How does the lobby/matchmaking work?

Biz_

Prince
Joined
Aug 28, 2010
Messages
482
When i look for games do I see every game that anyone in the world is hosting?

i know the multiplayer won't be too popular, but I was expecting a few more players...
 
You will only see the games for whatever download region you are in. If you are on the chicago server for example you can only see games hosted by players on the same server. To change your download region go to Steam/settings/downloads/download regions and a drop down list will give you a list of diff regions to choose from.
Steam for whatever reasons uses decentralized servers which kinda sucks but i guess thats life so we have to deal with it.
 
What on Earth possessed them to region lock a turn based game so finely anyways? I could play people clear across the ocean just fine in Civ IV, now we're not supposed to play with people in other nearby cities? :crazyeye:
 
What on Earth possessed them to region lock a turn based game so finely anyways? I could play people clear across the ocean just fine in Civ IV, now we're not supposed to play with people in other nearby cities? :crazyeye:

I really havnt a clue and still cant figure out all the love for steam....the last 2 total war titles used steam as well and i can say that having decentralized servers really dosnt help the online community.
 
You can still play with them, it's just more of a pain finding the open(vice private) games if they are not in your region.

You can still invite your friends to your private games using the steam overlay.

CS
 
is there some sort of browser than can see what servers are up in different places?
 
It was quite frustrating to discover this limitation today, after being inexplicably unable to see the Civ V hosted game my friend had created.

All simply because he downloaded the game from a different Steam server. WTF?

And as if this arbitrary limitation wasn't bad enough, the Steam download region is "periodically auto-detected based on which Steam content servers are nearby". So even if you go out of your way to choose the same regions as the friends you want to play games with (at the cost of slower Steam downloads), the setting will change out from under you later.

It's the year 2010. The problem of Internet game friend matchmaking was solved years ago. So why is it broken in a game as popular as Civilization V? And why does the multiplayer screen not at least bother to explain this limitation so that players aren't baffled and forced to go googling for an answer for how to accomplish such a simple task?

Grrrr....

This problem has been reported on the Steam forum as well.
 
does not work for me.... i changed download region to something else, yet i still see the exact same games, same goes for my british friend (im european) im trying to connect to, changing our region settings does absolutely nothing
 
region changing does work, but it's a pain as you have to restart steam (fast) and civ (slow)

i was in california, and then i went to germany... and people spoke german instead of English :)
 
i did restart both. as i said it really doesnt work for me.

edit: even now i still see games from the netherlands yet im supposed to see UK - london games, thats what my steam settings say anyway
 
I was unable to join my friends game. We both live in Houston yet I could not see his game or vice versa. So I guess it's neighborhood locked cause midtown can't join games hosted in the Heights, they are about 11 miles apart so this makes sense to me.
 
I was unable to join my friends game. We both live in Houston yet I could not see his game or vice versa. So I guess it's neighborhood locked cause midtown can't join games hosted in the Heights, they are about 11 miles apart so this makes sense to me.

I've never heard that before but I guess it's not out of the realm of possibility. Have you tried just clicling in his name in your friends list or chat room and "joining the game" ?

CS
 
Prolly we should play on hamachi instead :V
 
Prolly we should play on hamachi instead :V

I've tested Hamachi with Civ5 LAN and it doesn't work for what ever technical reasons, I'm looking for another user friendly VPN software to try, if anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

CS
 
anyone else in China having problems changing the region? i am still not seeing any hosted games when i switch to the US regions
 
anyone else in China having problems changing the region? i am still not seeing any hosted games when i switch to the US regions

That is because it is not as simple as changing D/L-cloud servers. Steam filters the player list to list only low ping games to you. So even switching servers is not a one size fits all solution.

We at CivPlayers, were international games are the norm, use our Steam chat room to gather and use the player/friends list to invite/request players join games.

It is free to use for any MPers you do not have to join the league at all.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/civplayers

steam://friends/joinchat/103582791431089902

CS
 
That is because it is not as simple as changing D/L-cloud servers. Steam filters the player list to list only low ping games to you. So even switching servers is not a one size fits all solution.

We at CivPlayers, were international games are the norm, use our Steam chat room to gather and use the player/friends list to invite/request players join games.

It is free to use for any MPers you do not have to join the league at all.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/civplayers

steam://friends/joinchat/103582791431089902

CS

I joined the steam group but when i try and join the chat room nothing happens?............................Problem solved.....disregard
 
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