Multiplayer??

[Niklas]

I just got this mail:

Hello Niklas,

Thank you for your recent Hall of Fame submission # 2132. However, we are unable to accept it because your game was on Multi-player.
Only Single player games are allowed. Please see: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/rules.php specifically under Game Types.

[...]

and I don't understand. The game I played certainly wasn't on Multi-player, it was a game generated among a string of other games using New Game/Quick Start. I've never pressed the Multiplayer button in my whole life! What's the problem?

EDIT: Maybe I should make it clear that it's not my intention to complain, if the game is rejected that's no problem (it's not the 1275 BC game after all ). I just want to make sure it doesn't happen again, possibly raising awareness that there is something wrong with either the newgame generation or with the save game checking.

 

[Marsden]

Try resubmitting, but multiplayer games are not allowed. Could you have been playing a multiplayer game just before you generated this game?

 

[Niklas]

I realize multiplayer games are not allowed, what I'm wondering is how my game could be taken to be multiplayer?

It is possible that I played a turnset on the BABE-Council match just prior to this. But really, I just went through the routine to start a multiplayer game and it's way different. This game was started with Quick Start, and obviously all the other parameters were kept (opponents, difficulty, size etc) and none of them are similar to that MP game. So in that case it's a matter of the game erroneously setting some bit to indicate that it is a MP game even though it isn't. Or it's a matter of the software you're using to check the saves doing an erroneous check that flags my game as MP even though it isn't. Something is obviously wrong, which is why I brought it up in the first place.

EDIT: How do you check for MP?

 

[killercane]

When you exit out of the mtdg save or any pbem, you have to start a new game in sp, and then restart your hof game. Otherwise it saves some settings or something, and gives extraneous data in the save file (per Ainwood or AlanH or someone).

 

[Niklas]

What you're saying is much what I thought. The tool that is used to process the saves thinks it's a multiplayer game when it really isn't, because there is some extraneous data in the save that otherwise doesn't affect the game. Obviously that's a problem for automatic processing, but in a setting like HoF is should be easy to verify manually that it's really a single player game, no? So why would such games be rejected?

 

[Marsden]

If that is the case, then if might not happen again on resubmital. If we can recheck it then we might be able to accept it. Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused.

 

[Niklas]

I really don't see how resubmitting would help. It's still the same save I'm submitting, with the same extraneous information in it. I'll try though, but I think manual checking will be needed.

 

[Niklas]

I've resubmitted the game now, let's see if it works. I also tested the starting save with the utility you linked to, it says the file is invalid since that map is already used (of course), but it doesn't say anything about multiplayer.