Newbe....Help. Please

[MississippiJ]

I've been playing the the game for a loooong time, but just recently started Multiplayer. I have a couple of questions.

1.) The attack odds pop up does not work. Is this normal for Multiplayer? Yes, I have it set to do so in the game preferences.

2.) Auto zoom to base upon completion of a base facility does not work. (ie. when a base completes, say, a tree farm, I get notification with a pop up screen but the base goes into "stockpile energy" mode and the game never zooms to that base. Since I play a builder game and have LOTS of bases, this is a real pain.

Any ideas or comments will be appriciated. Thanks.

MJ

[SITS]

Hi and welcome to the life of a Multiplayer!

I've never seen the odds pop-up but then I don't really use it.

Yeah, it doesn't zoom on to the base after a build in MP. What I do at the beginning of the turn is go through the message list and click on zoom to base when it tells me it has built something. Make sure you don't click on a forest/fungus growing etc as it will crash (well it does on mine.)

I hope this helps.

[MississippiJ]

Thanks for the amazingly fast response.

I always use the odds pop up. Not being a great fan of "Kamakazi" attacks, I go get a bigger gun if the odds say I won't win.

Good idea on the message screen. I guess I'll use that

Thanks.
MJ

[johndmuller]

I thought that the odds popup worked; ditto for the one before that that warns you if it thinks attacking is a really bad idea. I could easily be wrong, but I am fairly sure I've seen it.

Some things may depend on the settings in the particular game and those settings may be subject to some of these possible theories: (a) Fixed to particular settings for all PBEM games; (b) Locked into whatever they were set to (accidentally or on purpose) by the person who started the game; (c) Changeable, but set to something you don't like by another player; (d) Changeable, but reset to some default every turn so that you would have to keep changing it; (e) Changeable, but stored somewhere on your machine where it might be changed by a different game (like whenever I start a new SMAX game, the faction color schemes may change for all my SMAX games); (f) Semi-random, set according to the product of the time-of-day and the sum of all the components of your military strength.

Different kinds of things happen with Scenarios, MP or SP, and (especially) Succession games, which can lead to surprises if you don't check the preferences.

As to the quick responses, that may be the only kind you'll get in this forum because once it gets to page 2, forget it. You can also discuss multiplayer issues on the regular AC help/strategy forum.

[SITS]

I just played a turn of a MP game and the odds were there. Sorry to mislead you....

[MississippiJ]

Thanks to both STS and John for the replies. Now that I know it's supposed to work, I'll continue to try and figure out why it's not currently working.

John, your reply leads me to believe that there is more interaction between the host and clients than I imagined. That would definitely account for the seemingly variable nature of some of the things you outlined and I've seen.

For instance; on the first game, my daughters game would get the faction graphics mixed up (ie. wrong picture, icons, etc. for some of the factions). I fixed it by making sure both pc's had added the custom factions in exactly the same order and that they were added to the MP game in the same order. So there is definitely more than a little communication going on between the host and other players.

I hope I can get the odds to work. I'm not a kamakazi fan.

Thanks guys.
Jack

[arborman]

I've never had a problem with the odds not popping up, since I don't really like kamikaze attacks either. I all the MP games I'm in, it seems to be working fine. As for city improvement completions, the thing I like about PBEM games in that time you get to ensure that everything is doing exactly what you want it to. In direct games, IP games, time is an issue, so I usually just keep a fairly long queue, or appoint a governor.

[Flubber]

Odds work in MP if it is turned on BUT I believe that these are all preferences that are carried over from one player to the next. Things like

Odds
Stopping at monoliths
Aircraft returning to base
Various warnings for builds
Fog of war
flat map vs topography


are all things that you can change and which initially will come up however the player before you set them up. If you want odds to show up then go through all the preferences and advanced preferences and you will see it. I often go in and turn ON the fog of war since I like the reminder it gives of places that bad things may be lurking

Just a note. . . the automatic stopping at monoliths and the auto-return of aircraft should always be OFF as a matter of MP etiquette (most people do not want to have to check the preferences each turn and these can adversely affect play)

[MississippiJ]

Flubber;

Thanks for the reply.

If I understand you correctly, then you are confirming my thoughts that these things should work and stay that way if all players machines are set to the same options.

Is that a true statement?


Jack