Teach me!

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Beta
I am playing regularly, and have the same observation as snoop. Quick Pm and possible replacement?

While on that subject - if one does want a temproary replacement, can they simply log in under their own ID and play - as long as they have the password for the game and the civ?

There are two ways to replace a player.

First off, is to use their password (and game password) to play. That would be simplest. Basically identical to a PBEM replacement, except no email changes needed

Secondly, the game host (Alex) can at any time 'kick' a player. That would replace him or her (temporarily) with an AI. Then any player who knew the game password could join as that player and set a new password. This would be necessary were a player to flake out entirely.

Tassi has posted on the forums and such lately, so he's around, but he's missed several turns in other games (including forum games) so he's probably just not paying that much attention right now ...

[snoopy369]

Alex, would it be much of a problem to use CivStats? That might make it easier for SirRalph and such to see the turns ...

https://www.civstats.com

It requires a small program to run in the background, and lists the game status on a website

It also manages email notifications for players

[Beta]

Originally posted by snoopy369


There are two ways to replace a player.

First off, is to use their password (and game password) to play. That would be simplest. Basically identical to a PBEM replacement, except no email changes needed

Ok - I will be off-line for a week or so, so I will have a stand-in playing my turns, using the first, and simplest method.

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by Beta


Ok - I will be off-line for a week or so, so I will have a stand-in playing my turns, using the first, and simplest method.

And that would be me.

Oh and Beta, where in the heck is the Sarantium forum located?

[Wittlich]

Nevermind Beta - I found it. It is a private forum in the Civ4-Team Democracy Game forum. Even though I don't have access to that forum, playing your turn through PitBoss shouldn't be a problem.

[alexman]

Everyone has played their turns again except Tassi.

Anyone object replacing him by an AI until he re-appears?

PS. the sad part is that even without playing his turns, his score is the same as mine.

[alexman]

OK, the game is on CivStats.
The game name is TeachAlexman
Register your leader to get e-mail notifications(password="password")

[snoopy369]

BTW I don't know what you did to the firaxis server but I'm getting much faster everything lately, better connectivity and faster transferring-files-to-computer ...

[alexman]

By the way, CivStats is very cool!
I encourage evenryone who hasn't already, to register.

[Wittlich]

The Russians are now registered with CivStats.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by alexman
By the way, CivStats is very cool!
I encourage evenryone who hasn't already, to register.

Thanks for setting the game up with it!

[snoopy369]

Had an OOS when I cycled the turn ... odd, the OOS checksum for me kept changing. Whereas normally the OOS checksum for any given player is constant (but different from one or more of the other players), for me every time it flashed it changed to something different. TOTALLY different.

[Wittlich]

Ok....I'll ask the stupid question: What in the hell is OOS?

[snoopy369]

Red flashing text on the screen, "OUT OF SYNC"... means the computer thinks something happened to cause the game to go goofy.

From another thread on PTBS:
[q="snoopy369"]
OOS is, in short terms, "out of sync" which means that one of the computers playing civ is not in sync with the other computer(s). In a normal MP game, when OOS occurs, the player "out of sync" logs out/in again(each player has a long number next to his/her leader name in the score list, the player whose long number is not the same as the others should log out of the game and relog in). In PTBS, I don't really know; I posted in another PTBS game where Alexman is playing (our shared game) to find out why/what to do.

Long version:
In MP Civ, rather than having one server do all the calculations, actually all of the computers playing independently do ALL of the calculations, for all players. Basically, all your computer gets is information on the other players' moves (coordinate and unit) and changes in their WFs and production choices and such. Any combat that occurs, any gold used/earned, any actual builds, that's all handled by your computer (and every single players' computer, individually).

When it works well, what happens is that the game goes as expected. Each computer has the combat occur with the same exact results, the builds are the same, the gold is the same.

However, several things can cause this to go wrong.

First off, you are probably asking, "How can the combat go the same on every computer, when each computer is separately calculating combat?" The answer of course is the 'random seed', which if you played Civ3 you recall the "Preserve Random Seed" option. This Random Seed basically allows the game to ensure that all computers have the same random number generated each time you have a random number called for. When the game is started, a random 'seed' is generated, basically a large number on which different calculations are made that each give a fairly random result [imagine choosing different digits of Pi each time you need a random number; taking the 3580th-3585th digits of Pi gives you a pretty random number unless you've memorized Pi quite thoroughly. As long as you choose a new seed (instead of Pi, some other irrational number), you can do the same calculations and consistently get new random numbers each time. So, if each computer has the same seed, they'll each generate the same random number each time they generate one.

However, if one computer generates an 'extra' random number, then it is now generating new random numbers as compared to the other computers in the game. (IE, if all of the computers are on random #58, and one is on #59, then that one that's on 59 will now have different results.) This is only likely if there is a change to the DLL or to Python, either for one computer or for all of them.

Also, various Python effects can cause OOS errors. For example, if on a local computer you put "Give Player 1 20 gold", then you could easily have an OOS because on that computer Player 1 would have 20 more gold than on any other computer. Some python can cause this even without giving an obvoius "your files are different from those of the host", for various reasons, but that usually only happens when a mod is being played that changes Python or the DLL.

Anyhow, as you see I'm suggesting this is only likely when a user mod is applied to the DLL or to Python. Blake's combat mod would be one, for example.

If anyone is getting a message about having different files, please let me know - and how long you've been getting them. It could cause serious problems if you've been getting them (although I've been paying attention, so I don't think anyone's had them until this turn at least).
[/q]

[Wittlich]

Ah, thanks for the clarification Snoopy.