Some noobie questions about MP

[Forwarn45]

Well, I finally played my first multiplayer game. It was fun while it lasted. One player was still in the game but kept running the clock down and didn't respond when players asked if he was still around. At this point, everyone dropped out. I tried chat all several times but noone responded. [Edit - I found I could reload the game in multiplayer but the one player remaining, who didn't respond, had a password so I still couldn't continue that way.]

I have three questions -
(1) Is there a way to kick a player out of the game? I would assume the host would be the only one that could.

(2) Shouldn't I be informed if everyone has left the game? What happens in this case?

(3) Is there a way to save a MP game as a SP game so that I can play the rest out against the AI if I want? Alternately - can I restart my multiplayer game somehow as SP?

On a side note - it would be nice if gamespy had a moderator to prevent hate spam. It's easy to use the "ignore" function - but I'd prefer a moderator.

[CanuckSoldier]

Well I'm glad you basically had fun, but you really experienced the up's and down's of a casual MP game, the other option being a "ladder" game, run by Civ4players ladder.

To answer your questions:

1. No, the host can kick players out of the Staging room, but not out of a running game.

2. The player that didn't respond didn't exit the game, they just left there computer, there's no way of knowing this has happened unfortunately. If a player exits the game you will either get a text message stating playerX has Retired, or you will get the Vote menu if they exit to desktop/main menu.

3. No, MP saves are not allowed to be loaded as SP saves, this is to keep people from cheating by loading a MP save in SP on a second computer or during a "drop". Something that was a major problem with C3C.

Gamespy does have various levels of staff that occassionally enter lobbies but not very often, the "chatmonitor" is a bot that ban's players for mostly posting warez or porn links, so I'm afraid the ignore user is your major tool to defeat these losers. There is a GS Terms of Service that everyone agrees too when you use a GS service, you can email GS and complain, siting the lobby in question and the persons user name, GS has been known to act on this occassionaly. If you do chose to join Civ4player ladder we do have rules against harassment of ladder player against other ladder players but we still have no power to directly moderate the lobby.

CS

[Yyrkroon]

(1) Is there a way to kick a player out of the game? I would assume the host would be the only one that could.

Only with PitBoss


(2) Shouldn't I be informed if everyone has left the game? What happens in this case?

Alt-N will show you if the other players are human or AI, as well as showing their ping if they are human.


(3) Is there a way to save a MP game as a SP game so that I can play the rest out against the AI if I want? Alternately - can I restart my multiplayer game somehow as SP?

It cannot be done. However you can save your MP game and reload it as a LAN game. It will still technically be MP, but all the other players will be AI.