Teach me!

[vondrack]

I have never set up a Pitboss game myself yet, but staring at the setup screen - what if you change "Open" to "AI", set the leader/civ for that player, and change the slot status back to "Open"?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Beta Could Apolyton not host pitboss games, or would they need a new capability above and beyond that needed to run the site? I suspect that is the case.

I am quite sure that Pitboss can only run once on a given machine/OS. Apolyton would have to have a PC for every Pitboss game running... well, dunno, if you ask Dan nicely, perhaps... or maybe not.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by vondrack
I have never set up a Pitboss game myself yet, but staring at the setup screen - what if you change "Open" to "AI", set the leader/civ for that player, and change the slot status back to "Open"?

Err... sorry, I think I did not get you properly there. If you want to set up a Pitboss game, you have to run the Pitboss exe, not the main Warlords exe. My remark would apply to a regular MP game.

EDIT: and not even there... Open slots would be claimed by other players, who'd set their civs/leaders.

You have to run Civ4Warlords_PitBoss.exe.

[Beta]

OK - thanks Radek. I worked my way through the pitboss.exe process, to the point where my test game did show up on the game list.

Now - Gamespy is clearly not using a PC for each game running there; they must have a server set-up of some sort.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Beta Now - Gamespy is clearly not using a PC for each game running there; they must have a server set-up of some sort.

Where do you think your test Pitboss game is running? On GameSpy? Nah. On your PC! GameSpy is just telling the world there is a game on your PC others can join. It's sort of a matchmaking service... all games you can see/join in the lobby are hosted on players' computers outside of GameSpy.

If Alexman's server is down and we can't play - it means that a PC somewhere in the Firaxian office is down, not providing GameSpy with any data about our game -> hence it does not show in the lobby.

[Beta]

Ok - understood. (he said sheepily).

1. So, that is why folks are suggesting just to bypass Gamespy and connect directly with the IP of the PC running the game. Right?

2. And that would mean that if I wanted to host a pitboss game, I need to leave my PC on and connected to the internet 24/7. Right?

3. And to the idea of running a team-based pitboss game, obviously the same would apply - we will need to find a PC/server that is always up. Right?

[vondrack]

That would be yes, yes, and yes.

[Beta]

See, that Network Engineering degree I bought recently is coming in handy.

[snoopy369]

Up, and trusted by the various folks in the game of course. That would be as big a deal as any (as the runner of the PTBS game would have a great deal of possibility of cheating if they wanted to).

For example, Ming would be a good host for this game

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by vondrack

I am quite sure that Pitboss can only run once on a given machine/OS. Apolyton would have to have a PC for every Pitboss game running... well, dunno, if you ask Dan nicely, perhaps... or maybe not.

This is not strictly true. You could, and I have, run two PTBS games on the same computer, through two separate installations of Warlords, and telling one of them to run off of port 2057 or such. I suppose you could run a whole bunch that way, but it would be a mess.

The drag though is that if I understand correctly, apparently all of the players would also have to run off of port 2057 to do that. So it's mostly a no-go unless you have some really dedicated folks

But back to your regularly scheduled Civ Networking 101.

[vondrack]

Interesting info, thanks snoopy - I agree it would be a mess, but at least it would be possible. Glad to hear from someone who actually tried it.

[snoopy369]

Hrm, well I just apparently crashed gamespy (or something coincidentally crashed it) ... so the game's not up at the moment

I had someone logged into a PTBS game that i'm hosting, while I was at the same time logging into Gamespy via warlords, intending to come play this ... and my login fails totally, and at that same point GS crashes, give or take about a minute.

Alex, any ideas?

[vondrack]

I have been able to log into GameSpy just fine about a minute ago, but the game does not show up in the lobby...

[alexman]

The game is up again.

Apparently Gamespy shuts down the connection after about a week. I'll restart the pitboss regularly from now on.

[snoopy369]

Gamespy definitively crashed last night around midnight pacific time. I don't know if it was an intentional reset of the server or something, but it was not just this game.