A few observations - any insight from group ?

[WarningU2]

I tried playing my first PTW game and although many have listed problems ... I didn't really have any hosting a game. PTW played reasonably well except for a few beeps and sound cut outs. I do have 1.04 patch and a high end pc (1.8 Ghz 256 RAM PC with 64 MB of video mem and 1.2 mbps cable modem sup'd up. )

That being said I did experience a few annoying problems or rather curiousities:

1) In a normal single player game I like to have the science advisor pop up and ask me what advance I want to research but in MP game it was missing. I couldn't find any way to enable (do not have fewer MP preferences enabled) nor could I choose my preference for research other than pulling up F6 research map and click on my goal. Anyone have anything to share on this ? Is this normal ?

2) A similar problem with orders for build orders in cities ... PTW wouldn't confirm my order even though I had ask for build orders after unit construction enabled in preferences. Is this a bug? I kept building the same units over and over. Other than setting queues for cities for city/unit improvements, is there a way of setting what unit or preference you want ?

3) Is it possible to launch a game from game spy arcade ? There was a debate in the multiplayer lounge that you can't launch from game spy.

4) I found out that it is soon possible to have units become forgotten when you have lots of cities. Is it possible to detect when a unit is put inactive - ie popup of some kind?

5) In MP lobby I wanted to private chat with someone - it seems you can in Game Spy but I couldn't do this in the MP lobby. Is there a way to private chat in MP lobby. I couldn't seem to see all players in the lobby - only those chatting.

 

[warpstorm]

1. This was intentionally disabled in MP. I disagree with the decision but I understand why they did it.

2. ditto

3. AFAIK, you can.

4. DOn't know

5. No, what my friends and I do is use one of the various IM progs that we are on anyways. Good idea, though.

 

[WarningU2]

Thanks for replying ...

I opened up a support request with GameSpy on my question whether you can play the game from GameSpy lobby...

Hi Stephen,

I have checked with the programmers, the game maker has failed to implement the proper technology. At this time, the game is not playable on GameSpy Arcade until they have made further changes.

Christine Henderson
GameSpy Customer Service-Technical Support
http://www.gamespy.com


So there you have it. Don't bother registering and paying the $20 for GameSpy for no advertising ... you can't play CIV III from the arcade only from within CIVIII itself by selecting multiplayer.

I've asked GameSpy to post a bulletin or remove CIV III from their list of supported games. I tried playing myself and CIV III crashed, GameSpy crashed and so did Windows XP with some serious file loss that took 10 min for recovery.

Warning everyone don't attempt to play CIV III from GameSpy directly. If anyone has successfully it sure would be interesting to hear.