Do you play Play By Email (PBEM) games? I do … slow but fun. I am playing in one game that has been running for over a year. The only downside to this is that I have to manually send the emails due to my ISP restrictions. The other week, I found that I could send emails via smtp using my gmail account. Thus, I set up this small utility.

If your ISP restricts your access to smtp or requires a UserID and password to send email, then the Civ4 in-game emailer is a total waste of time and this utility is for you

Once you have set up the utility with your PBEM games, then sending the save forward and sending out GPS emails is easy … really easy. Start the game, check the games you want to send emails for and click ‘Send’. The game will automatically create the emails, attach the latest save to the ‘save’ email and send it for you.

The GPS email is critical as there is often games that stall during a ‘hunt the latest save’ period …”Do you have it?” “No, do you?”

Get the installer for v1.1 here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7531).

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/6762/Main_Screen_Checked.jpg

Setting up the Utility
Click on the ‘Edit Info’ button and the following screen will be presented to you. Click on 'Done' will get you back to the 'send email' screen.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5891/Edit_Info.jpg

From this screen, you can:

edit the smtp
edit the outgoing email details (from address, ‘Save’ email body, GPS email body)
Civ4 PBEM games and players.


smtp
I have set up the details so that it will work with gmail once you have entered your gmail UserId (you must include the ‘@gmail.com’) as well as the gmail password (the usual one that grants you access to your gmail.com account).

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5264/Edit_smtp.jpg

Don’t change the smtp address, the port or the SSL Enabled option – they work. If you don’t have a gmail account and your ISP allows you to sent smtp emails, then you could try it. I don’t so I haven’t tested it.

Outgoing Email
This option allows you to change your ‘replyto’ email address. Unfortunately, this is only shown in the body of the email (see below). The actual email you send has your gmail account as the ‘from’ and ‘reply-to’ address. Note: gmail.com will also include the emails that you send in your ‘send’ folder.

You can also modify the body of the ‘save’ or ‘GPS’ emails. There are three key words that the utility will swap out for actual values, namely:

SAVENAME – replaces this with the name of the save
REPLYTO – replaces this with the reply to address given above
CRLF – inserts a new line


http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7378/Edit_Email.jpg

Modify Game or Player
This option allows you to add games or players, delete games or players or modify game / player information.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/640/Edit_Game.jpg

With a game selected, you can:

add a game
add a player to the selected game
modify the game details (the path is the path to the save file – this is critical!)
delete the selected game (confirmation required)


http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9637/Edit_Player.jpg

With a player selected, you can:

add a game
modify the player details (one player must have the ‘save’ option checked)
delete the selected player (confirmation required)

Important Points

Some firewalls (or similar) will restrict access to sending emails via smtp
Clicking ‘Send’ is only enabled if you check a PBEM game
Sending emails can take some time – please wait.
You will get a status update on the PBEMs after the utility has (attempted) to send the emails
The only way to close the utility is to click ‘Quit’
If you modify any of the items, then the ‘Save XML’ will be enabled and you can save the modifications for future use. If you click on Quit, the utility will prompt you to save the XML (if available).


Known Issues

sending emails containing all of the selected games - caused by not initializing the email - fixed in v1.1

This utility is now available.

v1.1 fixed the issue of sending all of the PBEM games in the one huge email when multiple games were selected.

This will be such a good thing if it works. Cant wait to try it out. Now I just need to find someone to play with.

Great tool. We use a little website to transfer our PBEM files and to track where the file is. It also sends you a text message if so desired. :) It's not very secure at the moment, so I won't link here. But if anyone has a PBEM game and is interested, I can show you, or setup a tracker for you. It sure makes it easier.

Matt

I'm interested - can you PM me an example?

Uploaded v1.2.0.1 that corrects a few very minor bugs and includes an indicator for any recent activity in your PBEM games (adds the date / time stamp to the PBEM name if the latest save is within the last 30 minutes). It makes finding the PBEM game that you want to forward easier to find.

I've been using your little app for a while now and find it also works just fine for Civ 3 saves. The only thing I would like to see is the ability to edit the topic field. It always says Civ 4.

I've been using your little app for a while now and find it also works just fine for Civ 3 saves. The only thing I would like to see is the ability to edit the topic field. It always says Civ 4.Good point - it actually doesn't care what file it forward.

I will open up the 'subject' for change in the next release. However, I have no idea when that will be.

A new version is up following the CFC hack. I had to recreate the installer so it might install to a different directory under your 'my progs' directory. If you install this version and 'lose' your PBEM details, check in the old directory for the XML file.

I couldn't free up the subject line as I use it to tell the two emails (save and GPS) apart. However, I've changed it from 'Civ4' to just plain 'Civ'.

Another happy customer just would like to say :thanx::hatsoff: for making his life so much easier...

is it safe to assume this only works for PCs, not macs?

no idea - haven't tried it on a mac. I would assume not.