Civ4 PitBoss Available

I can't find a way to set the port PitBoss uses. I fired off a email to the security admin requesting ports 2000-3000, but I am not sure that will work. I know a lot of games, such as Age of Empires III require me to not only tell the game what port to use in the config file, but also what IP external IP to use. Is there a way to tell PitBoss what the external IP is and what port to use?

EDIT: My game is in the gamespy lobby, but It is listed as "Firewalled".
I set both SelectIP = my.ip.add.ress
and Port = PortIKnowToForwardToMe

Thank you for your time,
Arrummzen
 
tals said:
I have run it fine on my pc running pitboss and civ 4. Note are you using direct connect and if so try using 127.0.0.1 failing that what error is being displayed?

I was using internet games, the game was showing up in the lobby, and others were able to connect to it.

Anyway, I get the standard XP error message:
Sid Meier's Civilization 4 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

The information about the error is:
AppName: pitboss.exe AppVer: 1.5.2.1736 ModName: pitboss.exe
ModVer: 1.5.2.1736 Offset: 002935a2

The PC that is running pitboss (and that I was trying to connect from) is behind a router with firewall.
 
It works splendidly!

A few tips for upgrading:
1. Change the menu item "asp%File" into "File". :p
2. When minimizing, let it be a 'tray icon' instead of a taskbar item. If that would be the case, I'd even use it a.s.a.p.! :)
 
OK managed to start a pitboss server going and here are some comments/bug reports:

1. Game will run on a PII 300 128 MB RAM Windows 98 SE so very positive re the spec requirements. Also graphics and sound directories can be removed to free up space

2. Whilst in game alt d will set up the email address which is good

3. BUG: If you set the email address this appears to corrupt the password for the player so you then cannot enter the game whether you have set the password or not (I need to do some more testing on this but woul dappretiate someone else clarifying)

4. Positive: No CD check is done running pitboss

Appretiate others findings to clarify.

Tals
 
_speedy_ said:
I was using internet games, the game was showing up in the lobby, and others were able to connect to it.

Anyway, I get the standard XP error message:


The information about the error is:


The PC that is running pitboss (and that I was trying to connect from) is behind a router with firewall.

Is your Civ IV on 1.52?

Tals
 
Matrix said:
It works splendidly!

A few tips for upgrading:
1. Change the menu item "asp%File" into "File". :p
2. When minimizing, let it be a 'tray icon' instead of a taskbar item. If that would be the case, I'd even use it a.s.a.p.! :)

Out of interest have you in game (whilst connected to pitboss) tried to use alt d to setup your email address - so you get the notifications going out on turn gen. Then try and reconnect to the game. For me this is the show stopping bug - if indeed it is a bug.

Tals
 
OK tested this further:

Setting Direct Connect
Simulatenous turn
various sizes

1. Joined game, no password (or password take your pick :) )

2. Genned a turn

3. Disconnect/ Reconnect no problem

4. Gen and disconnect and reconnect as much as you like

5. alt d to set your email address so you get notified

6. Now cannot reconnect as it will not accept your password, sounds like the email address is being saved over the password in some form

This is a critical bug IMHO - not sure how this one could have been missed unless it only is in simulatenous turns (which is the use of pitboss IMHO).

tested this on two different machines with the same result :( Look forward to an update or thoughts as the pitboss server itself is pretty sweet.

Tals

p.s I cannot actually see a place to actually amend the player password as it is anyway so this appears to be also missing
 
I must admit I am a bit dissappointed. From the description it appeared the actual game files would be located on the CivIV online server for everyone in the game to download and play. However, the only way I have found to have the game show up in the online lobby is to have PitBoss running on my PC. As soon as I turn off my PC, the game goes with me. Am I missing something?

From the description given of what PitBoss does, I was thinking you set your game up on the Firaxis PitBoss server and the game was saved there so your opponents could join/download the game, make their moves and save it right back to the Firaxis PitBoss server. I would prefer not to have my PC running PitBoss (waiting on the others to join my game) while I am not at home.

When the final version of PitBoss is ready to go, will there be a Firaxis run PitBoss server to contain our files? If not, I will probably not be hosting games, but instead joining them instead.

Please provide a bit more information on the PitBoss feature. As it stands, what I read is not currently what I am seeing. I know it is a beta and not the final product but I am interested in knowing what features and how the final product is to work.

While I was running PitBoss I logged into the CivIV MP lobby using another name and was able to see and join my game in progress so it appears to work correctly.

Good job. I just hope that I do not have to run my PC continously to be able to host games using it.
 
The pitboss server just allows you the user or provider to setup a persistant civ iv game. The "server" will hold the game files. In terms of a Firaxis provided server I cannot see that happening, if you want a server you have to provide it. As indicated the spec requirements for the server appear to be very very low so any old bit of kit should work.

So yes in short answer if you are hosting a pitboss server and turn off your 'server' then the game is shutdown as well - it has always been planned to work this way i.e I have seen no indication of an online system you have mentioned, please feel free to correct me :)

Tals
 
UglyElmo said:
I must admit I am a bit dissappointed. From the description it appeared the actual game files would be located on the CivIV online server for everyone in the game to download and play. However, the only way I have found to have the game show up in the online lobby is to have PitBoss running on my PC. As soon as I turn off my PC, the game goes with me. Am I missing something?

From the description given of what PitBoss does, I was thinking you set your game up on the Firaxis PitBoss server and the game was saved there so your opponents could join/download the game, make their moves and save it right back to the Firaxis PitBoss server. I would prefer not to have my PC running PitBoss (waiting on the others to join my game) while I am not at home.

When the final version of PitBoss is ready to go, will there be a Firaxis run PitBoss server to contain our files? If not, I will probably not be hosting games, but instead joining them instead.

Please provide a bit more information on the PitBoss feature. As it stands, what I read is not currently what I am seeing. I know it is a beta and not the final product but I am interested in knowing what features and how the final product is to work.

While I was running PitBoss I logged into the CivIV MP lobby using another name and was able to see and join my game in progress so it appears to work correctly.

Good job. I just hope that I do not have to run my PC continously to be able to host games using it.


This is how the pitboss server is suppose to be and how they have always said it would be. There is now way they would host everyones pitboss games. You would end up with 10's of millions games out there doing nothing at their cost. Don't worry there will be tons of people setting up servers to use.
 
I was hoping the server would be Firaxis' and not my own. That was why I wanted a bit more explanation.

As for the millions of files, it would not be that difficult to do. I play on the Dragon Go Server where there are as many games ongoing. You logon, play your turn, then log out. It works very nicely. My experiences there probably colored my understanding of the PitBoss feature. Thanks for the full explanation on how it works.

So what are the minimum specs. that everyone has found able to run as a PitBoss server? I have an old PC running Win98, with a 1.8 MHZ P3. I will have to hook it up to my network and see if I can use it as a server.

I am not sure if the above old PC will run CIV IV though. If it doesn't, is there still a chance the PitBoss feature would work on it? I would not be using the PC to play (I would use the one I am currently using to make my moves).

Lastly, is the CD-check done only at the start of the PitBoss program (or throughout)? I want to be able to run the PitBoss server, pull the CD out and start up my other PC to make my moves from it and forget about the old one. It would only be used as the server.

I appreciate all the help.
 
UglyElmo said:
I am not sure if the above old PC will run CIV IV though. If it doesn't, is there still a chance the PitBoss feature would work on it? I would not be using the PC to play (I would use the one I am currently using to make my moves).

Lastly, is the CD-check done only at the start of the PitBoss program (or throughout)? I want to be able to run the PitBoss server, pull the CD out and start up my other PC to make my moves from it and forget about the old one. It would only be used as the server.

Someone mentioned that pitboss runs on a 300MHz PC, so it will run on your one, it's also been mentioned above that pitboss doesn't check the CD, so after installing and patching Civ4 and pitboss on your old PC you won't need to put the CD in it again.
 
UglyElmo said:
I was hoping the server would be Firaxis' and not my own. That was why I wanted a bit more explanation.

As for the millions of files, it would not be that difficult to do. I play on the Dragon Go Server where there are as many games ongoing. You logon, play your turn, then log out. It works very nicely. My experiences there probably colored my understanding of the PitBoss feature. Thanks for the full explanation on how it works.

So what are the minimum specs. that everyone has found able to run as a PitBoss server? I have an old PC running Win98, with a 1.8 MHZ P3. I will have to hook it up to my network and see if I can use it as a server.

I am not sure if the above old PC will run CIV IV though. If it doesn't, is there still a chance the PitBoss feature would work on it? I would not be using the PC to play (I would use the one I am currently using to make my moves).

Lastly, is the CD-check done only at the start of the PitBoss program (or throughout)? I want to be able to run the PitBoss server, pull the CD out and start up my other PC to make my moves from it and forget about the old one. It would only be used as the server.

I appreciate all the help.

A friend of mine is running civ4 on a p4 1.5 little slow some times but it works. So I am sure a 1.8 would be more than enough.
 
Could someone explain how the AI Take-Over works.

I had some problems with it.

I started a game on another server, using PitBoss. First I set all the players to Human control, and clicked Take-Over AI and turn timer. I set the turn timer to 1 hour, for testing purposes (there doesn't seem to be any way to set the timer to less than one hour).

I went into the game, selected a civ, and ran my turn. I exited, and waited for the timer to expire, so that the AI could do its turns.

When the timer expired, it started over again. I again went into the game, and chose the same civ, to see if the turned had run. Everything was as before, with no AI intervention.

Whether this is related or not, I noticed that the typical "end-turn" button is not available.

When I tried setting the PitBoss setting to all AI controlled and tried to enter, I couldn't get in.

Does this AI Take-Over thing work?

BTW, I did not enter any kind of email information stuff. I left those at the default entries.

edit: This AI Take-Over, does it work only when a human has controlled a civ for at least one turn?

Thanks,

Alanb
 
Excellent! Looks like I found a use for that old PC in the basement. :)

Thanks again for all the help. Once I get the old PC networked, I will be setting up a few PitBoss games, so feel free to join in if you see an "UglyElmo" game.
 
UglyElmo said:
Excellent! Looks like I found a use for that old PC in the basement. :)

Thanks again for all the help. Once I get the old PC networked, I will be setting up a few PitBoss games, so feel free to join in if you see an "UglyElmo" game.

One thing that you have to remember, when setting up an Internet game with a server on another machine using PitBoss, is that you can't use the same log-in for both sessions.

Is it possible, I wonder, to have two different log-ins set up? Or is the user limited to one log-in name per purchased copy?

BTW, I have an ancient P3 500mhz machine. PitBoss runs fine on it.


Alanb
 
looks like the obfuscate the save files so you can fool with them, I was going to try to figure out what was up with the password breaking when you add an email. If they saved it in XML it would be a lot easier to figure out what is going on.


Thank you for your time,
Arrummzen
 
so ideally we could play a game to get the first turns worked out than save, load the game on pitboss and continue from there?
 
looks like the obfuscate the save files so you can fool with them, I was going to try to figure out what was up with the password breaking when you add an email. If they saved it in XML it would be a lot easier to figure out what is going on.

Agreed although having it in the save file makes it a lot tidier. I wouldn't suggest trying to figure how the file has been damaged as any patch will most likely render this format of files incompatible - unless it is a corruption on the writing and the reading has been set fine - possible which may explain how it got missed in testing if they made a last minute change which effected startup games more than running games.

Someone mentioned that pitboss runs on a 300MHz PC, so it will run on your one, it's also been mentioned above that pitboss doesn't check the CD, so after installing and patching Civ4 and pitboss on your old PC you won't need to put the CD in it again.

Yes that was me - just checked the specs PII 300 with 96MB of ram on win 98 se! The game was installed over my network as I don't have a CD drive for the machine, it's an old laptop (good for persistent games as they are quiet) so has no graphics card to speak of. When you install you do have to install directx 9. I've genned a few turns on it and all is fine - what I don't know is if this spec will handle turns in the latter stages but till the sort out the pwd issue i'm a bit snookered for testing any more.

After install I then ran pitboss which promptly crashed - as it hadn't been patched :) Then patched to 1.52 (using the patch file on my pc's machine as I obviously will not be able to run civ iv proper in this thing ;) It then ran fine except for the pwd corruption and the minor display issues that have been described. In the assets directory I tried deleting the art and sounds directories but this is then causing it to crash - when this makes final it would be useful to have a minimal install for pitboss to reduce its footprint (the HD on this pc is very small)

So all in all very pleased with how the pitboss will work - actual working looks reasonably good

Main thoughts are:
1. Fix Pwd issue
2. allow minimise to tray
3. Ability to force a turn (not just a time set one)
4. Ability to amend some of the server settings once game has started:
eg game pwd/ turn limit not sure on the other ones

Would be useful if one of the devs can give an indication of timescale for a next beta release days/weeks/months?

Tals

nb just checked - arts directory did delete - sounds was the one causing the crash. Footprint now at 1gb but could still do with being smaller.
 
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