Strange email game anomaly

Duzmond · #1 March 19th, 2015, 06:05 PM

I've got this email game going,and before I play my turn,I playback the other players turn.
When I did that this time the other players turn played,then the game ended. I never got a turn,all my stuff is unmoved ?

When I tried to reload the game it said- Player 2 path to game changed?

What's going on exactly?

Mobhack · #2 March 20th, 2015, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duzmond

I've got this email game going,and before I play my turn,I playback the other players turn.
When I did that this time the other players turn played,then the game ended. I never got a turn,all my stuff is unmoved ?

When I tried to reload the game it said- Player 2 path to game changed?

What's going on exactly?

One of the players has tried to play a secure PBEM game in a different path from where it was started, or on a different machine, or perhaps is swapping slots (trying to use the free game to run several games in the same slot because of the 5 game slots limitation of the free demo).

Those are all no-nos for the secure PBEM system.

If one of you need to do that sort of thing then you should be using normal PBEM security, which is fine for non-competitive games.

Also - if someone has reinstalled the game (e.g. had a crash and so had to install the game and windows from scratch), that will of course trash a secure PBEM mode game too.

Duzmond · #3 March 20th, 2015, 03:52 PM

I just don't understand why my turn was skipped. We are in slot 40 so it's a Cd version game.

Mobhack · #4 March 21st, 2015, 10:41 AM

Failure to load means somebody did one of those things. The game is likely to be toast.

Duzmond · #5 March 23rd, 2015, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mobhack

The game is likely to be toast.

It was for me as soon as I missed a turn.

ctcharger · #6 September 29th, 2022, 08:46 PM

old thread but still an issue, what a pain...

Mobhack · #7 September 29th, 2022, 08:57 PM

In secure PBEM, each player has to keep thier turns in complete lockstep and ensure they complete thier turns properly - not sending an incompleted turn to the opponent for example. They also have to reserve the slot as mentioned above with no swapping games in and trying to share a slot with say 2 opponents simultneously, though that is usually seen users who have the demo game.

There are lots of ways that secured mode PBEM can fail, usually they relate to player turn handling.

If it is a friendly game with an opponent you trust then regular mode PBEM is much more forgiving of user errors and quite frankly, I would only ever use secure mode for a full competition style game. (It was requested back in MSDOS days by guys who played ladder type competitions).