Server vs PBEM
Actually, it is a lot more complicated than that, especially late game when turns can take an hour+ to do.
1. You must not accidently hit end turn when you first go into the server, or you will download a blank turn. If you are the last one to move, you have a stale. I can't possibly recall all the times this happened to me. You must always remember to hit the little "X" box instead of "End Turn".
2. You do your turn off-line and then you must upload it before the deadline. Since the deadline always changes (due to the fact that it is dependant on the last person who finished their turn), it can be hard to remember when the turn is due.
3. If you are the last to make your move, you frequently want to wait to the last minute so you do not get too much "time-creep". But if you wait too long, you have a stale.
4. And you need to check to see if there is a new turn up because the email notification does not always work correctly.
5. The ip address can change every time there is a crash.
6. The hosting deadlines can change significantly every time there is a crash.
7. Server games have been known to crash so bad that you cannot recover. This has happenned to me twice and to my son once. No PBEM game has ever went down this path for me.
Actually, most of these issues can be solved by a properly run server, which means NO QUICK HOST!!!! But the servers are rarely set up without the QH option.
I have had stales in EVERY SINGLE server game I have ever played. And I have had stales in EXACTLY ZERO PBEM games I have played. This is a lot of MP games for me (about 20, split approximately half server and half PBEM).
For the first 40 or so turns, both methods are about the same except that the server game can go a lot faster in most cases. But around turn 70 or so when the moves become very complicated and you have 100 messages to pour through, PBEM is far more flexible and forgiving, imho.
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