Multiplayer LAN crashing constant

[beechworth]

Hi all,

I have been playing a MP game for over 2 months off and on - we are using the standard game with latest official patch but the game is crashing at the end of each turn - any one else experienced a similar thing?

Andrew

[Maquiladora]

What operating system are you both using? You could try running the game in single player to see if it crashes too, it usually doesnt, which means theres just some heavy resynching problems somewhere because its so late in the game (i assume).

[Maquiladora]

Also how do the crashes happen? Does it kick you straight to desktop, or both of you? Or does it just kick you back to the LAN lobby?

[child of Thor]

It could be the pillage tiles bug. If a city has been destroyed but has tile improvements left over you can crash to desktop if you(or the AI) try to pillage those tiles. I think its in the FAQ and probably a link to the patch for that problem.

[beechworth]

One of us is using XP the other 98SE, the host stays in the game the player gets booted out after a connection error. Has nothing to do with the pillaging of tiles. We are at 100BC but are both at corporate republic govs - say 25-35 cities each (I have Global Sat - my but that is handy!).

Any sugestions appreciated.

Andrew

[child of Thor]

When you first started your game were you both on different versions of windows? If so then that may be a small miricle in itself. As to playing Lan with the vanilla game and patch, i remember getting resynch problems alot of the time, which would boot one player out into the lobby screen. You could get around this by having 'dynamic rejoin' set to 'ON'(from within the game setup menus), then the player that is kicked out of the game can rejoin and carry on where they left off.
Still the fact that you have played through to 100 bc and now have a problem would suggest something else, which was why i was thinking it might be the pillage tile bug, but that gives you no message - you just crash to desktop.
I only played over a Lan setup where all the pc's were running 98se.
I know CTP2 has a few issues with XP, so if none of the above helps then that might be the culprit?

[beechworth]

Thanks for that - I think we will just have to try and move the game to 2 98SE machines and have our fingers crossed!

Cheers

Andrew

[child of Thor]

Your welcome!
One thing you might like to keep in mind is that although CTP2 does say it supports MP on the box, it doesn't say it is entirely stable!(something Activision's lawers would be keen to point out i'm sure ).
I must admit i never went much past early gunpowder, the games usually had a clear winner by then. So what happens after around 1000AD is still a mystery to me.

[beechworth]

we were interested in seeing the outcome of uling later tech on each other so we made a rule of not allowing anything past our borders until a certain date - allows you to build a civ and military and then unleash with some great weapons!

Thanks again

Andrew