Let's Vox Populi! (#3)

[Amask]

Modpacks aren't an issue. I made and used one for one of the GMR tests. Stii also said it worked fine in single player. I've made dozens of them in the past.

Hotseat with a modpack works without GMR. I've played several hotseat games without issues on multiple versions of VP.
The main difference is that you have to email the save yourself to the next person, and the passwords for all players are stored somewhere in the save file. According to a FAQ on the GMR site they're there in plaintext, meaning a dedicated cheater can figure out how to extract them, maybe. I personally don't care. If someone has nothing better to do, they can knock themselves out and cheat all they want.

So what are everyone's thoughts?
Should I invest some time into figuring out my router issues?
Seems like interest is dwindling a bit. If it turns out this game won't happen at all, I'd rather not waste my time.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

Tech Trading: No

Research Agreements: Yes

Well. VP must've got too big. I was able to load after the conversion the last time I assembled a competition. However, perhaps even at that time that save would not have loaded on the next machine, I cant know.

If that's the case, another option we have then is to try GMR with a much older VP version to see if it's smaller size allows it to work. Or at least the version you used then HorseshoeHermit.

It seems like GMR's been pretty frustrating though... aside from trying that older VP option I think it's practically ruled out at this point thanks to Amask's testing.

How does everyone feel about doing Hotseat? I'd be up for it. Sure it'll be really slow but no issues is pretty nice too. If anyone gets caught cheating we just skip their turn for the rest of the game. It should be fairly easy to notice if someone does.

So what are everyone's thoughts?
Should I invest some time into figuring out my router issues?
Seems like interest is dwindling a bit. If it turns out this game won't happen at all, I'd rather not waste my time.

Here's how I'm looking at it now:
1. Try HorseshoeHermit's older version for GMR
2. Get thoughts on Hotseat... if No...
3. Amask further investigates router. If successful, great, if not...
4. Any more pitboss options? If No...
5. We can try a standard internet game with settings as low as possible and see how far we get, and try to ignore desyncs best we can. Maybe we'll somehow get stupidly lucky.
6. We see if anyone wants to try Civ IV or Civ VI

 

[Rongute]

We could potentially use a cloud storage solution e.g. Dropbox to help with a hotseat game. Rather than having to do it via email.

I did try also try to get GMR to work this week, and also experienced crashes on loading all saves, regardless of options chosen.

 

[Rongute]

I've got a potential machine that could be used as a Pitboss server, as long as I could get it running on Linux. It's a 9 year old machine, and the Windows version is 7, which given it's age, lack of security patching now, I'm not prepared to keep on the whole time in Windows. My internet connection is around 46 mb download, 13 mb upload.

 

[stii]

We have moved to a discord serve to try and plan things now. If people want an invite, reply or pm

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

My ear suffering is crescendoing the eve before I finally get to go in to a full examination , last stop before operation.

I cannot. Please excuse me as I shamble about between anything to soothe my angst, until then.

 

[Rongute]

I'm still interested. How would I access the Discord service?

(Nevermind, I can see that I was sent an "inbox" message.)

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

My ear suffering is crescendoing the eve before I finally get to go in to a full examination , last stop before operation.

I cannot. Please excuse me as I shamble about between anything to soothe my angst, until then.

Ouch. 2022 has not been kind to you so far. Hopefully the operation starts to turn that around for you. At least you don't have to wait a long time for this one.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

We're running the first technical test of the VP modpack , discussion on the Discord server now.

Actually, second test. First one failed (we used modpacks with different UI components)

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

https://discord.gg/a67fuYEz

(Please only click this if you actually end up being one of the 8)

 

[Aad van het Kalifaat]

Did you guys manage to get it to work? If so, I'm curious about how you did it

 

[Rongute]

We've had a "test" game via a dedicated Pitboss server, although just two of us so far. That said, to make it stable enough we have been using a version from December 2018. It's been fairly stable although with a few bugs.

Link below:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/vp-modpack-magnus-mutatio.639974/

Select the "Older Versions" section, and "Link to latest version I've personnaly played with (December)"

 

[Rongute]

Modpacks aren't an issue. I made and used one for one of the GMR tests. Stii also said it worked fine in single player. I've made dozens of them in the past.

Hotseat with a modpack works without GMR. I've played several hotseat games without issues on multiple versions of VP.
The main difference is that you have to email the save yourself to the next person, and the passwords for all players are stored somewhere in the save file. According to a FAQ on the GMR site they're there in plaintext, meaning a dedicated cheater can figure out how to extract them, maybe. I personally don't care. If someone has nothing better to do, they can knock themselves out and cheat all they want.

So what are everyone's thoughts?
Should I invest some time into figuring out my router issues?
Seems like interest is dwindling a bit. If it turns out this game won't happen at all, I'd rather not waste my time.

What version of VP have you been using Amask? The next test game using a Pitboss server has been working well, but has used a December 2018 version to increase stability.

 

[Amask]

1.3.4

 

[Rongute]

How stable has that proved to be? When I was using versions of 1.4 it wasn't stable in pitboss mode.

 

[Amask]

Your question is moot. Read the spoiler in post #153. Loading saves from GMR didn't work at all, so there's no stability or instability to speak of.

 

[Rongute]

I was thinking more about Pitboss, where we are testing a successful multiplayer game. Has most of the advantages of GMR, but I had also forgotten that you are in the Discord group by another name.

 

[Amask]

I don't think I ran any pitboss tests with other people, 'cause of my router issues.
I tried pitboss over LAN from two different computers, but I don't recall if that was with VP or just the base game. Probably the latter.
IF it was with VP, then it was 1.2.1 for sure.
And there were no issues.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Our tests have seemingly finished for now. We've found a number of bugs that will be reported to the VP dev team. We've been unable to show that pitboss play can be stable, if only because of ensuring the server uptime.
The best case would seem to be that we can enjoy a friendly game on which nothing too serious can be staked, as it's unclear if the save will not break, or if something bizarre and unfair will happen in regards to yields and other scores.

I'm rustling the bushes to get back to eight people again.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

For anyone who had notifications to follow this/was interested in participating you might want to take a look at this: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...15th-final-roll-call-uses-version-2-7.680394/