So is 1.08 going to help with setting up a TCP/IP game?

Is the TCP/IP not working right yet? My friend and I tried for an hour yesterday to get the game going over TCP/IP but we kept getting the no com message. We started a CivIV game to to check if it was our computers having an issue but they were not.

Anyone else having any luck setting it up? If so what did you do different?

There's a little info in the following thread about some of the issues we've found with MP. Bottom line seems to be, yes the TCP/IP connects but some other MP issues are making it difficult at the moment.

http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/546

I have a MP game going with no issues. When you set up the game on the Host, you MUST press "Waiting for Players" button BEFORE you connect. Once you connect after that, everyone should show up in the list. Then press "Begin Game". The first turn will generate and the start file will need to be MANUALLY transfered to each save game directory on each of the players machines.

In SEIV I could change where the saves were going so I did not have to manually transfer the files each time. But in SEV there is NO way that I have found yet to change the default location of where the saves are going.

Hope this helps.
Numdydar

I'll give that a shot! I am at work right now and won't get a chance to try until later but I may be writing again to clarify any steps. We tried everything to include dropping firewalls so who knows I guess we will see. Thanks

I tried your suggestion Numdydar but still no luck. Even though I copied the save files from the save game directory the player PC still sits at the TCP/IP Player screen and all the buttons are greyed out. It was interesting to see that the game never transfererd the save files at all but even with a manual copy it changed nothing. I even processed another turn to see if that would help. Am I doing something wrong? Is there more than what's in the savegame file to copy? The two files I copied from the hosts savegame folder were yesman2.gam and yesman2_log.mvl after processing the first turn and the game generated the map.

Hopefully this will help everyone out as I am playing MP with NO issues.

1) Start the game.
2) Select 'New Game'
3) Set up map, player points, galaxy size, etc.
4) Once everything is set select 'Mulitplayer'
5) Select 'Simultaneous Movement', Different Machines', Connection Type 'Host'
6) Select Provider Type "Internet TCP/IP connection for Direct Play'
7) Type in save game name to use at top of screen
Select 'Begin'
9) Select 'Wait for Players'
10) At this point the game will sit and wait for playes to connect.
11) On a SEPERATE PC start the game
12) Select 'New Game' on the seperate PC.
13) On the seperate PC, just imediately go to "multiplayer' tab and set the selections as detailed in 5-6 above. You do NOT need to type in a save game name at this point as you will NOT be the host.
14) Select the IP address, port, user name, etc. and select 'Connect to Host'. If you did not connect, make SURE the host PC has 'Wait for players' button pressed and try again.
15) Once a player has connected their name will show up in the list
16) Once all players have connected to the Host, select 'Begin Game' on the Host.
17) The Host will now indicate that it is waiting for player empire files
18) The players can now create their empire by selecting 'the Create Empire' as it is now selectable.
19) The players create or load their empire files. If you create a new empire make sure you save it to a file before exiting the create empire screen
20) After creating/loading empire, select 'Begin' on the non-Host PC's
21) The Host will now indicate that the empire files have been recieved
22) After all the empire files have been recieved by the Host, select 'Process Turn'. This will setup the 1st turn game files.
23) Click 'Ok' on the next screen asking if you are sure that you want to process the turn.
24) The Host will create the game files and a list of player and computer empires will show up on the host screen.
25) Go to the saved game directory on the Host and copy ALL the files to each players save game directory.
26) Each player will go back to the Main SEV game screen and select 'Load Game'
27) The game will ask you if you want to load the file as a TCPIP Host. Say 'NO'
28) The game will load and each player can take their turn.
29) Once a player has finished their turn, hit end turn and exit back to the main SEV screen.
30) Copy the completed player turn file (all player files will end in '000X' where X is the player number, Player 1 is 0001, Player 2 is 0002, etc.) to the save game directory on the HOST PC.
31) Once all player files hace been copied to the Host save game directory, Exit the Host game back to the SEV main screen and select "load Game'
32) When the TCPIP question about Host or Player comes up, select 'YES' as you want to run the turn as a Host now.
33) Select 'Process turn on the Host' and click 'Yes' on the next screen.
34) The turn will process.
35) Repeat steps 25-34.

This works EVERY time for me. If someone has a solution to transfering the files back and forth, I would love to hear about it.

Numdydar

Egad...maybe I don't want to buy SE5 after all.

It seems to me that TCP/IP mode should do most of that stuff in the background (file retreival, incorporation, etc.), and all the players should have to do is run their empires and click turn (along with waiting until everyone else has clicked "turn" also, of course).

Is it supposed to be that tedious, or is your set of instructions just a workaround for some bugs until MM can get it working "correctly"?

How is it supposed to work?

Sound like bug workarounds.

If that's too much of a hassle, wait a bit for bug fixes and/or PBW 2 to get set up.

We've had luck here at our house (2 players on LAN) by playing the first turn completely on the host computer, just like it was a hot seat game. Once the first turn is processed, TCP/IP Simultaneous game works like it theoretically should, without manually copying files back and forth.

IPX, however, we have never gotten to work at all.

However, even though we can get the TCP/IP game to work, the Ministers bug makes it virtually unplayable if you happen to like to actually control your own empire, like I do.

(The Minister Bug: For every player except the host, ministers randomly take control of functions, even though they are turned off)

I get stuck at this step trying to use TCP/IP:

15) Once a player has connected their name will show up in the list

The player never connects. As far as I can tell I set up everything right, even forwarded the ports I use in my router but no luck. Now if I load up Civ IV and create a direct connect by IP game it connects fine with the IP I use.

However, if I do your steps using IPX it works but it is such a pain that it is not worth playing till they fix this problem and I hope they fix it soon! I'm just afraid if they allowed the release of such a blatantly obvious buggy game (not just in multiplayer), how much game balance issues could there be? This game probably won't be working as it should for months and months! I wish game companies couldn't get away with crap like this! That crazy senator guy who keeps trying to take away our rights to buy violent, "dangerous" video games should be protecting us instead by fighting game companies who try to rip off there customers dang it! --- Sorry a little ticked off atm. Think EBgames will take back a product that does not work even though I opened it? They better or I’m gonna raise hell! It would be like me buying a coffee maker that wasn’t put together right and does not work properly and since I opened the box I can’t return it now! HA!

you've got to be kidding me...
thats not a TCP/IP game, thats manualy moveing the files...
I think I'm loseinth faith in malfador... They take forver becasue the game isn't ready. But when it comes out, its still not ready. I wish i hadn't bought ot. Wast of money imo. I hope they fix this with patches. Next game, if i buy it, it wont be for 9-12 months after its realsed. And possibly not even then, because the gfx are outdated when its realsed... my oh my...

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Please put DOWN the 4x genre sir, you are in the wrong part of the world!

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

I have not had the guts to try a Internet game yet as I have a Router firewall and have not gotten around to messing with opening up ports yet

Numdydar

/me thinks someone got impatient and hit the post button more than once