How do you send your game to someone by email?

[sboog]

I want to send a Civ3 game I am playing to my friend.

How do I do that? Do I go into my civ3 files in my hard drive and go into saved games and copy it that game? And how to I send it as an attachment?

Also, if someone sends me a game as an attachment, how do I see it? Do I drag and drop it into my saved games? Then start Civ3 and load it?

Are they zipped?

On the other hand, is there a way I can just send a picture of it?

Just need some basic help, please.

sboog

[zulu9812]

That's a good point - play-by-e-mail (pbem) is supposedly going to be a feature of PTW, but will this method suffice?

[sboog]

Well, we don't want to play each other. I just wanted my friend to take a look at my game.

And I don't know how to do that.

sboog

[Wittlich]

You should be able to just copy the file from the saved game folder, attach it to an email, and send it off....if the file to too large, you may have to zip it. When he receives it, he just places it into his saved game folder and load up the game. Of course, this is just sending a saved game, and should not in any way be considered PBEM.

[zulu9812]

So how would PBEM work? I confess I've never done it before (hur-hur), but what is there to it other than swapping SAV files?

[Wittlich]

Good question Zulu, I too have never played PBEM before ... maybe a PBEM player can shed some light on how this is supposed to work.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Wittlich
You should be able to just copy the file from the saved game folder, attach it to an email, and send it off....if the file to too large, you may have to zip it.

You don't have to copy anything. When you send an email, just look for a command saying something like "attach file". A menu comes up, you go to where the save game is then select it.

[Wittlich]

Well, yes, you are right Willem. However, when you attach a file, you are actually sending a "copy" of the file in your email...however I digress, does anyone have any insight as to how PBEM normally works?

[Solver]

Of course, I do. The CtP PBEM sucker is here .

Well... you get an attachment by email that you open and the game runs, with a turn in it. You play the turn, and, when it's over, you get an option as to where to save the game (or goes automatically to Desktop). So, you get a savefile with the next player's turn, which you then send by email to the next guy, who sees his turn there, and so on.

PtW will also have passwords to prevent you from just looking at position of your enemy.

[Wittlich]

Thanks for the added insight Solver!

I guess the main reason why I have never played PBEM before is because it seems like the game would take FOR EVER to get anywhere or to even finish...but then again, since I've never tried it out, I could be wrong.

[Solver]

They're often played with Fast Starts, like 2000 gold, 5 Settlers and a Warrior, to get it faster.

But yes, they're long, so online play is still needed if you want to finish a game in one or few sessions.

[LotC]

Poor sboog

Looks like your thread got jacked

Anyway, it sounds like you need some basic help here.

Firstly, if you're going to email a saved game it is advisable, though not necessary, to zip it. The reason for this is that .sav files get pretty big and they compress really well, thus shrinking down the size considerably. if you or your friend use dial-up and/or web based email this will help greatly. To zip it, right click on it and either copy it and paste it somewhere convenient (like your desktop) or just select "Add to {filename}.zip".

Okay, so if you're using Outlook or Outlook Express as your email client, just compose the message and look for the paperclip symbol that says Attach underneath it. Other email clients are probably similar. When you select "Attach", you will be able to browse for the file in a particular location. Simply browse to where it is and click the "Attach" button on the file browser.

For web-based email like Yahoo or Hotmail, there is an Attach link when you are composing your email. Just follow the directions there. It works basically the same, only you're uploading the file to the email provider's server.

Now, there is a ridiculously easy way to do the above using Winzip if you have an email client on your PC. You can just right click on the .sav file and select "Zip and email {filename}.sav. It will automagically be attached to a new email message. I gave you the long way first because it doesn't hurt to know how to do it

As for sending a screenshot of your game, if you want to show him the entire game it's probably better to email the .sav file since you can't get the whole map in one shot. To take a screenshot, press Alt+PrintScreen (just right of F12). The picture will be on your clipboard, the same as when you copy a file or text to paste somewhere else. You can paste it into Microsoft Paint and save it as a .jpeg or use another (better) image editor like Photoshop.

To open up someone elses .sav file, just put it into your Saves file in your Civ3 directory and go to Load Game at the main Civ screen. You will find it listed in there. You might want to name it something unique, instead of eg. Xerxes of the Persians 1350AD.sav to avoid any confusion as to which one it is. Make sure you don't rename the part after the "." ie: .sav, or else Civ3 won't recognize it as a valid file type. To rename a file, Right click on it and select "Rename" from the menu.

Hope all of this helps!

[zulu9812]

Of course, this only works if you play the same civ as your mate - a continuation of the game, rather than playing against each other

[sboog]

LotC, thank you so much for your detailed help on how to send and receive saved games via email.

I use Outlook Express as does my friend. I know how to send attachments, I think, and I think I understand now how to put the attached saved game in my saved game file.

And I know how to unzip a file. But I don't know how to ZIP one. That part of your message I need to study a bit.

We were not going to play each other via email. We just wanted to be able to see each other's saved game and study it and offer comments.

Thank you for all your good help, LotC.

sboog

[Lucilla]

The easiest way to zip a file is:

Download the evaluation version of Winzip from www.download.com or from www.winzip.com.
After installing the program, you can right-click on the file and will get the option to zip it. You can also start winzip and then drag and drop the file into it and give the zip a name.

Hope that helps, Lucilla