HOTWXII Testing and Organisational thread

[deity]

New thread for this I think.

I hope the Chairman doesn't slap me about too much!

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HOTWXII starts on January 26th USA EST at midnight (The Capo, Toni, Pincak, Asmodeus).

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This is 6am in West Europe (lzprst, Heraclitus) on Sunday 27th January.

This is 4pm in Aust EDT (deity) on Sunday 27th January

AND 3:30pm in South Australia (Trev, Marcus aka Aussie_Lurker) on Sunday 27th January

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Today (19th/20th) we are running an anonymous test.

I'll take the initiative and have a Earth game up in the lobby by start time.

I'll call it "HOTWXII test" with the standard password.

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I'm in charge of all email and phone number data.

Send your details to me at;

seanadk@optusnet.com.au

This address is one that I can change if it gets onto spam lists but it's valid for now.

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I'd also like to be in charge of connection issues.

Does lz and the Committee concur?

As a hobbyist in this area and as a professional in database development I think i'm well suited.

I've helped Marcus nail his connection issues and I'm working on Trev and The Capo.

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So, lzprst is the absolute authority in charge of the game. He decides what happens when there are issues. We all keep the same chat program running so that OOC we can reslove issues.

Cyber as a non-player is in charge of player civ choices.

Ozzy as a non-player is in charge of the map.

deity is in charge of contact details.

[deity]

Please correct me with any details and I'll update the opening post above.

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I'm just going through the chat contacts I have and the group is currently split across several programs:

* The Capo - AIM
* Toni - MSN, Yahoo
* Pincak - ?
* Heraclitus - MSN
* Asmodeus - Yahoo
* lzprst - MSN
* deity - MSN, Yahoo, AIM, icq
* Trev - MSN, Yahoo, AIM, icq
* Marcus (aka Aussie_Lurker) - MSN, Yahoo
* Mr Lin ?

Can we please all get handles in I suggest MSN or Yahoo.

We need to keep an OOC chat conversation running throughout the game sessions.

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edit - I'm updating this as I get info. MSN looks like the one to use. Please all get MSN accounts if you don't already have one. Thanks.

Not the Chairman..

[Toni]

I will be here for testing

[trev]

Trev has icq and AIM in addition to MSN and Yahoo as listed

[deity]

Listen guys, I'm in annoying overdrive here

Trev me and Marcus just tested the Earth map in the lobby as anonymous. (Trev and Marcus use to clash)

All cool now.

I've also set up a Lobby login: HOTW_HOST
for whoever is hosting.

So the host of the day logs in to the lobby as HOTW_HOST and sets up the scenario using the finalised Earth map from ozzy. Before anyone else logs in the final settings are made by the host:
* Set game speed to marathon
* Set to anonymous play
* Set "No Tech Brokering"
* Set "Choose Religions" if agreed (so that they can be historically placed - suggest you only learn a religion if you are in an historicall area)
* Set "Raging Barbs" if agreed

Then everyone else joins.

I've got the "HOTW test" game up in the Lobby now, all set. But of course the civs aren't right yet.

[The Capo]

Are we supposed to select our proper civs for this game?

[deity]

Originally posted by The Capo
Are we supposed to select our proper civs for this game?

No and you won't be able to.

They are the civs that ozzy left in this map from 2005.

Read the thread Capo

[The Capo]

No, YOU read the thread Capo!

Damn it!

[Heraclitus]

Our glorious chairman has diverted discussion here until the vote is done.

Well, I seem some people are disagreeing, with moving some civs, I don’t see why since all my suggestions were in historically at least semi-accurate, like the Koreans for example if you know their history you know they started out in north Korea and had influence in Manchuria. And even if I accept that criticism and I do, I pointed out an extreme configuration, I never said that all the changes should be applied, but we are going to have to compromise on one civ or the other. I think a lot can be done by just choosing the proper civs without moving them .

[Heraclitus]

An Earth map with old world starts would make for a very fun colonial era.


I also think there should be shallows connecting to the NA continent, but with a price to pay a worthless city in Greenland, and a long way to good land in Alaska. This would be historically accurate, as well as give England or the Vikings a boost, thus reducing the need to move them. This would be conductive to European diplomacy since before optics the nation with a city in Greenland would control access to the new world.


Edit: BTW This is just what I won’t and think would be fun, I'll conform to majority rule without any problems. The nerve stapling has taught me that much...

[deity]

Test results

First test was ozzy's old Earth map. 7 players were connected:

Marcus
deity
Trev
Capo
Toni
Asmo
lz

I was hosting through the lobby and upon game launch the map started uploading to all the players - it was too much for my comp and/or the Lobby. The Lobby message said the connection was broken and everyone froze up at around 8% I think.

2nd test

I rehosted a random Terra Large map and we successfully got to the map quite quickly. lz immediately went OOS. Trev believes it was because of events being on. lz rejoined.

OOS happened a bit later, again for lz, when I saw a fire rush through my neigbours capital in Portugal - another event.

Other than the OOS issue it went very smoothly and quite quick.

We hope that adding Heraclitus, Pincak and any other/s will maintain this smoothness



3rd test

Another go without events checked was entirely successful but only me and lz were in the game.

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WE really want events!

Cyber READ THIS PLS

How did you fix the OOS in HOTWXI?

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Ozzy READ THIS PLS

Now, we are most likely going to be using a pre-made map of some sorts so I think the trick is for all players to download the final posted map and put it in the multi maps folder (can Cyber or ozzy explain exactly where please) This will avoid the multi map upload from the Lobby.

[Robert]

How did you fix the OOS in HOTWXI?

Everybody did a clean civ4 and BtS install and 3.14 patch install. That fixed.
Everyone who's in HOTW XI is most probably ok already. The new ones should do a new install.

Regarding the maps, I think everybody should put the map in the "\PublicMaps" folder in my games\BtS.
You can try "\TransferredMaps" in my games\bts as well.

I'm not really sure how it works.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by The Capo
You know, I'd be a lot less annoying if you guys didn't put me in these situations....

Hopefully I speak for a lot more people than myself when I say this whole "chairman" idea is foolish. I understand the pressure Lz is under, but he's the one who signed up for the job and I don't really remember a consensus on this job being appropriate. But I digress; look man, CS is trying to help, and its not that difficult to tally votes. Besides that he also needs to know what type of map we are playing on and the rules before he can assemble the list.

I know we're voting on the map right now, but I can't vote on the map without the rules. It pigeonholes me to vote Earth and then be told after I pick Earth that I can't be the tribe I wanted to be.

So, is it Earth with Terra rules or Earth without Terra rules.

I disagree. Votes need to be tallied and players asked but, someone has to organize the thing, otherwise no decisions would be reached in reasonable time. We can’t have a vote for everything.

I would like a game with old world starts so there could be a colonial era and that the Eurasian continent would be a place of very diverse interests, fierce competition and tough deals. Colonies could be given as war reparations or in exchange for core cities lost in wars. New civs could come into the picture when colony maintenance would become unbearable (giving them to extra players would be just awesome, don’t know if you can do that though).
Plus any new world civs would be isolated, for them to have a real diplomatic experience there would have to be four of them (perhaps NA; Aztec, Maya, Incas). I’m not against them per se, but just make a convincing case for them, most players would like historical starting points if we go with an Earth map, to give a real history of the world feel, that means no Australian starts.


Now concerning the rules, I assumed the same rules that were in place in the previous game would be used? There was some talk about events and that there is a way to fix them so they don’t cause problems, I would love to have them if this is the case. No tech brokering seems reasonable, since with free tech trade is exploitable.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by CyberShy

How did you fix the OOS in HOTWXI?

Everybody did a clean civ4 and BtS install and 3.14 patch install. That fixed.
Everyone who's in HOTW XI is most probably ok already. The new ones should do a new install.

Regarding the maps, I think everybody should put the map in the "\PublicMaps" folder in my games\BtS.
You can try "\TransferredMaps" in my games\bts as well.

I'm not really sure how it works.

I recently did an install of BtS 3.13 on my laptop, only got four single player auto saves of a quick test game, and two saves of a quick MP game. I haven’t loaded any mod’s to the laptop thus far, do I really need to reinstall or can I just patch to 3.14?

[Pinchak]

I've helped Marcus nail his connection issues and I'm working on Trev and The Capo.

Ahhh, yes.... I actually had to drop out of a HOTW due to connection issues with Cyber. Maybe I should have showed up for the test.

Weird that we get so many connection issues. When I play lobby multi there seldom is a problem (goes thru first time 75% of attemptes).

Maybe we should try making it a gamespy hosted locked game.