[Septimius Severus]

I wanted to take minute to provide some clarification regarding direct connect and our game for our players, since many have asked questions and/or are not that familiar with direct connect.

1. You can play in multiple games via direct connect on Gandalf's server at one time, the only thing you need to remember/jot down is the port number for each game.

2. Our game should be running on both the fixed (currently 32 hour) timer and quick/fast host (all turns are in). So the game can/will host whichever comes first. Remind me to confirm with Gandalf on that as the default auto behaviour.

3. Your comp is only connected to the server for a few seconds when you connect, select your nation and enter your password. During that time your comp is either downloading a .trn file (if you are playing your current turn for the first time and/or viewing or playing another nation's turns)or uploading your .2h (orders) file. The rest of the time your offline, just like a PBEM game and can play your turn via the "Play an existing game" menu option. End your turn and when your ready to send your .2h, that is when you should select connect from the network menu.

4. You can view your teammates turns (especially useful for Captains and Advisors) easily. The thing to remember when just viewing someone else's turn is, after connecting, entering the password, and selecting the nation, remember not to hit the 'End Turn' button, but rather select the options menu and hit 'Quit Without Saving'. This prevents the comp from generating a .2h file and your accidently uploading a .2h for someone else when you don't mean to or otherwise causing them to stale.

5. When you connect to the game, you'll see the game timer and you can also mouse over the different nations to see (who controls them human/AI) and whether or not that player (if human) has submitted their turn (2h.) file. This way you can check on the status of your teammates turn submissions.

6. All in all, I think you will find direct connect is quite cool. It runs smoothly, leads to faster turn submissions and hosting, and automates a lot of tasks that you'd have to do manually with PBEM (creating folders, moving .trn and .2h files, attaching files to e-mails, etc).