Hosting for Absolute Beginners

[Tals]

I'll do some researching once I return from my holidays - need to chat to Moggy, as I believe she is on a windows machine and her games send out emails after each turn. Works very very nicely

Tals

[MoggyII]

I'm a she? Hang on, let me check the tackle...

... ...

Nope. definitely not a she

I'm hosting three games right now. One game is in it's second month so I feel pretty plucky about hosting.

To add a few comments:

I'm finding that quick host and +24 hours works really well. When you start the game the next host is set for 24 hours later. If all players complete their turn, the game hosts and the next host time is set for 24 hours later.

The exploit you mention isn't possible. If, however, you set the game to quick host and a SET host time (e.g. 3am each day) then the exploit you mention is very possible.

I'm using a windows program called postie to send out the email each time the game hosts. I call postie from a bat file which I put as the game's command.

So, for each game I create a shortcut. The target in the shortcut is:

"C:\Program Files\dominions2\dom2.exe" -atnwqS --noanimback --noclientstart --tcpserver --port 2006 --hours 24 --postexec c:\dominionsserveremail\2006sendemail.bat GG_Karan

2006sendemail.bat contains:

c:\postie\postie -host:moggycorp.com -pass:XXX -s:"Dominions II game on moggycorp.com:2006 has hosted" -from:XXXX@XXXX.XXX -to:YYYY@YYYY.YYYY,ZZZZ@ZZZZZ.ZZZ -file:C:\DominionsServerEmail\message.txt

I've replaced the email addresses to protect the guilty.

Works like a charm. I wish there was a way to set each game up as a service. That way I wouldn't have to have a bunch of windows open, each containing a game, but it's OK as it stands.

I have found I've needed to restart the servers a few times. After a few weeks the game sometimes goes into la-la land. Killing the process and restarting works easy enough.

Now if only my game playing was as good as my game hosting...

[Reverend Zombie]

The exploit you mention isn't possible. If, however, you set the game to quick host and a SET host time (e.g. 3am each day) then the exploit you mention is very possible.

I agree about that particular (non-existent) exploit and I have something to add about quickhost with set host times.

I experimented with one set time + quickhost. My time was 11 pm Mondays for a "once weekly" game. All turns were completed about 2 hours BEFORE 11 pm on Monday, and the "next host time" updated to 170 hours, which was 11 pm the following Monday.

It ignored the scheduled host later on the same Monday in which the turns were completed.

I imagine that if I had entered a set time for Tuesday, it would have updated the "next host" to that date/time, but would a second quickhost turn on Monday haved cause the Tuesday host to be skipped? Dunno, did not test that.

I am guessing that quickhost causes the next set time to be skipped, but I have no idea whether it is cumulative, i.e., whether two quickhosts causes the next two host times to be skipped, becuase I did not test that.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by MoggyII:
I'm hosting three games right now. One game is in it's second month so I feel pretty plucky about hosting.

To add a few comments:

I have found I've needed to restart the servers a few times. After a few weeks the game sometimes goes into la-la land. Killing the process and restarting works easy enough.

Excellent information. The commandline I gave was supposed to work according to illwinter tough I did have some problems with quick and set times. Mostly I think it was when I had to restart the script, I guess I messed up something in its awareness of a turn.

Im sorry I mentioned --preexec. The devs say its in but I cant find it. I havent actually tried it to see if its in and just not documented. That would be easy to do since it would be just a cut-n-paste of the --postexec routine.

The postie info is good to know. Are you able to do file attaches of turn files?

The need to restart after a time might be something that some of us have noticed about the connections not clearing themselves out. For some reason we seem to get a buildup of dead connections. The Last patch might have fixed that.

[MoggyII]

The postie info is good to know. Are you able to do file attaches of turn files?

I think you need to get the registered Version to be able to attach files.

The need to restart after a time might be something that some of us have noticed about the connections not clearing themselves out. For some reason we seem to get a buildup of dead connections. The Last patch might have fixed that.

I'm running 2.8. Is there another patch coming out?

I'm thinking I want to do a server re-boot once a week. With the shortcuts in the startup group, this should also take care of the hung connections. The only downside would be the resetting of the next host time back 24 hours.