PBEM- How to i play with my friend?

Unleash Chaos

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 25, 2007
Messages
4
I don't no how to "Play-by-E-mail" without individually sending each save to the next player. It said something about setting my email and smtp in the game to send the saves from the game?

Thanks,

Chaos
 
I just tried asking this question in the tech support forum, but it didn't garner any replies. I'm pretty sure it's relevant to what you need, Unleash, so here it is in its entirety:

I ran a search for this and I didn't find any clear answers.

I'm trying to set up a PBEM game with some people, and I'd like to use my email address and SMTP server to send the saved game to the next player automatically. I tried my university email account and SMTP server, but when I entered that information in the game and tried to send, I got a "failed to send email" message. People in other threads suggested that it works with Hotmail, but I just tried with a Hotmail account and got the same message.

Just to be clear, I started the game, played my turn, and then went to "Your Details" or whatever the menu is that allows me to enter my email information. I entered myemail@hotmail.com and the SMTP address mx1.hotmail.com and clicked send.

I was taken to another screen where I entered the intended recipient's address. The SMTP address was already entered for me below that. I didn't think I needed any authentication information, so I didn't enter it.

So what's the problem? Do I have the wrong SMTP address or something?

Apologies if this question has been done to death.
 
My friends and I have this problem as well. Of the four of us, only the 'game master' the first one who started it can email from game, for the rest of us it just crashes. Most embarrassing, we all work in IT/IS.... well perhaps that is problem explained... hahahaha

Has this problem been resolved in Warlords series?
 
Darn. I was just thinking about starting up my first PBEM game with my cousin, and was going to ask about the whole SMTP thing (It seems like a pain to have to attach a save file manually to each email).
I thought sure some of the civ fanatics here would have an answer but it seems that I'm not the only one with issues.
Of course, I'm actually a step behind on this because I don't know how to figure out what my SMTP server is. I use gmail for my regular email if that helps.
Also, I was wondering if it's possible to play a PBEM game where two of the players are on the same computer with the same copy of civ4. My wife and I like to play hotseat, but also multiplayer with my cousin who lives far away. We thought maybe that with PBEM we might have found a way to get all three of us into the same game with only two computers. Is this possible?
 
2 players on the same computer would be easy for PBEM. If you don't have an SMTP server set up, then it just saves a file into your \saves\PBEM\gameName folder. The next player just needs to open that file. Then the file that they save needs to be sent to your cousin. You can go into Your Details (hit the escape key) and set up your SMTP server if you get that figured out. That means that the second person to play on your computer could automatically send their turn, while the first person would just save the file to disk.

I have never been able to get the ingame mail to work, but I am on a Mac. GMail's smtp server is smtp.gmail.com. You have to log on to your GMail account and activate Pop access so that you could use it.
 
Thanks for the advice. That is very helpful.

On a related topic, I don't suppose that there's a way to start a game as a regular multiplayer game and then convert it to PBEM is there? My concern is that PBEM might get a little tedious in the early game when there often isn't much to do besides press enter over and over again.
 
Yeah, I'm having the same sort of problems with my friends. I don't want to send the agme manually each turn! There's got to be a better way to do it, or the makers of Civ probably wouldn't bother adding the PBEM feature to Civ4. Who wants to PBEM if you have to send it manually each turn! If you guys figure it out, It'd be sweet if you let me know! Thanks!
 
Has this problem been solved? I am running Civ 4 (v1.74) on a Mac witha gmail account. I am not able to set up email in the game to a player who is on a yahoo account. Even using the manual method o sending the game file back and forth is not working.
Can anyone offer a solution?

Thanks!!
 
Us pbem'ers on this forum have been sending turns manually or with a web interface at pbemtracker. I don't know anything about the in-game feature but I have been curious.
 
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