SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUALLY..

[Dethgod74]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to run my own, I guess you'd call it, PBW game using some free web server software and SE4.

But to test my settings, I need to be able to start SE4 in Host mode.

Can anyone show me how to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Rob aka dethgod74

[douglas]

Why aren't you using PBW? No other server is necessary.

Anyway, to answer your question, load a multiplayer game and when you get to the list of empires to log in, scroll all the way down to the bottom and select Game Master (Host). Enter the password and click login. Logged in as host, you can reset any empire's password to a randomly generated number (will not take effect until turn is processed) or process the turn.

[Fyron]

PBW already takes care of hosting in a very convenient manner. Why reinvent the wheel?

[PvK]

PBW is great for most purposes. However I can at least imagine a few reasons someone might want to run their own host. One would use a command-line syntax, I think, but I don't know what the syntax is.

PvK

[Fyron]

Search for "command" in the history.txt file and you will find it at about the 5th result.

[Dethgod74]

hello all,

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer. It's most appreciated.

The reason I'm 'reinventing the wheel' is we want to run the game at our own pace and on our own server. We're not being elitist or anything, it's just 4 old friends that can only get together every once in a while to game, even online. And a regular PBW game would probably not do.

If someone could tell me where to find plug and play PBW software for SE 4, I'm all ears. Is software for this purpose available as shareware/freeware or commercially?

Thanks again for your time!

Regards,

Rob aka dethgod74

[Fyron]

PBW allows you to set what ever pace you want. You can easily create a game for just the 4 of you, then set it to "after last player upload only" for turn processing.

[douglas]

Wrong pace is not a valid reason to not use PBW because you can set the game to have whatever pace you want. You could set a time limit for each turn of several weeks if you wanted to, or just set it to After Last Player Upload only which ignores time limits completely.

I would guess the reason you want to use your own server is to prevent other people from joining the game, and PBW lets you do that too. First, you can put a notice in the game description on PBW that it's a private game. If anyone ignores that and joins anyway, all players must be approved by the game host so you can just deny the interloper's request.

In summary, I simply cannot think of any possible reason not to use PBW that you're likely to run into. It has enough options to accomodate practically any play style, gives the host complete control over who is allowed to join, automatically creates a discussion forum for each game (by default only viewable by players in the game), provides turns by email (unless you disable that option in your preferences) and by direct download, and in general just has pretty much any feature the developers could think of that someone might want to use for running a game of SE4.

The only reasons I can think of to not use PBW are possible downtime and if you have a truly gigantic game. PBW's downtime is generally only a minor and infrequent inconvenience, and I doubt you're going to get a whole lot better without paying a lot more money than it's worth. As for large games, PBW has a time limit on how long it takes to process a turn and a size limit on the savegame file, but these are both high enough that very few games will ever run into them. The one game I remember this being a problem for was Return to (Micromanagement) Hell, where every player started with 10 homeworlds, all tech, and a private cluster of about a dozen systems isolated from the rest of the galaxy, and fleet sizes in the thousands of baseships were standard. The turns started having to be run manually offline when it started taking over 20 minutes as I recall, which is rather a lot longer than the longest most games usually take.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive wanted to run a host mode on my own network also. I will try to find the answer.

I can see mentioning PBW but it doesnt seem like a good reason to not answer the question.

[Gandalf Parker]

file:///D:/Program%20Files/Space%20E...4%20Manual.htm