C3C PBEM : Rise of Rome - scenario-based PBEM

[anarres]

Please email me the latest save: anarres at civ3duelzone dot com, I may be able to see what is wrong.

 

[Rubberjello]

Since all 4 players here are well known in pbem circles, these "cheating" allegations are really upsetting. I haven't got anything to hide, so do please investigate. My only possible "contribution" to this file corruption may be because when I sometimes play it at work, I have to download from the email, transfer it to a floppy, transfer to a lab machine (not on the network ), play it, and reverse the process. But as Akots noted, the few times I did this on a failing floppy disk, it was immediately apparant and the save was completly unloadable to the next player. So that is probably not it.

 

[LouLong]

Sorry you take it so badly. I am not accusing anybody (and it is not like I were doing that because I had been beaten and complained, I am doing that because the PBEM is kind of stuck).
There is nothing personal at all. As I said, it is a posibility. Most other possible causes have been checked and proved false.
I don't know if there is a cheater and who it would be. But it has caused so much troubles lately in the PBEM it is worth asking. For either there is and maybe we can sort things out quickly and go back to normal and forget about the "incident" or we will investigate (annares gently proposed himself) and see whether there is one cheater or none (which would probably please everybody (me included) and whether another reason causes this.

I just wanted to give a chance for things to go back to normal quietly before the saves are investigated which might reveal things.

Anyway we simply cannot continue this PBEM "as is", making Ironduck play 2 or 3 times a turn while I keep on trying to load the saves to no avail.

 

[Random fan]

Damn it would be really a shame if this one gets stucked. This game is my best shot to finish the first pbem of mine and not talking about that I became really tired of that stalemate of ours with Akots.

By the way, LouLong, I hope that if you were refering to "Cortez" when you were talking about noticing something strange about special civ, you will ask the leader of that civ directly about what you found suspiciuos. Maybe he will be able to explain.

 

[ironduck]

I just don't see how it could be someone editing the files when it's only the saves *I* send along that are corrupted.. I know for a fact I'm not editing anything, I don't even know how to edit (I can't even use the scenario editor thingy that comes with the game).

Also - as we've described it only happens sometimes, if I replay the turn slightly differently then it often works (move the worker before the cavalry or whatever). At some point there appeared to be an issue with the diplomacy screen, but that's not causing the problems this turn at least (game messed up again and we had no diplomacy going).

Anyway, these problems only started recently, I think the first time was when Lou complained about irrigating half squares. Now it's just pretty much every turn so I don't know what is up. If anyone cares to do a test setup with me (2 player pbem, a few quick turns back and forth) to see if it's my computer being all weird?

 

[ironduck]

Alright, I just mailed the latest (or second latest since I didn't hear from Lou about the latest yet) to Anarres if he wants to look.

If it's my computer messing up I just need to figure out how the heck it's messing up. I did a full reinstall and a full virus scan and it didn't change a thing.

And no, I refuse for this game to die! Even if it means I have to replay each turn ten times we'll get there eventually, not many turns left.

 

[anarres]

btw, diplo can often mess up PBEM games. The most well-known issue is deals with humans where a resource is given on one side and some kind of 1-off payment on the other. In this case the deal ends, but the game gets confused and won't let you in the diplo screens anymore without crashes.

I am waiting for someone else to get back to me to help with the saves atm.

 

[ironduck]

I'm actually more interested in someone playing a few rounds of a test game to see if that causes problems too. Sure would isolate the problem to me..

 

[ironduck]

I went briefly through the possible cause of data I/O errors and there are only 3 "reasonable" reasons:

1) Use of localized versions which screw up the scenario data.

Lou does have some funny setup with a US-French combo of sorts, but if he hasn't changed anything and it's working fine in other games..

 

[akots]

I have 220 files in the RoR folder. They take 55 Mb. I obviously can send any number of them to anyone to look at. Each save is about 450 Kb.

Edited: 4 recent saves went to Anarres (2 from Rome to Macedon and 2 from Macedon to Persia).

 

[akots]

... the few times I did this on a failing floppy disk, it was immediately apparant and the save was completly unloadable to the next player. ...

IIRC, this happened only once or may be twice.

Something is going on may be in the end of turn since Carthage is the last one to play. But what can it be?

This was the issue with unpatched vanilla. Also, I know a few people reported similar problems with Russian version of vanilla even at 1.29f.

 

[ironduck]

But I'm not end of turn in AoD where we have the same issues

Nobody wants to run a test with me? (2 player pbem a few quick turns)

 

[LouLong]

Random Fan might have a Russian version since he is in the ex-sovietic Baltic states.

Random Fan, can ou tell us what version you have ?

@ Ironduck : when you played PBEMs before, did you encounter (or actually the person after you) that kind of problem ? I could play with you but obviously you need another partner than me since the problem might not lay but at least appears between us.

 

[akots]

OK, looks like it is not the end of turn thing. Did you patch vanilla to 1.29f?

We can play a short MP game online in the Internet.

I'm always open to that kind of stuff, just 2-3 hour session with a possibilty to continue.

 

[ironduck]

Lou - no problems with any other pbems before.

akots - I just meant pbem, online play would not make sense to test this .. if you want to test, could you host an AoD pbem for just you and me and send me the save? We can play 4 turns or so and see if there are any problems. (I don't know how to host pbem, thus asking you)

edit: I haven't patched vanilla to 1.29 - but I never did that and didn't have any problems before. I'll try it now though..

 

[ironduck]

Ok, I just installed 1.29 on vanilla and replayed my two pbems and sent again to Lou. Hope that works.

 

[Rubberjello]

@ Ironduck : when you played PBEMs before, did you encounter (or actually the person after you) that kind of problem ? I could play with you but obviously you need another partner than me since the problem might not lay but at least appears between us.

He played an epic game with Playboy, myself, and Predesad/Dogboy. We actually played it to completion (around turn 240??? since it was AP mode). We had no problems like this.

 

[akots]

Lets see how it turns out, may be will be working better.

 

[Random fan]

Random Fan might have a Russian version since he is in the ex-sovietic Baltic states.

Random Fan, can ou tell us what version you have ?

My vanilla cd were only English. When I installed Conquests I could choose between Russian and English, but installed English in the end. The game is completely in English now and would be almost the same as before. Only that screen when Herodot or someone else writes the history of the world with the chart of the civs is screwed up. It is written neither in English nor in Russian just the random order of symbols. I don't know but the problem with me could be that my cd is *cough* not exactly legal *cough* . That 's by the way were the reason why I chosed that ship as my avatar here

 

[akots]

... I don't know but the problem with me could be that my cd is *cough* not exactly legal ...

That could be the source of problems indeed.