Can't connect with friends online

[Shadow717]

So my friends and I tried playing Civ online (I now want to smash many things to pieces, but I digress) Only two of us ever make it into the game, and one of use ends up with a loading screen that doesnt show our leader/ unique abilites. Instead we see the American icon, "Bonus Label" where the civ's name should be, and two pictures of the pyramids where the UU/UB should be.

Supposedly we don't need to foward any ports for Civ 5. I personally think the issue is something to do with one of our player's Linksys router, but I can't be sure. Please anyone have any idea what is going on?

edit: I have played with one of these players before, it is only adding the 3rd player that creates this issues.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Steam has ports he probably should open.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

CS

 

[Shadow717]

Tried playing with a different friend, getting the same error. No one knows what this "bonus label" error is or how to fix it? It seriously seems like this is an isolated problem somehow because internet searches get nothing. (which seems nearly impossible) We all play a few other games online together and can play civ in groups of two... so that leads me to believe this is an issue unique to civ . Anyone?

 

[CanuckSoldier]

That almost sounds like a bad install or something, have you tried having Steam verify your game cache?

CS

 

[Shadow717]

CanuckSoldier seeing as you are a steam civplayer, might I ask what game setting you usually play with? Last night we finally got a game to work, but it was terribly boring =(. We had no AI (not that big a deal), but also no city states. The map felt absolutely empty, especially because we had three players on a four player map. There was far too much room for each player to freely expand. We also hosted it as a public game rather than a private game for the first time, but I don't know if that would make a difference. Also what DirectX do your players use?

I suppose if no CS or AI is the answer, maybe changing the map settings to high seas would help lower the feeling of emptiness, but that takes out a lot of map types such as fractal on which you can't edit this option

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Inland Sea is probably the most popular as it limits how many directions you have to defend but still leaves a naval aspect to attack if it cna be pulled off. Also North vs South or East vs West are not bad, as is the Skirmish map. Yes play with high sea level, the maps are still a little to big as they made all of them with City States in mind. If you want things really fair, LDeska has made some mirror maps http://www.civplayers.com/index.php?section=smf&topic=9340.0 and http://www.civplayers.com/index.php?section=smf&topic=9341.0

CS

 

[BrutalusMaximus]

Ring is built with MP in mind. Just be sure to pick a small map if you want action fast.

 

[Shadow717]

So we got a game going last night. Tonight we are trying to load it, but of course we encounter problems. We are playing as Rome, The Ottomans (myself), and the Aztecs. When we tried to load instead of The Ottomans I and our initial Aztec player were both the aztecs... Sorry what?! we are still trying... but what causes that? and is it fixable?



Ok we jsut got it to work, so we are good to go i guess.. that was odd.


Edit: Ok so we are able to play now, Sometimes we have to load it up more than once because of not gettting the right civs. And sometimes it has to resync, but it works. Interestinly because we could only get it to launch as private Washington and Rahmkeangheang have the names of players that we must have kicked in the lobby, but are still showing their names even though they are AI. Anyway, thank you for the replies and help, I think we finally have a way to make this work semi consitantly