18 Player, Huge, Epic Game

[FatTurtle]

I received a game from sam's email, but when I open it it sais "Peacedove, it's your turn!". Coule you please resend it? Thanks...

 

[Great_Scott]

Well since PTBS has arrived... perhaps we should make this game go to God.

And make ourselves a nifty little 18 player Epic PTBS-Style. And that way, players are rewarded for playing regularly... and penalised for being slack.

 

[madviking]

Only 6 people have played...

 

[Great_Scott]

Only 6 people have played...

And well, plenty more will have played further down the list... everyday... but the nature of PBEM just sucks.

Thats it.. game's closed. Time to figure out how to set up a PTBS.

 

[Picturtle]

I've got an 18 player pitboss game and all 18 have turned in the first turn, and 14 have already turned in the 2nd turn.

So pitboss servers are the way to go if you want to have a truly epic game. I have mine set so that every 12 hours, if you haven't submitted your turn then the game progresses without you.

Plus if a player leaves he can resign so AI takes over, and if a new player wants to join he can take over an AI.

 

[Great_Scott]

I've got an 18 player pitboss game and all 18 have turned in the first turn, and 14 have already turned in the 2nd turn.

So pitboss servers are the way to go if you want to have a truly epic game. I have mine set so that every 12 hours, if you haven't submitted your turn then the game progresses without you.

Plus if a player leaves he can resign so AI takes over, and if a new player wants to join he can take over an AI.

Perfect. I'll start one right away. This game is over.

 

[Tholomeo]

Are there any technical prerequisites for such games?
(I mean: some ports to be open, no proxies/firewalls...)

 

[Picturtle]

For the client, there's not too much need to open ports and such. Although if you have a router you may need to forward port 2056 to your computer. (assuming that's the only computer you play Civ 4 multiplayer from) But even then some routers have the UPnP which allows programs to automatically request ports and such.

The host will have to have a seperate computer that's on 24/7, or at least be able to have the server up at specific scheduled times. I have an old laptop that I run my pitboss server on and I use my DSL connection.

Another great thing about the pitboss is that if everyone involved in the game gets online at the same time and submits a turn before the timer runs down it processes the turn there and then, make sure to set Simultaneous Turns on though. So you can set a particular date and time for everyone to jump on and play the game as if it was a direct connect online game.

 

[Abdukrahman]

Somebody start another 18 man fast pitboss like 12 hours or less. That would be great!

 

[Picturtle]

I suspect that pitboss games would be fine going at 8 hour intervals, or 3 turns a day. People will miss turns, but it's not an issue if you have build and order queus.

 

[Tholomeo]

I have ONLY port 80 for access to the internet.
Strict proxy with firewall is always on, and "impassable"

 

[Great_Scott]

Somebody start another 18 man fast pitboss like 12 hours or less. That would be great!

Bad news, I won't be able to host the 18 Player Epic as I expected. Now I'm pretty much trained up on the ins and outs of PTBS, I'm of the understanding that I cannot host 2 games at a time. I could, but I could only allocate 12 hours per day to each one... which would make both games suck.

My commitments to my other Civ 4 game, known as a PBEM Enhanced (in the process of changing the name) mean my computer will be running PTBS 24/7 for that.

But I do want to play in a 18 Player Epic PTBS, anyone up for hosting?