Playing over LAN

[Matthew Taylor]

My kids appear to be well on their way to becoming CIV addicts. ;^)

I want to allow them to play each other from different computers in the house. Will I be able to do that using only a single Civ4 purchase? In short, can I copy the CD or just mount a CD image on one or more machines in my house and play over LAN?

TIA;

Matthew

[Basilisk]

Try simply loading the game up on one computer, and once it's running, taking the CD out of the drive and putting it into the other computer.

But you didn't hear it from me....

[Matthew Taylor]

Has anyone tried and succeeded in playing CivIV off of a CD mounted as a shared SAMBA resource, persumably the same shared resourece used to install?

It would annoy me to have to reinstall the game on every machine on the LAN, but it it works ...

[drsparnum]

Me and my wife use Basilisk's solution (which works -ty Firaxis, we weren't going to buy two copies anyway, so it is a nice bonus for the once in a while she wants to play).

I don't know what some of the things you mention in your second post even are....so I couldn't say.

[Matthew Taylor]

TAke@'s Support email answer was "Have two copies", but they have declined to explicitly say if they have to be two purchased copies or if one can be a relplicant.

When I get a chance I am going to try the samba route.

Matthew

[CanuckSoldier]

Take2 used Sony disk security it is unlikely that a copy would work, not sure about a shared drive, I think that the CD check can tell the difference between a network drive and a local drive.

CS

[Matthew Taylor]

Tell me more about Sony disk security please. I am familiar with Sony's root kit debacle but that applied iirc only to music CD's. Are the game CD's "2 Session" disks as well?

WRT a shared network resource, I don't have any reason to not share the CD itself rather than a copy, but yeah, it will not appear as an actual CD. I do have software that will mount a ISO image, but would have to counter any 2 session style security - probably by making sector by sector copy.

I hate having to do crap like this just to get the intended use out a legitimate purchase. What was Take2 thinking in making LAN play require multiple purchased copies? One game is being played at one time.

Matthew

[CanuckSoldier]

You can read the offical propaganda here

http://www.securom.com/default.asp

A better explanation is here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

If you do a Google search for SecuROM, I'm sure you'll get lots of info on possible ways to circumvent it but I won't post direct links here. Email me if you have technical questions.

CS

[Matthew Taylor]

Hmm, read the W. article, but that goes up only to version 4.7. I am guessing that they used version 6.