Two players behind same router (Internet play)

[Tom|420]

My room mate and I been experiencing a problem with Internet play today.

I have a router (a Linksys BEFSR81 device which I am very satisfied of) and two computers are connected to it (1 is mine; 2 is my roommate's computer).

I played an Internet game without any problem. He played an Internet game without any problem on his side either. The problems started when we both went to participate in the same game. We were able to connect and play for a while, but innevitably within 30 minutes (that was the record -- and we must have started 10 different games with different opponents at different times) we were both disconnected from the game simultaneously. We are quite sure the problem is not with the ISP since we never had any problem until we wanted to join the same game together. I hosted some of the games, and we joined games hosted by others, the result was always the same.

Anyone experienced with such a setup before? Anyway work around?

I have well thought about it and I thought maybe if my room mate connects to me directly by IP (instead of through Gamespy), provided that I host the game, that would force his traffic to remain inside the LAN, as my only theory about this problem is the fact that between every turns (simultaneous moves) all clients have to exchange stuff with the host to keep synchronized (or at least I think so) and this is exactly where the disconnection occurs as far as I can see. (Hum... very long sentend... read slowly ). Any opinion?

 

[DaggothJr.]

I don't know why that is happening, it seems kind of awkward. But can you tell me how you opened up your firewall to allow online play? I'm having the problem where the Linksys router firewall is blocking me, and i cant figure out how to make it let me play.

 

[Tom|420]

Reading back that old post, I realize I must have been drunk when I wrote it, looking at all the mistakes and typos

After looking around for the information, I found that to host a game you have to open those ports:
2302
6500
13139
(all UDP -- not TCP needed)

Thus, if you have a router (any domestic router -- they are all NAT) you have to forward those ports to the computer hosting the game. If you are not hosting it (you join a different game on the Internet) you do not need to forward anything.

On the Linksys routers, access the web-based interface (use the manual if you don't know how), go the the Advanced section, than to the Forwarding section.

You could add those port to the regular Port Range Forwarding page, but UPnP Forwarding (use the button at the bottom of the page) is better suited to the situation (as you don't actually forward ranges, but single ports).

Hope this helps

 

[hoss`]

I am having the same problem man. Only thing is that i can't open up ports on the router Is there any other way that I can get my roommate and I to play. It won't work for internet or LAN (which doesn't make sense b/c we should be on the same LAN). Is there a way to directly connect or something? Please help me out. Without being able to do anything to the router is there ANY other way we can play?

 

[Tom|420]

On the LAN each computer has it's own IP (a local IP, most usually in the range 192.168.0.xxx), thus unless you have a firewall between LAN machines (which doesn't usually make sense -- you don't fear your roommates to hack into your machine right?) you have nothing to do, it should work.

On the Internet, when you have a router, an IP conversion happens (that is what NAT is all about -- you have only one Internet IP, for several LAN computers; each LAN computer have a unique IP, but a conversion happens at the router-level between the Internet IP and the LAN IPs) you have to 'open' ports so that the router knows to what LAN computer a specific port is redirected to.

When you have a firewall, you also need to open ports (because that this the role of a firewall -- close all unused ports or ports which shouldn't be available from the Internet).

That was for the theory. Now back to your problem.

As I said, for two computers on the same LAN, normally no IP conversion occurs and no firewall are in between. Thus, normally, the game should work without anything to do on you part, beside from starting a game (hosted on one of the machines, and the other players join that game).

Yes, you can Direct connect. On the main multiplayer screen, there is a botton at the bottom of the menu which read Direct IP or something similar. It pops a box which asks for the IP to connect to, and you then join the game hosted on that machine (from the host point of view, that makes no difference -- I think that doesn't make any difference from your point of view either, except that you join directly instead of going through the gamespy server to find the game).

Why aren't you able to set the router (for Internet games, as you don't need to do anything for local games)? If you or the roommate owns it (and you didn't loss the password) there should be no problem seting it up.

Hope this helps you. If not feel free to answer with more details (in particular tell me what is the brand and model of the router and how your network is set up). If necessary it's ok for me to help you through remote assistance (if you have XP); just ask for my MSN Messenger name through private message.

 

[hoss`]

Well the main problem I am having is that it's not really my router (I don't have admin to it). I live in a pretty large apartment complex which I've been in for about a year now and I got a notice about a week ago saying that the network would be down for a few hour for "maintence." Well I come back one day and I have a new ip and I realize I'm now behind a router doing network address translation and my old 2mbps up/down connection is now capped at around 200kbps down and 50kbps up!

Well with that being said I think the problem is that certain ports are being blocked by the router's firewall as you had mentioned. It must be something within civ that's stopping me...because two computers on the same network should be able to communicate through the link layer and not even have to deal with the router as long as they're both connected to a hub or switch...which I would imagine they are. There's 20 buildings in my complex so I doubt they're using 20 routers...but I'm not sure.

I'm going to try and talk to someone about opening up ports...but I'm not sure who to even ask around here to be honest. What ports do I need to have open to play a game. One other thing that I noticed in the readme file of civ is this...

"MULTIPLAYER:
For Internet Multiplayer, please be aware that only 1 player PER GAME can be behind an unconfigured and closed firewall! The player who is behind the firewall should join last since any players joining after them will not be able to connect.

With Multiplayer behind a Firewall, it is important that DirectPlay Port #2303 also be opened. This is a new port used with DirectX 9.0b and helps improve connectivity. Please see the manual for more information regarding the appropriate port addresses to open to allow game hosting. Please consult your routers manual to ensure that you are opening the ports correctly."

Does this mean if we get that port opened up we can both play on the same internet game? Cuz I've noticed that when a friend outside our complex hosts a game one of us can connect perfectly fine, but the second person is never able to connect. Will opening that port allow it, or can it not be done b/c c3c doesn't allow two people w/ the same ip to connect to a game? I'm not sure what they're saying exactly...

Thanks a lot for helping me Tom