How to play Multiplayer Civilization IV?

[EternalNeko]

----------=Please Read!=--------------
I realise this post contains a lot of text that is probably of no interest to most readers. take a glance and move on if need be.

The abstract is: Myself and a Friend cannot make Multi-Player Work, due to OOS problems.


Anyway I shall elaborate the problem with excessive details: (read this part if you have any idea how to resolve the above problem)

---Simplified--- (Details are boring after all)

Myself and a Friend, within the same house, on the same 1Gbps LAN, with duplicate copies of Civ-IV, BTS, and RoM-AND, attempted to play multiplayer on lan a few times, all times eventually went 'Out of Sync', resulting in the end of the fun.

---Detailed--- (Because details can also be important...)

- Attempt 1: We first started out with A New Dawn version 1.76 instead of the old version of 1.75C, things went smoothly and we reached around 270 turns before the problem reared it's head, 'Out of Sync', in order to resolve this we tried what it said on the message, the 'non-host'(assuming there is such a thing as a host in this game), left the game and returned, only to be met by the same message before we even ended a turn again, so we repeated it and it was still there, then the host pc did the same and the message still was there, at this point it was late so we called it a night.

- Attempt 2: We reformatted the computers and fresh installed civilization/BTS/AND, started up a new game with the same settings, things again went smoothly until 295 turns, when we had the problem, this time we decided to not bother with the logging out/in of the server, instead we saved the game and loaded it, that worked.. for 1 turn.

Repeating loading we could get between 1-5 turns before it would go out of sync again, we repeated this for about 50 turns then called it quits again.

We have deleted the caches and 'customassets' folder on both pc's (though the custom assets folder just had 190 empty folders)

Both PC's have an exact copy of the other's Civ4 folder as it was copied accross the network with no modifications made to it.

-Is it possible to maintain a good multiplayer game with this setup?
-If so what are we doing wrong and how do we resolve it?
-What settings do people normally play with?
-We had intended to play it later this month with 6 people, is that even possible?

---Setup---

Computer 1:
- Intel i7 920@4ghz
- 12gb ram
- ATI 5870
- 1920x1080
- F:\Civ4\Beyond The Sword\
- (BTS - 3.19, AND - 1.75C)
Computer 2:
- Intel E8400@3.4ghz
- 4gb ram
- Geforce GT250
- 1680x1050
- C:\Civ4\Beyond The Sword\
- (BTS - 3.19, AND - 1.75C)
Infrastructure:
- Linksys WRT610N - 1Gbps
- 2x 5Meter CAT5a

Map Settings:
- 2 Players & 6 AI's
- RoM_Islands (Giant, Tropical, Medium, Ancient, Epic, Several Extras, Many Tiny Islands, Cylindrical, Standard)
x - No Barbarians
x - Aggressive AI
x - No Technology Trading
x - No Technology Brokering
x - No BarbarianCivs
x - Usable Mountains
x - Multiple Production
x - Multiple Research
x - Surround and Destroy
x - Advanced Diplomacy
x - Unlimited Wonders
x - Ruthless AI
x - Advanced Economy
x - Realistic Culture Speed
x - Larger Cities
x - Realistic Corporations
x - United Nations
x - Advanced Espionage
x - Expanded Castles
x - Arctic and City Parks
x - Meteorology
x - Civic Buildings
x - Early Buildings
x - Historical Wonders
x - Guilds
x - Modern Corporations
x - Advanced Nukes

- Conquest Victory
- BUG settings are unchanged.
- Simultaneous Turns, Take over AI

 

[BlueTemplar]

We first started out with A New Dawn version 1.76

Which one? We're at beta 5 now.

 

[EternalNeko]

Beta 5.

 

[EternalNeko]

- Barbarians were actually enabled in the first game, though the same OOS issue occurred in the second game when they were disabled, so this likely changed nothing.
- Both computers are using Windows 7(x64)

Also, should we be using 1.76 Beta 5, or 1.75C?, is either more likely to OOS?
If nothing else, even if you don't know the fix for the problem, can people confirm it is possible to play LAN games successfully with this kind of set up? is getting OOS the norm?

 

[gunburned]

Ive been trying for a while to get a lan game going with my brother but run into the same problem constantly getting OOS.

One game I had forgot to enable any computer. I said to my brother wow we have gone over 200+ turns and no crashes or oos this is amazing. Then i say DOh i forgot to add computer players.

It seems the OOS is being casue by some sort of AI actions. Havent solved what though, we have givin up a while ago.

 

[EternalNeko]

I suspected AI may be a part of the issue, though considering it's a synchronization problem, probably just about anything that changed dynamically during gameplay is potentially to blame; without extensive study or understanding of how the game works on a fundamental/programming/synchronizing level I can sadly only speculate.

Can anyone explain how to enable and more importantly understand what the synchronization logs mean?

Can anyone post a set-up they have tried and tested in a multi-player environment and know to work?, I assume this busy, busy forum isn't limited completely to a single player audience?

Can anyone yet confirm if 'Out Of Sync' is the norm when playing multi-player or a fixable/controllable problem?, I suspect not as there would likely be a great deal more posts and if it is a non-counterable problem there would be some form of sticky saying "OOS sucks! we can't fix it! so gtfo..." or something more articulately structured.

 

[EternalNeko]

Ok so we played another game with the same settings, but with bandits, huts and revolutions turned off, similar symptoms occurred around turn 320~, it seems to go out of sync around the same time turns start taking a few seconds to 'compute' (or whatever is happening there)

Also, this thread has had little luck in replies? The forum seems relatively active, in this sub-forum alone there has been maybe 100 posts since I started this..., maybe the thread title sucks or something... Or i've struck upon the unmentioned taboo of Civ4 (shall not speaketh Multi player!)...

I should have advertised for free cookies or beer...

 

[Skeeve_Sunshine]

One possible solution is, that when OOS occures, do the following:
*) save the game (on either computer)
*) exit the game (all MP parties)
*) close CIV 4 ( all MP parties)
*) Start CIV 4 again on all computers.
*) load the game and join the game.

Now it should run again for some hours, depeding on the number of AI's and map.

The OOS problem seems to be related to some memory and timing handling on how MP game is kept in sync.

 

[EternalNeko]

Interesting, so simply restarting the whole game would allow for the game to continue for a few more (hundred?) turns before going OOS?, simply reloading the game was only allowing 1-5 more turns, but we shall try restarting the program next time.

I assume this means OOS is a fairly normal and unavoidable issue?

 

[Afforess]

I suspected AI may be a part of the issue, though considering it's a synchronization problem, probably just about anything that changed dynamically during gameplay is potentially to blame; without extensive study or understanding of how the game works on a fundamental/programming/synchronizing level I can sadly only speculate.

Can anyone explain how to enable and more importantly understand what the synchronization logs mean?

Can anyone post a set-up they have tried and tested in a multi-player environment and know to work?, I assume this busy, busy forum isn't limited completely to a single player audience?

Can anyone yet confirm if 'Out Of Sync' is the norm when playing multi-player or a fixable/controllable problem?, I suspect not as there would likely be a great deal more posts and if it is a non-counterable problem there would be some form of sticky saying "OOS sucks! we can't fix it! so gtfo..." or something more articulately structured.

Civ4 uses a very...unique way of maintaining synchronization. Neither computer is the host, both compute the turns actions indepentantly of each other (with the exception of the players actions, which are sent via the network). Out of sync means 1 computer's calculations do not match the other computer's calculations when they did a check.

 

[Koshling]

Civ4 uses a very...unique way of maintaining synchronization. Neither computer is the host, both compute the turns actions indepentantly of each other (with the exception of the players actions, which are sent via the network). Out of sync means 1 computer's calculations do not match the other computer's calculations when they did a check.

My guess would be something in the ai using the wrong random number generator. There are actually three different random number generators (I think) and in particular one is used for multiplayer games. If some actions use the wrong one it's probable that the random seed gets out of step and generates different results. However, I have not really looked a the mp code specifically so this is just a wild guess.

Player use of automations may also be a factor.

 

[NightKev]

Considering that if an OoS error occurs, if the other person (assuming only 2 humans) rejoins the game, it usually goes away (for a while); that means it's possible to resync everything. Perhaps there's a way to force a resync in-game based on the "host" that can be added to the mod?

 

[Skeeve_Sunshine]

Interesting, so simply restarting the whole game would allow for the game to continue for a few more (hundred?) turns before going OOS?, simply reloading the game was only allowing 1-5 more turns, but we shall try restarting the program next time.

I assume this means OOS is a fairly normal and unavoidable issue?

In most cases yes, it is unavoidable.
It is better when revolutions are not used. ( Currently when city overthrow happens for one human player every human player will get the popup and therefore must select the same option).

With long turn times it and multiple players it might be good idea to clear out network problems. Turn off torrent, etc. So not to lose packages, and prolong syncing for civ.

But did this trick help you to continue playing ?

 

[keldath]

hey,

ive been trying to find a good stable mod for mp in ci4 bts,
without luck.

any mod that uses the revolution core, isnt mp compatible, some parts of the bug bull code is also not compatible.
so unless theres gonna be an extenssive focus on fixing mp (as it was done at some point in revdcm), don't expect to play mp with any of the large mods.

 

[EternalNeko]

We turned off Revolutions, advanced diplomacy/espionage/random events, played on a 'huge' instead of 'giant' map, and played with only 3 AI's instead of 6.

It lasted till turn 480 before the OOS issue cropped up, shutting down all games and reloading allowed for 3 turns before the OOS occured again.

 

[NightKev]

Me and a friend have been playing on a gigantic map, marathon, no revolutions, with 13 AIs, and haven't had an OoS error at all so far. We're also using all default BUG menu options. So apparently if you go with mostly defaults you're fine.
Edit: Forgot to mention, this is with 1.75c.

 

[Elvince]

is there anyway we can turn a debug feature on so we can try to find out which module is creating that oos?
I have played a lot of AND MP until 1.75, except the certainty that Revolution is not MP friendly, I must say that nothing really clear came out of it. problems tended to arrive some time AD, but some times as late as renaissance some times as early as Iron Working...
Afforess I would be glad to help if there is anything we can do to help find the issues out.

one other thing which is sure, when it starts happening even if you reload, it will roughly happen every few turns, making the game unplayable...

cheers!

 

[BlueTemplar]

They say that RevDCM is MP-compatible...

 

[keldath]

BlueTemplar,

i have made tests to all of the recent revdcm versions,

the version 2.7.2 was pretty stable as i recall, all those who came after had oos in them.

i think the best revdcm mp was 2.6.