of you on line at the same time and playing simultaneously (at some agreed upon time) or are you doing a Version of the PBEM files updates but instead of emailing them they are submitted to the network? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

I'm trying to determine if I can get into one of these network type games given my busy schedule. If it doesn't require a constant internet presence or is somewhat flexible then I would like to try it out.

Any light you guys could shed on this stuff would be really froody!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

its extremely simple and easy, which is why PBEM has been eclipsed. basically, someone w/ a server runs the game, and anyone can connect and play their turn when they wish, and it is automatically submitted. W/ quickhost, immediately upon everyone having submitted their turn, the game will host; otherwise it will force host after a specified time period if some player hasn't managed to get his/her move in on time.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

I prefer to host games, because there is now way I could get a stale turn that way. In addition, being host makes it easier to get in touch with your fellow players.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Quickhost forces a turn after a specified time? Interesting. So say I miss my turn, in essence I just idle for 1 turn with no orders and gain gold - upkeep? Sounds useful. Especially if there is a problem with someone not being timely in their turns or whatver.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

I'm in a regular ( -> quickhost ) game, and so far the turn-schedule is ok. In the beginning you can even get two turns in a day.

For fun, I usually play a Blitz with a couple of friends. We're also connected by Ventrilo, so it's a real bLast. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

One of the nicest aspects of quickhost is that it automatically hosts when everyone gets in their turns, meaning that the first 10-20 turns go much quicker than they would if hosting were done on a fixed interval. I suppose you could have this effect in PBEM, but it's really much cleaner when hosted by a machine.

There's a guy (one Esben Mosehansen, by name) in this forum who's setup a server with a very nice web front end. Here's some links:
Dom2 Server Home Page
Example of a game in progress
mosehansen server thread



There are some members of this forum who are of like mind, so from time to time you'll see an announcement of a game that's starting where they'll say at the outset that it's 48h quickhost, or something like that. I believe there's on open now at: thread

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

*****in'!

Thanks, Thufir.

And for the links too. All helpful stuff.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Do you guys ever get corrupt turn files? I was getting them quite frequently when I hosted and played from the same computer. Read a post saying its related to both instances sharing a temp file that is open/created/deleted by one instance and not noticed by the other.

So I eventually hosted all my games on another machine, but probably 1 out of 15/20 turns I had to manually copy over the trn file as I got a corrupt file message and crashed the game. Even worse is the first message of my turn saying the host recieved a corrupt file and didnt execute your orders... this frustrating event has happened maybe 3 times over a couple weeks.

Mostly these errors are from WinXP host to/from WinXP client. My WinME client almost never gets these errors, more like 1 out of 80 turns.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

I think I've seen only 4 or 5 corrupt turns out of ... 2000 or 3000 turns. Two or three of those were on the same machine, which turned out to have problems.

This makes me suspect that you have a problem with your system - probably either bad memory, or corrupt / bad hard drive / interface. Recommend downloading and running diagnostics for memory and HD especially, and completely defragmenting the hard drive.

Of course - it could also simply be Windows XP. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Edit: Also, when hosting / playing on the same machine, I think the most common error is that the _game_ will crash, saying Nagot Glick Fell or some such, and reporting that it couldn't open a temp file (due to the other instance of Dom2 having it open already). Then again - WinXP may not be locking the file properly, thus allowing both to write at the same time.

But again - you get 1 in 20 corrupt even using a separate machine. It's gotta be your system - bad memory, corrupt OS, virus, bad install of Dom2, something.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Network multiplayer is superior to PBEM in just about every way. Most importantly, it doesn't require so much human interaction, all that mucking about copying turn files from place to place. On the downside, it does require a computer with more or less permanent internet connection to be the host.

Fortunately, if you set up your game on the forums, you don't have to host your own game. The Mosehansen server is publically available, and holds - I think - 24 simultaneous games. And if Mosehansen is full, or if you need special handling (like running a mod or an old Version, or whatever), then I'll host for you.

Corrupt turnfiles are very rare with network, so I agree, you probably have something weird going on with your setup.

The only thing really to watch out for is: If you are playing on a network multiplayer game, and you do things exactly wrong, the server can generate your turn before you expect, and possibly before you are completely ready. But this isn't a bug, just a nonobvious behavior, and so it is very easy to avoid.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

How does the server notify you when the turn has been hosted (using quickhost)? With a PBEM it's there in your email. Assuming you don't want to stay permanently connected to the game server, how do you know? If you wait a couple of days (when you expected the turn to run), you lose all the benefit of quickhost.

Am I missing something?

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Yep. You connect to the server once or twice a day. It hardly requires you to stay "permanently connected". Takes about what - 15-30 seconds to connect and see the status?

Also, some server games have ways of notifying you. Via email, via a website, or in Esben's case (mosehansen) jabber or whatnot.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Indeed, you are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

With any server, it's not all that hard to check up occasionally to see if the turn has run (although that does require a Dom2 client). Better yet, with a mosehansen's web front end, it's easy to check the state with any standard browser. Since it tells you the state of all the players, and whether or not they've submitted their turns, you have a pretty good idea of whether you're getting close to the turn hosting (i.e. if only one player is left to submit, then it'll host as soon as that Last player finishes his turn).

Best of all, the ever clever author of the mosehansen server has built in notification via IM w/ Jabber compliant IM clients. I haven't tried this yet, so if anyone out there has, and can say whether this is working well, or not, that'd be helpful. But in advance of such advice, the notification feature sounds pretty nifty and Esben has put a few links to various Jabber IM clients (which I'll be checking out soon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

There are switches for --preexec and --postexec which will gladly run a routine before or after running the host. In a strictly PbEM game Im guessing it would be used to email the turn files to each player. In a server game it shouldnt be hard to have it email a "HEY! the turn is DONE" message to the list of players (or IM or even a text message to my cell phone). Of course I would also probably use --preexec to make sequential backups of the .2h files before doing a host, and run the game with the --scoredump so that the --postexec can coy the score.html to a webdir for people to check on. Maybe some other neat tricks.

I LOVE that the server will run text-mode on a linux server. It makes doing things like that SOOOooooo easy. Im not sure how you would accomplish any of it on other systems but its there to play with.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

At some point I tried making a script to be used as a --postexec option for turn backup, but getting the turn number (I wanted to keep copies of the game files in Turns/XX/ subdirectories, where XX stands for the turn numbers) was so ugly, I more or less gave up.

But, when one of the players can keep his PC running 24/7, a TCP/IP game with smart enough quickhost options is pretty neat - I convinced a good bunch of other French players of that in a spring game. Just have a look at the options - you can set the server so that it hosts, say, anytime all turns are in, plus whenever 24 hours have passed since the Last hosting, except that Saturdays and Sundays don't count. Or something similar, if it doesn't fit your schedule.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

I think both --scoredump and --status create a file with the turn number in it. Ive been thinking along the same lines. There are already a couple Versions of programs to do that but they all require that the user have some programming environment loaded to run the scripts. I was going to "basic" it so that I could offer a stand-alone EXE but if you want to C it that would be great.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

No, it was a bash script - my "solution" wrote a file that contained the turn number, and read from it each time. Like I said, it's ugly - and won't work properly if some turns are run without the script - but that's basically the only way I could think of for adding "permanent memory" to a script.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

It works indifferently. That is, mostly not :-/ I havn't had the courage to look at it recently, been busy elsewhere.

Re: How multiplayer is working out for you guys...
 

Then use --scoredump or --status and grep it.