[geoschmo]

Just a thought, can the other guy run SE4 twice and be able to connect to the game twice, once as each empire?

It does sound kind of wierd. You may want to send this savegame to Malfador along with a description of exactly what heppened. I was involved in a couple test TCP/IP games, but we never had the occurance of a breakaway empire being formed during the game as this happened.

If you are unable to get the game working again as TCP/IP and you want to finish, you can continue the game but play it by email. It will take longer, but at least you can finish.

Each of you will log into your own empire and play your turn. Then have him email you the resulting .plr file and you can log in as host and process the turn. Just say no whenever it asks you if you want to continue in TCP/IP mode and ignore the TCP/IP screen if it comes up at the end. Then email him back the resulting .gam and other files and repeat.

Geoschmo