Mp In Conquests Is Terrible!!!!!

[Goober]

Ok, I am gonna try not to rant here.

I find the MP in Conquests (or PtW), heck, just plain old MP over the Internet sucks, basically. Here are some particulars:

1) You are constantly waiting on other people. Up to a minute per turn, which IMMENSELY slows down the game.

2) I find the C3C ALWAYS crashes after an MP game. By crash I mean it simply refuses to function after I try to close down C3C after I have finished a game.

3) Most Importantly, it somehow refuses to allow game of more then 3 people. Me and 4 other friends, we all have C3C, and we all live very close to each other. We have fairly decent computers, ranging from Pentium 3's to AMD's, with enough RAM to run the game. Theoretically we should all be able to play C3C MP online with one another. But we cannot. C3C MP seems to only allow 3 player games, 4 players max. And do not even try to re-load a 4 player game, if you got is successfully working previously. I find that it simply does not work.

4) C3C MP also randomly drops players, another source of immense frustration.

If anyone else is experiencing these problems, please respond, or if C3C MP always functions this was, also please let me know.

(Moderators: I was not sure to post this in the "MP/PBEM Forum", or the "Bugs and Fixes Forum". Please move it if it is in the wrong place.)

 

[WildFire]

Originally posted by RealGoober
Ok, I am gonna try not to rant here.

I find the MP in Conquests (or PtW), heck, just plain old MP over the Internet sucks, basically. Here are some particulars:

1) You are constantly waiting on other people. Up to a minute per turn, which IMMENSELY slows down the game.

1) ITS CIV. Micro-managing...? A minute per turn!?!?! Can I play with you!

2) The games gonna be slow, make a timelimit.

2) I find the C3C ALWAYS crashes after an MP game. By crash I mean it simply refuses to function after I try to close down C3C after I have finished a game.

So restart it...doesn't take long.

3) Most Importantly, it somehow refuses to allow game of more then 3 people. Me and 4 other friends, we all have C3C, and we all live very close to each other. We have fairly decent computers, ranging from Pentium 3's to AMD's, with enough RAM to run the game. Theoretically we should all be able to play C3C MP online with one another. But we cannot. C3C MP seems to only allow 3 player games, 4 players max. And do not even try to re-load a 4 player game, if you got is successfully working previously. I find that it simply does not work.

If you have the other slots Closed/Computer filled they can not connect. Also, dial up or cable? Dial up SUCKS for civ online no matter what you try to use.

4) C3C MP also randomly drops players, another source of immense frustration.

It's called crashing. Quit out and reload the auto-save. Make sure you actually save it once in awhile too.

If anyone else is experiencing these problems, please respond, or if C3C MP always functions this was, also please let me know.

Everyone is.

(Moderators: I was not sure to post this in the "MP/PBEM Forum", or the "Bugs and Fixes Forum". Please move it if it is in the wrong place.)

I wouldn't move it, even if I could. All this stuff is known

 

[Goober]

1) I don't mean waiting for them to finish their turn, I mean the little box that says "Waiting on Player XXX for XXX seconds"

2) I think we shall just switch to PBEMs, the MP is just too deadly slow

3) I shouldn't have to restart it.

4) We are all on Cable, either Telus DSL or Shaw (both cable, trust me)

5) The autosave is always on. I do save frequently.


6) I expected better, but meh.

7) Ok, I was likely complaining.

 

[Arrogant]

Originally posted by RealGoober
1) I don't mean waiting for them to finish their turn, I mean the little box that says "Waiting on Player XXX for XXX seconds"

Yes, that's so much annoying that it has destroyed our game many times.

It's not a connection speed issue, since if we all quit and reboot we can play pretty fast again for sometime. But it gradually gets worse and finally I have this message appearing once or twice EVERY TIME I MOVE A UNIT! Imagine what this means if you have to move 100 units...

It sure looks to me like a programming issue. A memory leak, or sending and receiving much more data than it is necessary.

Also, why on earth can't why choose how much time we'll be waiting for a player who dropped ? I mean, if he's got a crash 60 secs is ridiculous; he can't quit, reboot and reconnect in so little time.

 

[Goober]

The whole "waiting on XXX for XXX turns" thing is what has caused me and my friends to switch to PBEM rather then the regular Internet MP. I thimnk this may be a Bug, or MP on C3C just plain Sucks. I just have not bothered to try to take a game too far because the "waiting" thing just ticks us all right off. Maybe I shall start another thread with that as a potential bug . . . ?

 

[WildFire]

So have them drop from the game. Or when it gets below 30 seconds, drop them manually. If they do not quit, have everyone meet back at the lobby and reload the save without him or start a new game.

 

[Goober]

I have resolved the whole issue by starting PBEMs with my friends. The problem is, not everyone checks their email regularily, or is able to open attachments or send them . . .

Oh, and I do not like having to exclude friends because the MP in C3C is crap, to be blunt.

 

[Letsinod]

I mostly only play with 8 people and we never have problems. And to the point that it takes a minute per turn? Are you losing your mind...this is civ...go play RoN if you want to play a RTS game.

 

[ajerzguy]

Hmmm, I find this very interesting. So if I read you right you can play a pbem faster than an online MP game? I can see myself now running to check my email and saying, "geez hasn't Frank checked his email started Civ3 made his move and emailed it to Bill yet or is it Bill that hasn't forwarded it to Ray, oh crap I forgot John is away for 2 days".

The game runs at the speed of the slowest connection. So in a four player game with 3 cable users and 1 56k dialup user it will run at 56k speed.

I have DSL and have greatly enhanced my online experience by downloading a couple of "free" utility programs. Namely, TZ Connection Booster and RamBooster v1.6 from www.downloads.com.

I also just noticed that you may be a Mac user. That may be your biggest problem when it comes to MP Civ Or Civ altogether. The PC to Mac converters don't support this very much.

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by ajerzguy
Hmmm, I find this very interesting. So if I read you right you can play a pbem faster than an online MP game? I can see myself now running to check my email and saying, "geez hasn't Frank checked his email started Civ3 made his move and emailed it to Bill yet or is it Bill that hasn't forwarded it to Ray, oh crap I forgot John is away for 2 days".

The game runs at the speed of the slowest connection. So in a four player game with 3 cable users and 1 56k dialup user it will run at 56k speed.

I have DSL and have greatly enhanced my online experience by downloading a couple of "free" utility programs. Namely, TZ Connection Booster and RamBooster v1.6 from www.downloads.com.

I also just noticed that you may be a Mac user. That may be your biggest problem when it comes to MP Civ Or Civ altogether. The PC to Mac converters don't support this very much.

Well, we all have DSL, no 56k or 28k Modems here.

What exactly do those "Utility Programs" do?

I am not a Mac User, nor any of my friends. I just like the way that the Mac OSX style looks for CFC. I use regular PC's, because frankly they have more and better games then Mac does.

I think me and my friends have basically given up on MP games, except for 1 on 1 games, with AIs.

Does the Computers affect the speed of the game? Me and 2 of my friends have new, fast computers, but the other 2 have slower, older Pentium 3's and 2's. This may be the reason.

 

[ajerzguy]

That could be a cause RG. The TZ Connection Booster claims to increase the speed of your connection. The RamBooster v1.6 puts an icon in your task bar so you can increase your available ram. The game seems to cause large usage of ram. I use 256mb and there are times when it will go as low as 30mb. All I have to do is hit my windows key, hit the Booster key and within 30 sec I can restore my available ram to about 175mb.

Don't forget the slowest connection or computer processor is going to be the dominant force in any game. A super fast processor and connection cannot improve a slower processor or connection. A Pentium 2 400Mhz is the bare minimum to play.
Like I said the 2 downloads are free and if all of you use them you may find that you are able to play a more enjoyable online game.

 

[Goober]

Well, I have 768 Mb of RAM (I HATE waiting, I went and got a 512 stick, with my existing 256, and BINGO!, things function). Ya, I have basically given up MP's, except with friends that have reasonably fast computers (no offense to those that do not, but . . . ).

I will dl and try the RamBooster though, that looks intriguing. Thanks for the tips.