WARNING! Serious PBEM/Patch Issue

[John-SJ]

It appears that if you are playing in a PBEM game and you apply the patch you will no longer be able to continue that PBEM game.

The problem is that when load a PBEM save and you are asked to enter your password you cannot get beyond this prompt. Your only option (short of rebooting or killing the game in task manager) is to cnacel which will abort the load of your PBEM save file.

So, we have 2 choices, either abort any current PBEM games when we apply the patch, or refreain from patching until the PBEM games are finished.

Thank you Firaxis for increasing my frustration level.

[Chirurgie]

yes. I have posted this yesterday upon realising but few others are talking about it. thing is it does not seem to affect everyone either.

[Emperor_V]

I believe it only affects a game if you have been patched or are not yet patched and the next player is either not patched or patched... you both have to be patched to continue the game... or both unpatched... so... play the turn as patched, then the next player must be patched to play the turn... I'd suggest everyone with the issue, of which I have two pbems that are currently not working and 1 which is... and unfortunately I can't determine one of the games in order to ask them to replay and resend it...

anywho... rambling on and on

[vovan]

I am playing one PBEM, where we didn't set the passwords and it plays ok... Maybe it would work to play a turn on unpatched version and clear out all passwords, and then patch the game and set the passwords back on the next turn?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by vovan
I am playing one PBEM, where we didn't set the passwords and it plays ok... Maybe it would work to play a turn on unpatched version and clear out all passwords, and then patch the game and set the passwords back on the next turn?

Hey Great idea
Vovan

I TOO am in a game with no problems

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Emperor_V
I believe it only affects a game if you have been patched or are not yet patched and the next player is either not patched or patched... you both have to be patched to continue the game... or both unpatched... so... play the turn as patched, then the next player must be patched to play the turn... I'd suggest everyone with the issue, of which I have two pbems that are currently not working and 1 which is... and unfortunately I can't determine one of the games in order to ask them to replay and resend it...

anywho... rambling on and on

the problem is that one person will be the first to patch while the guy before him hasn't.

but this no-password-issue might work

[John-SJ]

I just tried the "no password" thing, in a PBEM game the guy before me had no password set so he loaded 1.09 and loaded the game so what he sent me was saved under the patch. I was still unable to load the save under 1.09 with the password set.

[sabrewolf]

too bad

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Emperor_V
I believe it only affects a game if you have been patched or are not yet patched and the next player is either not patched or patched... you both have to be patched to continue the game... or both unpatched... so... play the turn as patched, then the next player must be patched to play the turn... I'd suggest everyone with the issue, of which I have two pbems that are currently not working and 1 which is... and unfortunately I can't determine one of the games in order to ask them to replay and resend it...

This isn't our experience. I'm in two cIV PBEMs and having everyone patched doesn't allow the play to continue. I cannot open a v1.09 but others can open the save.

Since we aren't that far along, we are restarting on the new interim version, however, I am concerned that we will go through this some more as Firaxis has additional work ahead of them to fixup the multiplayer options.

[sabrewolf]

i don't believe this will be fixed.
a) the PBEM community is too small (quite obvious it was not tested at all before release with the player-1-bug)
b) most games have not progressed far enough
c) there are more pressing issues, at least in their eyes.

oh well... shït happens

[Shogun Gunner]

nice use of the umlaat

Yes, agree with your points.

Not happy about it...but oh well, I have got a few civ3 PBEMs to pass the multiplayer time with. I'll stick with SP for cIV

[Dracolisk]

So for new PBEM's everyone should be on 1.09 and don't get to attached to the game as the next patch may make it unplayable

[vovan]

Originally posted by Dracolisk
So for new PBEM's everyone should be on 1.09 and don't get to attached to the game as the next patch may make it unplayable

Well, I imagine if they don't change the save format again (which is what I understand happened with the whole business of adding password ecnryption), then there shouldn't be any problems.

Originally posted by John-SJ
I was still unable to load the save under 1.09.

Vovan

[Rommel2D]

I don't see any reason for a future patch to make current PBEMs unplayable unless a bug is uncovered in the new encryption. SMTP SSL shouldn't affect anything when it is added.

The big question is PITBOSS. Considering that you can't go from online MP to PBEM or vice-versa (as reported somewhere- haven't actually tried), I'd guess PB games will be unique also. You'd have to start anew to play one, but it shouldn't affect games already going.

As per usual, I don't really have much of a clue on this stuff, but it certainly isn't a forgone conclusion there will be another disruptive patch. Alexman has been a didicated PBEMer in the past and I'd expect him to be a proponent for maintaining patch consistency in the future. Doing password encryption before SSL or PITBOSS is at least the right prioritization to head down that path...

[Wittlich]