Civ4's multiplayer needs to improve/solve the items/problems mentionned below:

1- Logging in/ Creating an acount.
Me and many of my friends had trouble creating an account and logging in at all. (Im guessing this is because of the sudden rush on the day of the release. They should of still thaugh about it, imagine if it was like that on Half Life 2's release day) (Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

For a possible solution goto
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3233969&postcount=15

2- Joining/Hosting a game (period).
I have trouble connecting to games. And people have trouble connecting to me when im hosting. Getting messages like "Unable to negotiate with hosts firewall" when there is none present or it is disable. Most of the time, you just cant connect to games, it times out. (Frustration factor: +4)

[Solution]

It might be your router, Civ4 uses port 2056 as seen in your config file, make sure its not filtered.

3- When you finally get into a game, people will try to join, and everytime it freezes for a couple of minutes. This is fine at the start of the game, but FFS when your two hours into the game you can still have people attempting to replace an AI who was previously owned by a player? (I know, you can disable that, but it should be implemented better (like a vote to let him replace or not the AI)) (Frustration factor: +2)

[Solution]

Play with reliable people or cpu until a patch comes out.

4- Frequent crashes and out of sync errors...
You click to join a game in the lobby, and boom, Civ4 exits and your back to your desktop...(Frustration factor: +3)

[Solution]

Do a fresh start, exit Civ4 completly and reload, it might help in some cases.

5- When someone drops out, you can vote to wait, save and continue, or save and exit. Its all fine, but what happens when a player decides not to vote? You get stuck in that little screen and all you can do is save the game and exit (ruins the fun for the rest of the players heh?). Should be a timer that decides to go with the majority after everyone votes or doesnt. (Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

Firaxis releases a patch soon.

6- The scrolling in the lobby is insane, the only way to get somewhere is with the arrows...(Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

Firaxis releases a patch soon.

7- Unless im not aware of it, there should be in-game connection information, like lag, who is hosting etc. (Think Starcraft on BNET)

[Solution]

Firaxis adds those features.

8- Unless im not aware of it, we should be able to create rooms/channels so all of your buddys on your buddy list can talk at the same time, instead of using third party software. (again, think Starcraft on BNET)

[Solution]

Firaxis adds those features.

Feel free to add to the list (problems, solutions, and add a Frustration factor where applicable).

I have a problem. Everytime I attempt to login I get the message:
"The connection to the browsing server failed."

I've tried using both an account I've made at www.gamespyid.com and one made through the game interface. Anyone else have this problem?

See the solution for problem 1.

my problem tonight is login lobby comes up - 1 minute later crash computer restarts.

It seems to be a bug/glitch that needs to be fix ASAP. Mine would do the same but only the game would crash and not windows (which is weird). I restarted the game a couple of times and the problem seems to occur when i click to join certain games. The patch will be awaited like the game was a week ago.

Civ4's multiplayer needs to improve/solve the items/problems mentionned below:

1- Logging in/ Creating an acount.
Me and many of my friends had trouble creating an account and logging in at all. (Im guessing this is because of the sudden rush on the day of the release. They should of still thaugh about it, imagine if it was like that on Half Life 2's release day) (Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

For a possible solution goto
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3233969&postcount=15

2- Joining/Hosting a game (period).
I have trouble connecting to games. And people have trouble connecting to me when im hosting. Getting messages like "Unable to negotiate with hosts firewall" when there is none present or it is disable. Most of the time, you just cant connect to games, it times out. (Frustration factor: +4)

[Solution]

It might be your router, Civ4 uses port 2056 as seen in your config file, make sure its not filtered.

3- When you finally get into a game, people will try to join, and everytime it freezes for a couple of minutes. This is fine at the start of the game, but FFS when your two hours into the game you can still have people attempting to replace an AI who was previously owned by a player? (I know, you can disable that, but it should be implemented better (like a vote to let him replace or not the AI)) (Frustration factor: +2)

[Solution]

Play with reliable people or cpu until a patch comes out.

4- Frequent crashes and out of sync errors...
You click to join a game in the lobby, and boom, Civ4 exits and your back to your desktop...(Frustration factor: +3)

[Solution]

Do a fresh start, exit Civ4 completly and reload, it might help in some cases.

5- When someone drops out, you can vote to wait, save and continue, or save and exit. Its all fine, but what happens when a player decides not to vote? You get stuck in that little screen and all you can do is save the game and exit (ruins the fun for the rest of the players heh?). Should be a timer that decides to go with the majority after everyone votes or doesnt. (Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

Firaxis releases a patch soon.

6- The scrolling in the lobby is insane, the only way to get somewhere is with the arrows...(Frustration factor: +1)

[Solution]

Firaxis releases a patch soon.

7- Unless im not aware of it, there should be in-game connection information, like lag, who is hosting etc. (Think Starcraft on BNET)

[Solution]

Firaxis adds those features.

8- Unless im not aware of it, we should be able to create rooms/channels so all of your buddys on your buddy list can talk at the same time, instead of using third party software. (again, think Starcraft on BNET)

[Solution]

Firaxis adds those features.

Feel free to add to the list (problems, solutions, and add a Frustration factor where applicable).


Good post , lets say the number 6 do a 1000000000 frustration .
Most retarded thing ever .

THe sp is almost perfect , but the mp was not made by genuis . Or the tester where retarded , or the game maker was , or they dint have the time to do more .

There is no admin option at all in the game to kick someone or whatever . If you host a game you should have the control of it , nothing .


I dont expect to see this in a patch , they wont do **** , they are making the expansion like any other game maker .

Its retail , and even if the mp is good , it has major flaw .



The only thing you can do to fix all this yourself is finding good players!!!

for problem 3: allow existing players to vote to allow/disallow players to enter and voting on which civ to make AI only from now on.
this would stop pple from joining and picking up a crappy civ.

I'm having the exact same problem. I've tried creating several IDs, using bot Gamespy and Civ4 Account Creation screen. Still getting "The connection to the game browsing server failed." I am getting "The Username you entered is not valid" if I do not enter in a real username, so I know its communicating with a server somewhere. But that's the best I can figure out. I've tried this several times since initial release and always with the same result.

Please help! I wanna try MP!

I have a problem. Everytime I attempt to login I get the message:
"The connection to the browsing server failed."

I've tried using both an account I've made at www.gamespyid.com and one made through the game interface. Anyone else have this problem?

LOL I GOT PROBLEM 2!! EITHER IT TIMES OUT OR I CRASH TO DESKTOP, I CANNOT JOIN A MULTIPLAYER GAME, TRIED WITH AND WITHOUT PATCH, TRIED RE-INSTALLING GAME, FRUSTRATION VALUE MAX!!!
I ENABLED LOGS AND THEY ALL CONTAIN SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

[578.982] DBG: Resetting the portal! (m_bConnectComplete=false)
[598.190] DBG: Resetting the portal! (m_bConnectComplete=false)
[598.440] WRN: Disconnecting from entire Peer Network!

WHATS THIS MEAN??

THX

When we play multiplayer, we bypass gamespy itself and just use a Direct IP Connection. Yes it means there are only a few of us in the game, but it also means that we control who comes into the game. The only problems we have is that when someone crashes out of the game (its inevitable that one of us will crash in a four hour period) it takes ten minutes at times for some of us to get back into the game (ok, two of us are on dial-up so its our own fault) Once in the game, it runs almost perfectly, until someone crashes. I think during loading times, the timer that gives us the "Timed out" error needs to be extended so that while someone is loading, someone else isn't kicked out, and the process needs to start all over again.

I'm having the exact same problem. I've tried creating several IDs, using bot Gamespy and Civ4 Account Creation screen. Still getting "The connection to the game browsing server failed." I am getting "The Username you entered is not valid" if I do not enter in a real username, so I know its communicating with a server somewhere. But that's the best I can figure out. I've tried this several times since initial release and always with the same result.

Please help! I wanna try MP!

I have this problem too. Not sure what it means. Anyone have any ideas?