GameRanger: a new place to play Civ IV online

[Scott Kevill]

Hi all, just thought I'd let you know about a new multiplayer network I've created for playing Civilization IV (and Warlords, Beyond the Sword, and Colonization) online called GameRanger.

Basically, GameRanger makes it quick and easy to play your friends online.

It has full lobby support for over 500 different games and demos (including Civ IV, of course), without the hassles and headaches that usually happen with network connections (eg. routers & firewalls).

I'm really excited to be releasing it, and hope it helps boost the Civ IV community by allowing people to play that were unable to until now due to problems with opening ports, etc. The more barriers that can be removed, the more likely the community will stay strong, as new users won't be put off.

You can download it at www.GameRanger.com

Btw, if you are familiar with GameRanger already as the Mac online gaming service, the difference is that PC gaming is supported now as well.

 

[Chinetter]

Has anyone tried playing Civ4 via this service? Does it work?

 

[TeraHammer]

I guess it does work, but not a single soul was there

 

[Scott Kevill]

Yes, it has only just been released, so it may take a little while to build up momentum.

 

[TeraHammer]

wanna play a game then, scott? You host ill find you.

Or add me at terahammer@hotmail.com

 

[Scott Kevill]

Sorry, no time to play, still working furiously. Just pushed out support for Red Alert 3 and a few others.

You might want to idle on there with a game room open while you do other things. If you turn off all GameRanger's sounds except the "player join my room" one, then you'll know if someone has arrived. Even if you miss them, you'll be able to add them to your Friend's List by right-clicking their chat text in the room after they've gone.

 

[TeraHammer]

Just add me on my msn if you want a game tonight (or someone else).

 

[CanuckSoldier]

A bit redundant if you ask me, the game already has a lobby. And if your taste is for competitive MP we already have a league for that as well. But welcome to Civland none the less.

CS

 

[Scott Kevill]

A bit redundant if you ask me, the game already has a lobby. And if your taste is for competitive MP we already have a league for that as well. But welcome to Civland none the less.

CS

Yes, there is already a built-in lobby, but that doesn't help you with router issues. That's where this is useful. I'm also looking into special support for Fall of Heaven 2.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well infact Firaxis did use the updated Gamespy NAT system for Civ4 with the idea that it would alleviate router/firewall issues. Unfortunately there is no magic bullet that will solve that for all players in a p2p game. And of course load issues on GS servers are always a factor. I'm not sure how GR has implemented a better system to deal with router/firewall issues, in my experience only using Hamachi(a vpn) has been at all successful in dealing with difficult connection problems.

CS

 

[Scott Kevill]

Well infact Firaxis did use the updated Gamespy NAT system for Civ4 with the idea that it would alleviate router/firewall issues. Unfortunately there is no magic bullet that will solve that for all players in a p2p game.

Yes, but it doesn't work very well.

And of course load issues on GS servers are always a factor.

The GS servers aren't used when a Civ4 game is played through GameRanger.

I'm not sure how GR has implemented a better system to deal with router/firewall issues, in my experience only using Hamachi(a vpn) has been at all successful in dealing with difficult connection problems.

In that case, you should give it a try.

Civ4: Fall from Heaven II is now supported as well.

 

[Neikius]

I would guess its a hamachi spinoff like garena... but I dont know for the fact.

About the connection issues - yea you have to be the damn network engineer to solve those out luckily I have some knowledge in that fields so it usually works, but still, why the hell do peers connect to each other?

 

[[KC]Bantams]

interesting can you see player ips with this?

 

[Nickzilla]

Hey, me and a friend gave this a try and so far it's better than the official way of playing (we can both actually log in you see) but we ran into a snag.

When I host, I go straight to the automatically created lobby via "play by direct connection" but my friend is taken to "play over the internet" and asked to log in.

Does he have to log in with his gametracker account here, or is this a bug?

Also, I can't seem to find the option to load a current game.