Multiplayer Explanation
- Thread starter Anarki
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Gainy
Guest
I don't think you're going to get many people playing PTW MP... Anyhoo, the only MP games I have played are with Dial up. They were 1 v 1 games, on a tiny map. It didn't run as smoothly as Single Player, but there wasn't too much lag 
I'm not sure you could get away with having much more players than that, though (I think all my opponents had broadband)
I'm not sure you could get away with having much more players than that, though (I think all my opponents had broadband)
G
Gainy
Guest
Go on the internet, load up Civ, click on Multiplayer, click on Internet, then you'll be in the Lobby. In the lobby, you can talk to people. There's also a list of available games that you can join If you don't see any, well... there aren't any 
I'm not sure if you can see C3C games if you've got PTW...
If you don't see any, well... there aren't any I'm not sure if you can see C3C games if you've got PTW...I posted this a bit ago..
What you need to know about Civilization 3: Play the World Multiplayer
By WildFire
First off, there are a number of ways you can play multiplayer in Civ3. These are as follows.
Play By Email (PBEMs)
Hotseat
LAN (Local Area Network)
Online through gamespy. Turn based, simultaneous or turnless.
First off, before you do anything related to multiplayer or even anything in single player, make sure you download the latest patch 1.27 and install it. With c3c, youre best off playing pbems until the beta patches are over, or stick with PTW multiplayer. This gives you all the latest patches and youll be allowed to play online. If you try to play online without this patch, chances are, NO ONE will let you play with them, as you will crash the game every time (the dreaded synch error).
Also, beware of your firewall situation! In order to join OR host a game that is connected via the internet and it is protected by a firewall, you are REQUIRED to open the ports in you firewall. Opening these certain ports will allow you to play without it interfering with your game. For now though, only ONE player who is behind a firewall can be a game.
Online and ANY type of multiplayer game that you play has a limit of 8 players, human or AI. So if you have 2 humans and want 8 AI, it isnt going to work. Youd have to have 2 humans and 6 AI. This makes the game very hard to play (online) with large and huge maps, Ill explain later on.
1) Play by Emails are games where there can be 2-8 players. PBEMs are downloaded from your email as either a .sav file or (more of a hassle) a .zip file and then placed (usually) into the saves folder of PTW (or c3c). Of course, some of the more die hard pbem people create a folder for different type of pbems (1 vs 1s, lots of people, etc). They do this to organize the pbems better and easier to remember when the games were sent and played. Once saved, find that folder in the PTW screen under Load Games. Once you find the save, load it . First its gonna tell you to enter your password. If its the first turn of the pbem, you enter a password that you will NEED TO KNOW the rest of the game. If you press enter without entering anything, it leaves the password blank meaning there will be none. After you complete your turn, you press space and save it (giving it a new name or saving over the previous save). After completing the turn and saving it, you need to open up your email (yahoo, hotmail etc) and attach the file (preferably as a .sav file but a .zip works too). And youre done til next turn!
2) Hotseat games are fun but lack the excitement of true online games because you are pretty much sitting next to whoever youre playing, and its too easy to cheat . You start the game by pressing multiplayer and once it loads, it should show 4 options. Click Hotseat. It will then load the game into the Multiplayer Setup screen and the first option on the left will default to Hotseat (Game Type). After that is complete, you set up the game you wish to play (settings and such). You then can add a human player(s) in slots 2-8 as slot 1 is defaulted as a human player. To add a human player, click the left arrow (over one of the Open things) and click Add Human Player and then let them pick their civ. After that is done, launch the game.
**IMPORTANT** For both PBEMs and hotseat games, the 1st player(s) are UNABLE to see AI movement.
For hotseat, you occasionally forget your password and cant play the game. That is why an Adminstrative Password is needed before you enter your passwords. It looks like this (for pbems too).
Hotseat launched à Admin password à Player 1 password (plays turn)à Player 2 password (plays) à Player 1 plays etc
PBEM Launched à Admin passoword à Player 1 password (plays turn, emails) à Player 2 password (plays turn, emails) à repeat
The Admin password is mainly for reseting the password of the players. Say player 1 forgot the password, he could easily enter the Admin password and reset his password to something he could remember.
But this leads to the problem of cheating
An easy way to solve this is to have another person make a map (for pbems and they launch/set admin password) and for hotseat, have a parent/brother/someone type in the admin password and whenever you forget your password, have him enter the admin password and you can enter a new one.
3) Local Area Networks
These games are referred to as LAN games and are, for the most part, less laggier then online games. The way these types of games work is going to be very similar to online play. Press multiplayer on the main screen and click Local Area Network (LAN) when it shows up with the choices. You then get to the screen to set everything up.
At this point, the other person (or multiple people) will see the game appear on the Local Game list (not internet). Click the game to join it and you will join the host at the screen that allows you to pick your civilization and name. To change your name and name of your civ, you click the rename button (this will NOT WORK if you are marked as ready) and rename them as wanted. To the right of that is the way to change civilizations. Pick whichever one is desired (but do keep in mind it IS multiplayer and people are aggressive).
The host of the game (the person that started it) can change all of the settings from climate, land, type of LAN game (simulatenous, turnless, turn based), putting AI into the game and changing the difficulty. After everyone has checked the box furthest to the right, the host may launch the game. After a 10 second countdown, the game creates the world and waits for everyone to get set up and voila, the game begins.
4) True Online Play
This is where you play anyone from Austrilia to the person in the house across the street. All of these are performed via GameSpy which is the only company to run Civ3 online.
There are 3 major types of Online play.
A) Turnless/Simultaneous
B) Turn-Based
A) Turnless is the multiplayer where there can be NO AI no matter what. There are no turns at all. This makes the game go a lot quicker then any of the other types of modes. Every player takes their turn separate during each round. Turnless mode for Civ3 is, besides the fact stated before, quite similar to Simultaneous mode.
Simultaneous mode is differenet from turnless because it procedes one turn at a time. ALL of the players that are in the game take their turns at the same time. Before the game is launched, the host can set a turn timer that can affect how long the turns can be. If it is set at None there is no turn timer and the players can take as long as needed.
If there is a turn timer, and one person or multiple people are still playing that turn, the game goes on anyway and a new turn starts, leaving them somewhat behind. All of the production the cities make, all the research and stuff happen at the beginning of each new turn. So if you are not going to finish the turn in time, make sure you have your cities making what they should be producing, research the right technology and check science/entertainment values. But if all the players should finish before the turn timer runs out, you can end your turn by pressing space, the enter key or clicking on the turn button in the Info box. The squiggly lines (when they are their that means you are still in the turn) should disappear meaning you are waiting on others to finish.
B) Turn-Based multiplayer are just like the single player games that you play. One of the things that changes turn-based is that there is a Game Speed that the host can set that determines the amount of time you have to complete your movement and other things that turn. In the beginning of the game, the Game Speed is relatively fast, even if set at low because you shouldnt have much to do in the start anyway. As the game progresses, the Game Speed adjusts and gives you more and more time.
In the upper right hand corner there is a timer that counts down for how much time you have left in the turn. There also shows a timer of how long youve been playing that game (including saves in case you saved the game, quit, and loaded it at another time). No matter what though, if the turn timer ends and your still playin, your turn ends and the next person gets to go. Or, if you do not have anything else to do and it is still your turn, you can simply press the space bar, enter or click on the end turn button located in the Info Box (bottom left). When it is your turn again, you are notified (if multiplayer popups are on) by a box that says It is you turn or it will say it in the left (where all the chat is) if that is disabled.
During the turn you can do a number of things (you can ONLY do these during the turn):
- Move your units
- Hurry production of cities
- Assign unit actions or cancel them
During the other peoples turn, you can do a number of things: - Decide what the city is going to make - Use the Advisor buttons and talk to them - Many other things you can find out (like the histograph stuff too)
What you need to know about Civilization 3: Play the World Multiplayer
By WildFire
First off, there are a number of ways you can play multiplayer in Civ3. These are as follows.
Play By Email (PBEMs)
Hotseat
LAN (Local Area Network)
Online through gamespy. Turn based, simultaneous or turnless.
First off, before you do anything related to multiplayer or even anything in single player, make sure you download the latest patch 1.27 and install it. With c3c, youre best off playing pbems until the beta patches are over, or stick with PTW multiplayer. This gives you all the latest patches and youll be allowed to play online. If you try to play online without this patch, chances are, NO ONE will let you play with them, as you will crash the game every time (the dreaded synch error).
Also, beware of your firewall situation! In order to join OR host a game that is connected via the internet and it is protected by a firewall, you are REQUIRED to open the ports in you firewall. Opening these certain ports will allow you to play without it interfering with your game. For now though, only ONE player who is behind a firewall can be a game.
Online and ANY type of multiplayer game that you play has a limit of 8 players, human or AI. So if you have 2 humans and want 8 AI, it isnt going to work. Youd have to have 2 humans and 6 AI. This makes the game very hard to play (online) with large and huge maps, Ill explain later on.
1) Play by Emails are games where there can be 2-8 players. PBEMs are downloaded from your email as either a .sav file or (more of a hassle) a .zip file and then placed (usually) into the saves folder of PTW (or c3c). Of course, some of the more die hard pbem people create a folder for different type of pbems (1 vs 1s, lots of people, etc). They do this to organize the pbems better and easier to remember when the games were sent and played. Once saved, find that folder in the PTW screen under Load Games. Once you find the save, load it . First its gonna tell you to enter your password. If its the first turn of the pbem, you enter a password that you will NEED TO KNOW the rest of the game. If you press enter without entering anything, it leaves the password blank meaning there will be none. After you complete your turn, you press space and save it (giving it a new name or saving over the previous save). After completing the turn and saving it, you need to open up your email (yahoo, hotmail etc) and attach the file (preferably as a .sav file but a .zip works too). And youre done til next turn!
2) Hotseat games are fun but lack the excitement of true online games because you are pretty much sitting next to whoever youre playing, and its too easy to cheat . You start the game by pressing multiplayer and once it loads, it should show 4 options. Click Hotseat. It will then load the game into the Multiplayer Setup screen and the first option on the left will default to Hotseat (Game Type). After that is complete, you set up the game you wish to play (settings and such). You then can add a human player(s) in slots 2-8 as slot 1 is defaulted as a human player. To add a human player, click the left arrow (over one of the Open things) and click Add Human Player and then let them pick their civ. After that is done, launch the game.
**IMPORTANT** For both PBEMs and hotseat games, the 1st player(s) are UNABLE to see AI movement.
For hotseat, you occasionally forget your password and cant play the game. That is why an Adminstrative Password is needed before you enter your passwords. It looks like this (for pbems too).
Hotseat launched à Admin password à Player 1 password (plays turn)à Player 2 password (plays) à Player 1 plays etc
PBEM Launched à Admin passoword à Player 1 password (plays turn, emails) à Player 2 password (plays turn, emails) à repeat
The Admin password is mainly for reseting the password of the players. Say player 1 forgot the password, he could easily enter the Admin password and reset his password to something he could remember.
But this leads to the problem of cheating
An easy way to solve this is to have another person make a map (for pbems and they launch/set admin password) and for hotseat, have a parent/brother/someone type in the admin password and whenever you forget your password, have him enter the admin password and you can enter a new one.
3) Local Area Networks
These games are referred to as LAN games and are, for the most part, less laggier then online games. The way these types of games work is going to be very similar to online play. Press multiplayer on the main screen and click Local Area Network (LAN) when it shows up with the choices. You then get to the screen to set everything up.
At this point, the other person (or multiple people) will see the game appear on the Local Game list (not internet). Click the game to join it and you will join the host at the screen that allows you to pick your civilization and name. To change your name and name of your civ, you click the rename button (this will NOT WORK if you are marked as ready) and rename them as wanted. To the right of that is the way to change civilizations. Pick whichever one is desired (but do keep in mind it IS multiplayer and people are aggressive).
The host of the game (the person that started it) can change all of the settings from climate, land, type of LAN game (simulatenous, turnless, turn based), putting AI into the game and changing the difficulty. After everyone has checked the box furthest to the right, the host may launch the game. After a 10 second countdown, the game creates the world and waits for everyone to get set up and voila, the game begins.
4) True Online Play
This is where you play anyone from Austrilia to the person in the house across the street. All of these are performed via GameSpy which is the only company to run Civ3 online.
There are 3 major types of Online play.
A) Turnless/Simultaneous
B) Turn-Based
A) Turnless is the multiplayer where there can be NO AI no matter what. There are no turns at all. This makes the game go a lot quicker then any of the other types of modes. Every player takes their turn separate during each round. Turnless mode for Civ3 is, besides the fact stated before, quite similar to Simultaneous mode.
Simultaneous mode is differenet from turnless because it procedes one turn at a time. ALL of the players that are in the game take their turns at the same time. Before the game is launched, the host can set a turn timer that can affect how long the turns can be. If it is set at None there is no turn timer and the players can take as long as needed.
If there is a turn timer, and one person or multiple people are still playing that turn, the game goes on anyway and a new turn starts, leaving them somewhat behind. All of the production the cities make, all the research and stuff happen at the beginning of each new turn. So if you are not going to finish the turn in time, make sure you have your cities making what they should be producing, research the right technology and check science/entertainment values. But if all the players should finish before the turn timer runs out, you can end your turn by pressing space, the enter key or clicking on the turn button in the Info box. The squiggly lines (when they are their that means you are still in the turn) should disappear meaning you are waiting on others to finish.
B) Turn-Based multiplayer are just like the single player games that you play. One of the things that changes turn-based is that there is a Game Speed that the host can set that determines the amount of time you have to complete your movement and other things that turn. In the beginning of the game, the Game Speed is relatively fast, even if set at low because you shouldnt have much to do in the start anyway. As the game progresses, the Game Speed adjusts and gives you more and more time.
In the upper right hand corner there is a timer that counts down for how much time you have left in the turn. There also shows a timer of how long youve been playing that game (including saves in case you saved the game, quit, and loaded it at another time). No matter what though, if the turn timer ends and your still playin, your turn ends and the next person gets to go. Or, if you do not have anything else to do and it is still your turn, you can simply press the space bar, enter or click on the end turn button located in the Info Box (bottom left). When it is your turn again, you are notified (if multiplayer popups are on) by a box that says It is you turn or it will say it in the left (where all the chat is) if that is disabled.
During the turn you can do a number of things (you can ONLY do these during the turn):
- Move your units
- Hurry production of cities
- Assign unit actions or cancel them
During the other peoples turn, you can do a number of things: - Decide what the city is going to make - Use the Advisor buttons and talk to them - Many other things you can find out (like the histograph stuff too)
