New to multiplayer, connection questions

[kiky]

I've played a couple of games with my wife on LAN using Direct IP.

Now We (me and wife on same LAN) are planning to play with some friends over the internet.
1. Will I and my wife able to play the same game over the internet?
2. Which mode should I choose? (Internet or DirectIP) ?
3. I see there is no port settings and I'm not sure if port forwarding will do the trick?
4. Other advise to do the trick?

thanks.

[kbarrett]

To open the ports needed, you must open them on your PC, and configure your firewall/router box to forward them to your PC as well.

Port 2056 , UDP and TCP needs to be opened for basic IP play.

For pitboss, and all gamespy functions, open both UDP and TCP for the following:

6667 (IRC)
2033 (Civ4)
2056 (Civ4)
47624 (Directplay)
3783 (Voice Chat Port)
27900 (Master Server UDP Heartbeat)
28900 (Master Server List Request)
29900 (GP Connection Manager)
29901 (GP Search Manager)
13139 (Custom UDP Pings)
6500 (Query Port)
6515 (Dplay UDP)
2300-2400 (DirectPlay - UDP)

If you don't know how to do this, you are stuck with turning your PC firewall off, and placing your PC in your routers DMZ ( dangerous ).


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If the players are all on the same local network, just turn off the PC firewall and go to it.

Each player will need a copy of Civ IV.

Direct IP is faster than Internet ... you will need to know the Host IP address ... use this website to determine it, or if you are playing locally, just type ipconfig at a command prompt to learn the local addy ( usually 192.168.X.X ) of the host.

[kiky]

kbarrett:
Thanks for the info.

I know how to setup port forwarding and firewall. But, I'm still not sure what to do.

in my case:
my ip: 192.168.0.1
wife ip: 192.168.0.2 (same LAN)
both of us connect to router to get to internet.
friend ip: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Now to make this work. I (and wife too) need to go to DirectIP, key in friend's ip.
How the game knows that I'm using port xxx and wife is using port yyy ?
I believe i need to setup port forwarding to my pc and wife's pc?

[kbarrett]

If your friend is hosting, then you probably need to just open up 2056 to everyone.

forwarding is needed only if you are hosting, as far as I know.

If you are hosting, forward eveything to your PC, people out in the internet use your firewall/router's IP to connect, and you wife would connect to 192.168.0.1


Are you using a separate firewall NAT box, or are you sharing a connection via windows connection sharing?

If you are using windows connection sharing, you may end up being forced to host on your PC for your wife to participate.

Mixing local LAN and IP WAN players is kinda unknown territory ... generally everyone is local at a LAN party, or everyone is connecting to outsiders.

You will probably have to experiment.

[kbarrett]

One solution that I am certain will work is kind of spendy.

Use a NAT/firewall box, connect all PCs to it, and get a third PC.

Set it up as a PitBoss PC, with it's own copy of CivIV. Forward all the ports to it. Have everyone connect to it ( locals use the PitBoss 192.168.x.x addy, outside uses the outside IP ).

[kiky]

me and wife are using same router box.

I'll give your suggestions a try this weekend. Hope it will be a great weekend for us.

[kiky]

The game didnt go on due friends had urgent issue.
However I found Hamachi software (It is a VPN software) should solve my problems.
For those interested google/wiki for Hamachi

[snoopy369]

BTW, as an aside, Gamespy seems to seamlessly (for GS anyway) handle port differences, e.g. I had a PTBS game hosted on 2057 that when played through Gamespy could be played by people with port 2056 with no problem (I had two games up at once).

You shouldn't need all those other ports, btw - 2056 is all Civ4 uses. I realize some people (like above) claim all sorts of other ports are needed, but I have only the one (2056) open and have absolutely no problems with Civ4, gamespy or not gamespy.

Gamespy ports certainly aren't needed for DirectIP in any event.