Patch 1.52: Civ Now Unplayable on Gamespy

[Bobothemonk]

I cant connect ever, sometimes i can, but then noone can join after me, It sucks, im a good respectable player and i cant join a server, it sucks. I opened ports, lowered security levels. made sure the program was allowed to get thru norton, I mean this is crap, gamespy has to step up to the fkin plate and give us more bandwidth, OORRR firaxis has to step up to the plate and supply the game servers themselfs. But one thing is forsure. I didnt play this game for the single player, and I shouldnt have to be a IT guy to play either.

Bobothemonk

 

[GenericKen]

Gotta agree that this is a big problem, but I seriously doubt it's a bandwidth problem.

The issue has a specific nature, in that some players just prevent other players from joining games. It can't be a server bandwidth issue, packets are being LOST between players.

 

[moofed]

I think this happened during a LAN game using v1.52. The game had been going for a while with 4 players. Then a fifth person wanted to join to take over an AI for a while. She never got past 'Contacting Peer' and she tried to connect many times. This game was setup with 18 civs, 4 original human players, simultaneous turns, and the take over AI option was turned on.

I can't see how gamespy would have anything to do with a LAN game.

 

[Pocket]

Had the same problem portforwarded and problem was less severe.

 

[Marcus Cicero]

I've had a tremendous amount of trouble, what took 15 minutes now takes an hour to an hour and a half.

 

[Bobothemonk]

hhmm, well then if firaxis is the cause, then hopefully they can fix it. Maybe theres 2 problems, one with gay..gamespy and one with the patch. Maybe we are experience more then one problem, one with civ4 and one with gamespy.

Bobothemonk

 

[knupp715]

Originally posted by VBraun

Originally Posted by MookieNJ
The other funny thing about this is that for some reason, Civ4 allows players to join in as a civ that has already been eliminated from the game. So you're stuck waiting while someone joins a dead civ, and then have to wait again after they leave the game.

No it doesn't. This was fixed in the patch.

I just played a game tonight, and this wasn't fixed in the patch. 3vs3 teamplay. Somebody joined in the game on the opposing team as Arabia who had just been destroyed a couple turns ago. After the long time it took for them to connect, he left right after he realized he was dead. I could see why Firaxis would do this, so somebody who just wanted to observe the game could watch it without playing. But it should at least tell the player whether they are becoming a dead civ or not.

 

[Ani]

Last night a friend and me used abouth 4 hours time trying to get a game.
What we found out was that ofthen i was the 'cause' of the problem.
If i was logged inn, no other players got inn. But if i stayed out until we had as many as we needed i could then connect last and the game worked well.

Offcourse i was not alone in causing peer problems so it was realy hard to get a game. A few times we where able to get more players into the game even if i was already connected so it doesnt seem the problem is 'stable'.

 

[Forestkeper]

I have been haveing the same problem and thus far have been unable to join any online civ 4 games and any information on the subject would be greatly appriciated

 

[goriand]

This is really terrible
I have exactly the problems as described in the ops thread. Tried the site of 2k but they dont really give support, now my question is can som1 give me an url where u can mail/contact etc official support for civ4, great game but false ads for multiplayer...its approaching my dustbin tbh

 

[megalomaniac]

I can't seem to join any games to save my life , but when i host a game, no one seems to have problems joining. Any thoughts?

 

[Colossian]

I can't seem to join any games to save my life , but when i host a game, no one seems to have problems joining. Any thoughts?

I have the same problem.

 

[Mikkis]

many servers where i have tried to connect had dead peer

 

[Sydney_Bristow]

I would host a game, one friend would be able to join, then the other friends who were trying to get into the game would get "cannot connect to peer" message.

So first one gets in, others get locked out. This was true in both direct connect and gamespy multiplayer.

We worked around it by 'allowing' the ip addresses of our friends through software firewalls (such as zonealarm). I wouldnt have to do anything (I couldnt do anything about that bug anyways), but the people trying to join my game would have to know each other's IPs, and set up their firewalls to allow those IPs through.

Those people with static addresses would be ok on subsequent joins/games, since the friends who had allowed their IP address through still had it set up in their firewall, but those on dialup who had a new IP address would have to get their IP 'unblocked' on the other peer's firewalls.

If you're playing with people that you know and are friends with, try making sure that everyone knows each other's ip, then allowing it through their software firewall as a trusted IP. then having people join. It's definitely not the solution, and it wont work for games with strangers, but I'm curious if this works for others too.

 

[jvanderh]

Here is what I tried a couple of hours ago:

I created a game with password but didn't advertise it in the lobby. I asked people to send me a private message in order to get the game name and password. Then I gave 1 player at a time the info, so that never 2 people tried to join the game at once.

After we had 5 players in (6 with me) the next player wasn't able to connect and was stuck at "connection to peer". I continued with another player after that which was able to get in the game (without kicking anyone out, from those already in the game). After that the player that wasn't able to connect was told to retry and he got in.

Conclusions:
1 - This is a workaround for starting a game until the problems are fixed.

2 - The "Connecting to peer" message may not be cause by a specific peer having something configured wrong

 

[rchddap]

Spent all morning trying to get a game going....finally was sorted after 3 to 4 hours. Tonight things are even worse with barely any games going at all. I don't know what the problem is but it is terrible.

 

[fierce]

I was playing fine with 1.09, tonight tried to connect for multiplayer with the new patch and three times have my computer frozen up completely (can't alt+tab or ctrl+alt+del out) the moment I try to login to GameSpy.

This problem with contacting peer was happening to me badly before the first patch. People were saying that if one person with a firewalled connection joined a game, no others with firewalled connections were allowed to join. Not sure if this is true, but I just completely stopped trying to join others' games, and now always host my own instead. Sometimes when it takes a while to get enough people to join my game, I'll send someone to the lobby to advertise for us. Usually, they'll return to the game saying people in the lobby are saying they are trying to join my game but can't. Of course, the person returning has no problem.

I hope I'll be able to login to GameSpy at some point without my entire computer freezing up like it is tonight. Frustrating.

fierce
Host of hundreds of "fierce's FFA" games.

 

[knupp715]

I've been spending a lot of time on multiplayer, trying to figure out what causes this problem, mostly because I seem to be one of these "bad peers" and I want to know what this problem is caused by.

It seems that I can almost never join a game unless I am the first one to join after the host. Most of the time, nobody can connect after me. But sometimes, some people can. This made me wonder. Maybe bad peers don't effect everyone. Maybe some people aren't affected by the problem at all and can connect to everyone. After someone connects to me (only happens once in a long while) everyone else can connect after them. So it seems that bad peers only stop people from connecting if they are the last one in the room.

I also tried hosting many games. Nobody can join my games except for a few people (the one's who aren't affected?). Once one person joins my game, then anybody else can, because the person who "isn't affected" by the problem is now the last player and people can join. Not sure what all this means yet, but I hope my experiences can help figure out what the exact source of the problem is.

 

[Kirzon-Dax]

We had no problem starting and joining a locked (by password) game. Played until we were too sleepy for "just one more turn". We tried to restart the game the next evening. Some users could not rejoin the last version of the saved game due to what appears to be incorrect password. However, if we go back to versions saved several hours before the last save, we are all able to join. Don't see how this could be a game spy issue. Given the history of Firaxis, and it's complete inability to produce stable Multiplayer versions of CIV, and given the arrogance and incompetence I have seen at 2KGames and Take2 I'd suspect the problem is a result of poor software development.

I can also load the older versions of the saved game via LAN, Direct IP, or Hot Seat mode.

 

[Kirzon-Dax]

Also have the following problem with Multiplayer that is not initiated through Game Spy:

First user starts game
Second user joins game
Third user joins game, after extended wait for peer.
Second user is kicked out of game.

Firaxis, 2K, Take2 are incompetent. Too bad Sid did not work with a better group of programmers. Think he would have soiled his reputation enough with the effort put forward on CIV III.

What a bunch of clowns.