CivStats.com - View your Pitboss games on the web

[OverloadUT]

As people were saying, I wasn't checking this thread for a while. Sorry!

I am amazed and flattered by the number of people that are using Civstats on a regular basis!

As a little treat to everyone, I finally implemented a tiny feature that people had been asking to get for quite a while: You can now tell if you have unread diplomatic messages in your games from the "My Games" page!

 

[CB Droege]

Yay! Now, I have some other suggestions that have been building up for a while... Let me find my list...

 

[Fosse]

I love the feature! However, my RP FFA Pitboss game has shown me that I have a message since the feature began. I have not received any message in that game and the icon isn't going away when I check my diplomacy anyhow.

Thanks for the addition!

 

[namliaM]

Despite having new diplo messages several times now, I have yet to see the message on the my games screen

 

[OverloadUT]

Well I never said the feature works! Picky picky!

Okay okay I fixed it!

That query was written so incorrectly I can't believe it worked at all in my test case!

Please let me know if it still has any problems.

 

[Fosse]

And I just got a diplomacy message and it worked correctly! Now I can disable all my emails.

PS. How about a Master Preferences by which you can decide if ALL of your games generate emails with turns and/or diplomacy instead of having to change each individually?

Also, sorry you're back, because it means you have to hear these incessant complaints.

 

[CB Droege]

Not complaints.... Suggestions... Like: A mobile version of the My Games page, so one can check it from a cell phone, or a widget version (with counting clocks) so we can keep it more easily on our desktop.

 

[Stormumriken]

CivStats looks like a great web service and I tried to attach number
350, the Rasbora Pitboss game.

But it tries to "parse" and never finishes, so I have no log to
include or ini file to edit.

Does it try to use the Pitboss window with the information on?
I cannot use it either! It just gives me an hour-glass when I
go their with the mouse and I cannot push any buttons there
since a few hours after I started the game. The Pitboss answers
on the 2056 port but not on the GUI.

Do someone have a good idea what to do about the Pitboss?
I use the Warlords-2.08 Pitboss.

-- Stormumriken

Now I have found out what the problem was: Being a game with
Swedish players, one of my players used his own name as his leader
name and it contained a non-ASCII character. This made some
Python code, part of the Pitboss server, puke at the character
(the Swedish language contains three letters that are not ASCII
characters) and lock up the UI part of the Pitboss server, so
the CivStats client could not use it.

When the name was changed to ASCII-only characters, everyone
is happy again and we could begin to use the CivStats service.
It is really great!

Should I report this to Firaxis and how do I do that?

Best regards,

 

[OverloadUT]

Now I have found out what the problem was: Being a game with
Swedish players, one of my players used his own name as his leader
name and it contained a non-ASCII character. This made some
Python code, part of the Pitboss server, puke at the character
(the Swedish language contains three letters that are not ASCII
characters) and lock up the UI part of the Pitboss server, so
the CivStats client could not use it.

When the name was changed to ASCII-only characters, everyone
is happy again and we could begin to use the CivStats service.
It is really great!

Should I report this to Firaxis and how do I do that?

Best regards,

Wow, nice catch. Sorry about not being helpful.

I like the "mobile" My Games page... I will think about this.

 

[Bolkonski]

I like the "mobile" My Games page... I will think about this.

I am new to PitBoss games and Civstats but I want to say a big thank you for such a great idea.

Onr thing I have discovered (as have others) is that hotmail does not seem to accept notifications from PitBoss. I thought that a shame since I can get a notification on my cellphone when I have a hotmail message. I figured out a work around. I route the Civstats notification to a regular account and then on receipt have that account forward it to my hotmail and voila I have a notification!

This is slightly off topic but you will see where I am going. Another thing I have noted and this is not just Civstats but in MP it seems that you get everyone elses score, including people you have not met! I read something somewhere about anonymization and how it does not work and I just wonder of that is something that Firaxis will sort out with BTS. Also, it would be nice if it really were 24 hour turns. Would it be difficult to have PitBoss get its time from the computer?

Finally wouldn't it be a great idea if CivStats were programed into PitBoss? Have you been in contact with Firaxis?

Thanks, once again, for setting this up.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Also, it would be nice if it really were 24 hour turns. Would it be difficult to have PitBoss get its time from the computer?

Possibly not, but it doesn't really matter anyway. You just figure out after the first few turns roughly how much extra time it's taking per turn (the timer stops when people are logging in and out, so this is what delays the game). Most of the people I've played games with find that for 18 player Pitboss games, a timer set to 22 hours works pretty well for ensuring that the timer will actually tick over roughly every 24 hours. Of course, this needs to be adjusted occasionally as the game goes on (turns get much longer in the modern era, etc).

Finally wouldn't it be a great idea if CivStats were programed into PitBoss? Have you been in contact with Firaxis?

Personally, I think that Firaxis may not be interested, and anyway it may not be a good idea. There are a heap of Pitboss games just between a couple of friends or family members, or held at LANs, which do not require (nor could make any use of) Civstats. These games might be more annoying than useful, cluttering up the list of games (not to mention making it horrendously long). No, IMHO Civstats is something that is better used by just the few "fanatical" civvers who play regular 24-hour (or similar) Pitboss timer games, and like to keep tabs on what's going on.

My two cents, anyway.

 

[Bolkonski]

Personally, I think that Firaxis may not be interested, and anyway it may not be a good idea. There are a heap of Pitboss games just between a couple of friends or family members, or held at LANs, which do not require (nor could make any use of) Civstats. These games might be more annoying than useful, cluttering up the list of games (not to mention making it horrendously long). No, IMHO Civstats is something that is better used by just the few "fanatical" civvers who play regular 24-hour (or similar) Pitboss timer games, and like to keep tabs on what's going on.

Actually, I meant something slightly different, which could be done anyway. How about a local version of CivStats that resides on the server that hosts the game; the players would not see other games. Uploading to the website could be optional, which would satisfy the fans.

Rather than go off-topic on this thread I will post elsewhere about PitBoss after I have had the opportunity to think about it a little.

 

[IglooDame]

Actually, I meant something slightly different, which could be done anyway. How about a local version of CivStats that resides on the server that hosts the game; the players would not see other games. Uploading to the website could be optional, which would satisfy the fans.

Rather than go off-topic on this thread I will post elsewhere about PitBoss after I have had the opportunity to think about it a little.

It is an interesting idea, but (speaking here from an IT professional standpoint) there's a fundamental flaw. The pitboss application and its one necessary and little-known TCP port are not much of a security risk for a machine hooked up to the public internet. A website and port 80 are definitely a security risk, because so many attacks are focused on them, and you might have people running pitboss servers that are not competent to secure the pitboss server against those sorts of attacks.

 

[Bernout1]

Possibly not, but it doesn't really matter anyway. You just figure out after the first few turns roughly how much extra time it's taking per turn (the timer stops when people are logging in and out, so this is what delays the game). Most of the people I've played games with find that for 18 player Pitboss games, a timer set to 22 hours works pretty well for ensuring that the timer will actually tick over roughly every 24 hours. Of course, this needs to be adjusted occasionally as the game goes on (turns get much longer in the modern era, etc

A couple of observations on the timer.

1. I don't believe it is a PitBoss issue since it is built into the multiplayer functionality in the game.

2. The timer inaccuracy is not only a result of the timer stopping everytime someone logs in and out. I noticed in one of my recent games that at the beginning of the game a 20 hour timer was roughly 23 1/2 - 24 hours of real time. Much later in the game (about 1500 AD) that same 20 hour timer was far less...probably closer to 21 hours. I actually had to increase the timer setting so that players could have closer to a full 24 hours to get turns done. With people having been eliminated, we actually had fewer logins occuring at that time.

Bernout

 

[civistys]

It is an interesting idea, but (speaking here from an IT professional standpoint) there's a fundamental flaw. The pitboss application and its one necessary and little-known TCP port are not much of a security risk for a machine hooked up to the public internet. A website and port 80 are definitely a security risk, because so many attacks are focused on them, and you might have people running pitboss servers that are not competent to secure the pitboss server against those sorts of attacks.

This should not be a big deal. Civstats.com is a php application running on Apache server, not a separate server on its own. Most web servers are OK if they are kept up to date, and I'd guess most of the people setting up web servers know the risks anyway. Finally, it really is the problem of the user, not a reason to leave some useful functionality unimplemented.

 

[snoopy369]

Hiya! I wrote a vB app to manage PTBS games, and included a way to view civstats details in it locally (similar to what CB Droege mentions above). It is fully functional now, but additional users are helpful to find bugs and recommend additional functionality and such

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=165473

 

[CB Droege]

Hiya! I wrote a vB app to manage PTBS games, and included a way to view civstats details in it locally (similar to what CB Droege mentions above). It is fully functional now, but additional users are helpful to find bugs and recommend additional functionality and such

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=165473

It doesn't work... I set it up with my civstats username and pass, and clicked refresh, and it gave me an error. It does it every time.

 

[snoopy369]

What error?

 

[IglooDame]

This should not be a big deal. Civstats.com is a php application running on Apache server, not a separate server on its own. Most web servers are OK if they are kept up to date, and I'd guess most of the people setting up web servers know the risks anyway. Finally, it really is the problem of the user, not a reason to leave some useful functionality unimplemented.

I think one of us doesn't understand what's being proposed. I'm thinking that the machine hosting the pitboss service would also host a web service that would serve up the stats for that locally-running pitboss game that civstats.com is now doing for a hundred or so pitboss games, only with more detail?

In my limited experience, many people setting up pitboss servers do not really understand the risks associated with setting up and maintaining web servers.

 

[CB Droege]

What error?

It doesn't supply me with an error code, a box pops up telling me that there has been a program error, and I can either let the program skip the step and continue, or I can quit the program... I can give you a screenshot if you like.