[ceremony]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
There's just absolutely no disadvantage to a network game other than the obvious problems which can occur (server losing connection, player can't connect, etc. but even this rarely happenes, at least in my experience)

That's great, but almost every network game I've played in has had server connection issues, downtime, and whatnot. Certain firewalls seem to really give Dom2 problems, where you have to reset the server every few days. If you find a stable game, great, but even so, unless you play with no fixed times and just Quick Host, it's easier to drop someone an email saying - "I had to fly out of town on short notice, I'll get to my turn when I get back" rather than have to try and contact the server host and have him stop the auto-host coming up tomorrow.

PBEM offers certain advantages for casual players. And with the Perl hosting script I wrote, sending emails out to even 17 players is just a double-click away.