Cross Platform Multiplayer

[BlindTruthiness]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you can't use the Mac version of Civ Complete to play a multiplayer game against someone with the PC Version. Is this a correct assumption, and if not, how?

 

[AlanH]

That is the case, as I understand it.

LAN or Internet Connection required for some multiplayer modes.
A Broadband Internet connection is recommended for 5 or more players.
Multiplayer is Mac to Mac only via GameRanger.

(My emphasis)

 

[Blue Monkey]

It is, however, possible to PBEM using both platforms AFAIK.

 

[AlanH]

That's corrent. Thanks for clarifying.

Please note that. if you do use Play by Email with a Windows opponent, you may need to use FileValet to clean up incoming saves, as Windows saves can often contain extra data that confuses the Mac version. The result can be that you are unable to save the game at the end of your turn.

 

[BlindTruthiness]

Awesome, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Khorney]

alright, sorry for the bump, but here it goes:

i'm getting some mates round for a 3 way game of civ, 2 of us are running PC's and another has a mac laptop. unfortunatly he's not the most tech saavy chap and i doubt he would have the patience for me to setup parallel coherence or whatever, and the alternative, crossover, doesn't seem to support civ 3

so 2 questions here:

1. i realised before it emphasised mac to mac only, but was that only over gameranger? i find this ambigious, does it allow mac/pc over LAN? or is gameranger not the gamespy equivilant?

2. failing that, does anyone know an easy way to emulate civ3 on a mac, or can point me to somewhere more geared towards these kinds of queries?

i'm somewhat of a mac noob, not owning one, and am having to guess from my limited experience of ancient delapidated school mac. i'm not sure whether i'm more annoyed that they don't make applications inter os compatable, or just that everyone should be using windows =P

 

[AlanH]

Civ3 does not include the necessary communications protocol support to enable Mac-to-PC play in real time. There is a different Mac-only protocol used on a LAN or via GameRanger, and that is not available for the PC version.

So the only way to play cross platform is to install Windows on the Mac and run the PC version of Civ3 in that. I assume that's what you intended by the term "parallel coherence", though I'm not familiar with the expression? This will only work if the Mac is a MacBook, running an Intel CPU. If it's an older PowerBook then you *could* try to find an old copy of Microsoft's VirtualPC for Mac, but I wouldn't recommend it as Civ3 performance would be pretty awful.

Windows can be installed by creating a Bootcamp Windows partition on the Mac's hard drive. You'll need an installation disk for XP SP2, SP3 or Vista, and the Mac will need OS X version 10.5. That will allow the Mac to dual boot, and it will turn the Mac into a straightforward PC when booted into Windows.

Alternatively you can use Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion to create a Virtual Machine running Windows alongside Mac OS X. You still need a copy of Windows, but you are not restricted to using SP2, SP3 or Vista. I've run 98 in Parallels before.

None of these options are things you would want to do in five minutes before starting a LAN party. They all involve installing Windows from a CD. Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion are available as downloadable demo ware, but they cost money if you want to use them for longer than one event.

 

[Khorney]

parallel's coherence is a shell integration function for parallel desktop, basically allowing you to run windows applications straight from your application bar. i've had a little look into it the last couple of days and that seemed the the easiest option for my friend. i assume it's a new mac book as he got it recently.

well, thanks for the headsup anyway, saved me some time trying to track down the mac version, i'll see about getting parellel for him, and i'll dig out a windows cd from somewhere.

have you had any experience with the 'crossover' application? it's supposed to be a user friendly version of WINE, usable with OSX. it doesn't support civ3 due to 'font issues', due to be cleared up in the next release, whenever that is, but i was wondering whether it was still reasonably playable, as that would save considerable time and HDD space

 

[AlanH]

OK, your use of the singular, lower case "parallel coherence" confused this bear of little brain, at 2:00 am. Coherence is just one display option in Parallels Desktop. Parallels is the company name, and is plural.

Crossover doesn't work on my Mac. Dunno why, but it makes it rather difficult for me to do any tests. I have seen reports that Crossover Games runs Civ4 OK, but only the Steam version. I haven't seen any data on Civ3.

Two big challenges for Windows virtualisation for games are graphics and copy protection. Parallels actually uses the WINE DirectX-to-OpenGL code in its graphics emulation, so both solutions are about equal on that issue. I'm not sure why it would have font issues in Crossover. The Civ3 CD/DVD copy protection works fine in Parallels, but I've no idea whether Crossover can handle it.

 

[Thomas Davie]

This might help.

I'm running Civ 3 Complete inside of VMWare 1.1.3 (r429?), with 1 gb ram allocated to VMWare and 2 processors. I can log into a game hosted on a Win XP machine and play for hours at a time with no problem using a direct IP connection. I still can't seem to host a game, but I suspect that's because of a firewall on my router issue. But it does work, and very well at that as long as yer a guest player.

If you've got questions, ask away and I'll try to help.

One caveat; I was able to install the game under VMWare without any problem, but required a no cd/dvd crack in order to play the game. It just wouldn't work otherwise.

Tom

 

[Khorney]

does vmware require the installation of the os into a virtual machine? if so i'll probably stick with parallel, as i sincerely doubt my friend would be able to work a VM on his own. thanks for the heads up on the no-cd, i'd probably use that anyway as i don't have enough civ disks to go round

 

[AlanH]

Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion involve the installation of Windows into a VM. Both of them provide very similar user experiences. What you referenced as Parallels Coherence is matched by VMWare's Unity, and they are both just ways of hiding the Windows desktop so that Windows applications appear to be "integrated" with Mac OS X.

There are subtle differences in the way that the two virtualization packages work, mainly in the way they share files and network resources, but they are nuances, and not fundamental.