Connecting to Peer

[ColonelSanders]

Have Firaxis yet admitted that there is a problem with their network code?

I have had a hell of a time this evening trying to get a 6 player game to play.

To check our firewalls, we got each player to host a 2 player game. These were all succesfully connected to. So, no firewall problems there!

However, we still had problems with "connecting to peer". The ability to access the game appears to be fairly random. I was unable to connect until one particular guy left. Someone else could only connect if they logged in first.

Remeber, all of us had previously proven that we could host a game, so it was NOTHING TO DO WITH FIREWALLS, ROUTERS AND/OR INTERNET PIXIES.

BTW, are firaxis aware that UDP is designed to be unreliable? Are they also aware that their code doesn't operate on an unreliable network? (Drop a few packets and the game falls over.) Hardly seems sensible to use UDP with such code.

Andy

PS. I am very unhappy about this as the product does not work as advertised. Firaxis are also failing to provide any information about their progress towards fixing the problems. As a paying customer, I am entitled to a product that works. We have all paid good money for this game so should be getting better service than that offered so far.

 

[funkybside]

This bad peer problem is really sad. I love civ, and I want to play real people. Firaxis responses have not been great, but opening UDP 2056 does seem to help- also make sure the firewall is open both for internet and server permissions on civ4. The problem seems to be if any one single user is not set up properly, the game can't populate the open slots.

I have followed their instructions but still have to spend hours just trying to find a connectable game, and once I do, there's no gaurantee everyone will even make it inside so the game can actually start.

To top that off: Once I finally begin playing, 9 out of 10 times the game crashes my video card (to visual garbage, requires hard reboot) after less than 1 hour of play time. For the record I am using a p4 3.2C, 1 gig ram, 10000 rpm serial ATA HDD, ASUS mobo, and a wonderful Geforce4 6800GT 256Mb vid card. All current drivers for everything in my box. My system rocks battlefield 2 at 1280 x 1024 using maximum graphics settings (and 4x AA) with no lag....1600x1200 w/ no AA is just as good. Dont tell me it's my box, other games work great.

I would be happy to volunteer time to Firaxis for testing purposes. Email me, I write my own schedule and will make time for it. I'm a developer, your guys and I should get along fine :0)

Here's what I know:

1. Before I opened UDP port 2056 others were not able to connect to games I was connected to (i.e., I could only join already in progress games).

2. Now that UDP port is forwarded and open, I can connect to about 90% of new games where no peers have joined yet (only 1 user, the host, is present). The other 10% constitutes bad host games, which I will assume will be simple to undestand and fix once we diagnose the more common bad peer problem.

3. New games with > 1 user are a hit-or-miss for connection, with mostly misses :0) However, bad peer games can become connectable if the host boots the correct user from the connected-but-waiting game.

4. Some have had success by counting the number of successful peer connections before the bad one, and this information can be used to identify the bad peer and take appropriate action.

It seems plausable that the bad peer is caused by a single bad user connected to the game, and that they are 'bad' because they are not pingable or connectable on UDP 2056. With a set of test-users who are in verbal communicaion (and spacially seperated hence on different gamespy servers), one could test this theory quite easily by having one person at a time vary their router settings and connect, etc..., but why is this even necessary? Other online games work fine without having to create holes in my router. (Whoever opened all the ports listed at the beginning of this post has a swiss cheese firewall.)

Let's just hope it is not a fundamental flaw in the peer to peer design, something requiring a complete reengineering of the product. I doubt we will get a fix if that's the case, the development costs may be more than Fraxis management want's to spend... business is business no matter where you are.

Firaxis, if you care about producing a quality product, please handle this situation quickly and completely. Earn that coveted consumer loyalty. The best case solution should come in the form of an in-game available patch that does not introduce third party software. You have an excellent game here, and I want to play it. It would also be nice if you were more 'visible' in your handling of this matter.

Da_FunkyB