MP: Mo-Fr 12.00hUTC fixed scheduled (running again

[Chazar]

Schedule:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 12.00h UTC plus QuickHost, which essentially means that you have at least 24h to complete your turn and more time on the weekends!
(12.00h UTC = 13.00h BST (UK) = 14.00h CEST (Europe) = 07.00h CDT (Central US)) = 06.00h MDT (Denver))

Settings:
standard MP.

Map:
Karan (6-8 Players)

Nations:
See next post.

Now hosted at:
Host: zombie.dyndns.org
Port: 10000


{EDIT: Initially the topic was "MP: slow 99h Quick-Host", but we refined the schedule now. The acutal schedule wont change anymore.}

[Chazar]

Nations:

Abysia:JJ_Colorado
Ulm:Mark the Merciful
C'tis:Kel
Caelum:Chazar
Marignon: undead dolphin hacker
Pangaea:Cainehill
R'lyeh:Pickles
T'ien Ch'i:Reverend Zombie

[ June 21, 2004, 08:57: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Cainehill]

A topic of "50h Quick-Host" with 80 hour turns is somewhat misleading. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

You might consider 48 hour, no quick hosting. (48 is better than 50 (or 80) because the turns are due the same time of day and don't shift around.)

Or 48 hour QH, and make sure you get your turn in on the Last hour or so, thus kicking off the next turn, which you take, and probably have at least 72 hours, possibly 96, before the next turn is due.

This would work especially well if you ask someone in the game to delay their turn on those weekends, helping to ensure that it takes closer to 48 hours rather than 24 or less.

If you get one going, I for one would join (especially if it winds up having any sane hourly setting - 48, 72, or 96). But you still need a hosting solution, and if it takes a month to start, I may already have a full plate.

[JJ_Colorado]

I'm in and would like to try a big map using Abysia. I like the QH idea....

John

[Kel]

If it's a regular interval (24,48,72,96) and *not* quick hosted, I would be in for Abysia (or C'tis) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
- Kel

[ June 17, 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Chazar]

@KEL: Where is the drawback with Quick-Host? Even with Quick Host, the time limit is still at least 48h, so I dont see the drawback of enabling quick-hosting.

Or do you suggest a fixed schedule?

@ALL:
If anyone of us ecounters an open slot at moosehansen's server: grab it! If there isnt a slot available withn the next two weeks, I'll host via PBEM if no one else volunteers... (sigh)

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Chazar:
@KEL: Where is the drawback with Quick-Host? Even with Quick Host, the time limit is still at least 48h, so I dont see the drawback of enabling quick-hosting.

Or do you suggest a fixed schedule?

@ALL:
If anyone of us ecounters an open slot at moosehansen's server: grab it! If there isnt a slot available withn the next two weeks, I'll host via PBEM if no one else volunteers... (sigh) <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The drawback (as I've just discovered in another game) is suddenly unpredictable deadlines. With a fixed and regular turnaround, you can get into a routine; with an ever-changing schedule - because of quickhost - you can miscalculate and suddenly find you've missed a turn, which is very frustrating.

Meanwhile, please count me in as Ulm if you find a hosting slot.

Mark

[Kel]

With a fixed and regular turnaround, you can get into a routine; with an ever-changing schedule - because of quickhost - you can miscalculate and suddenly find you've missed a turn, which is very frustrating.
Mark <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What he said. ^^^

Weekends shouldn't be a problem with a 48 hour hosting, at any rate. You could make a turn on thursday and then again on monday if you really needed to.

- Kel

[ June 17, 2004, 19:00: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Chazar]

Ah ok, I see. I would have set a timer to 48h whenever I submit a turn, but this gives only a lower bound on the true limit and is probably too messy as soon as you play more than one game...

So what about a fixed schedule, like...
{Edit: I moved the schedule proposal down to the inital post in order to keep this thread readable for new people interested in taking part. All current info can be found at the bottom in the initial post.}

[ June 18, 2004, 10:05: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Kel]

Originally posted by Chazar:
How about that?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Works for me.


In case that we don't find a server and none of us can host one, is PBEM ok with everybody? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure. Gives you the flexibility to host when you want, too (if everyone turns in a turn on the weekend, for example).

- Kel

[Cainehill]

I'd be in, not sure what nation yet.

[Norfleet]

I can maybe arrange to host your game for you on kludgemush.com, but I don't want to play.

My only condition is that I get to name your game something snarky.

[ June 18, 2004, 07:19: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Chazar:

So what about a fixed schedule, like
MONDAY-FRIDAY at 12.00h UTC
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Works for me

Edit: You may want to change the thread name to reflect your new proposal (and possibly attract more players).

[ June 18, 2004, 08:40: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I can maybe arrange to host your game for you on kludgemush.com, but I don't want to play.

My only condition is that I get to name your game something snarky. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That sounds nice, thank you, although I dont know what 'snarky' means, but I am not worried by names anyway, that is names that are outside of the game.

Originally posted by Norfleet in another thread:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
Originally posted by Chazar:

Sure, but with a telephone connection to the internet, like the one that I use and which is paid by the minute, hosting is somewhat less fun...
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
That sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier. Not to be rude or anything, but has the thought of upgrading your Internet connection and/or moving to a civilized country occurred to you?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks for pointing out the pigeon protocol, but I was aware of that possibility. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif And yes, I have thought about upgrading, but I'll do it next spring when I have to move again and may rejoin with my beloved again. So living alone and commuting often makes a DSL-connection too expensive for me in my view, and the ISDN that I have isnt to bad either if you dont insist on staying Online all the night long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Chazar]

Just another question on quick-host: If it's enabled together with that fixed schedule, then there wouldnt be any problem, would there be?

Say that it will next host on Tue 12.00h, but now all turns were committed by Tue 11.00h, so it will host at Tue 11.00h and skip the hosting at Tue 12.00h, scheduling for hosting on Wed 12.00h. (Was explained that way in an older thread) So everybody knows for sure that his turn will be available (at least) after 12.00h and that he has only to commit before 12.00h the next day without getting a stale turn.

So enabling QH doesnt hurt with a fixed schedule, while the benefit would be that the player who commits his turn as the Last one could download his turn immediately without waiting (and reconnecting to the internet) and that we might occasionally have a turn on some weekends if everybody happens to be available, yet without any risk of stale turns, right?

[Pickles]

Hi
I would like to be in, provisionally as R'lyeh if that's OK.

Pickles

[Reverend Zombie]

Never mind, I think I was wrong.

[ June 18, 2004, 13:49: Message edited by: Reverend Zombie ]

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Just another question on quick-host: If it's enabled together with that fixed schedule, then there wouldnt be any problem, would there be?

(snip)

So enabling QH doesnt hurt with a fixed schedule, while the benefit would be that the player who commits his turn as the Last one could download his turn immediately without waiting (and reconnecting to the internet) and that we might occasionally have a turn on some weekends if everybody happens to be available, yet without any risk of stale turns, right? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If it's quickhost, then it isn't fixed schedule, and people can get screwed because they can't predict when the next turn is due.

For instance : 24 Hour fixed schedule, turns going at 6 am. At 6:15 am, you take your turn, and know you have almost 48 hours until you have to get your next turn in, because the turn you just took doesn't get processed until 6 am the next day, leaving another 24 hours before the next one.

With 24 Hour quickhost, and a turn that went at 6 am, you take your turn at 6:15, and again figure you have almost 48 hours. Unfortunately, everyone winds up taking their turn very early; the Last one gets turned in at 8:15 am, and the turn processes. The next turn will now run 24 hours later, at 8:15.

Now, instead of having 47+ hours to come back and take your next turn, you only have 26 hours from when you took your turn. Coming back the afternoon of the next day, which you figured left plenty of time to spare, and you find that you missed your turn and got screwed.

Quick Host means you don't know when the turns are due - it's nice if everyone is Online a lot, but it makes it difficult to know when the next turn will be due, and it makes it difficult to go away for anything much over the quickhost interval.

I might be mistaken - but I am pretty certain that you can only have Quickhost or fixed schedule, not both.

[Chazar]

No, that isnt true, I have just tested it:

If it is Quickhosted with a fixed schedule, then if a quick host happened, the next schedule gets skipped:

So in your example, committing a turn at MON 6:15h still leaves you 47.75h: if there is a quick host before TUE 6:00h then there will be no hosting at TUE 6:00h but only on WED 6:00h as you had calculated. (Even with further Quick-hosts happening before TUE 6:00h! If there is then another Quickhost after TUE 6:00h, then WED 6:00h is skipped as well.)

Any quick-host seems to set a flag: When a scheduled time is reached, this flag is checked. If it is set, nothing happens, but the flag is deleted. If it is unset, then the turn will be hosted. So if you dont set a time intervall, but only fixed hours for each day and do quickhost, then there is no such problem as you described, because a quick host will actually only prolong the time to the next hosting.

I actually just tested this behaviour on my own machine with two players. Test it yourself, which is easy as the server displays the hours until next hosting. The important part is not to set a time intervall (leave at zero).

So I strongly vote for enabling it, as there is nothing to lose. If someone wants to keep to the schedule: fine! The player committing Last can play immediately again if he wishes so, without redialing into the net again...

[ June 18, 2004, 16:51: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Karacan]

So it's a twice-a-week-hosting?

Sounds great to me. If noone wants to, I'd very much like to play Ermor and be everyone's favourite target. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

I assume we're playing 2.12 (and patch as soon as available).

Edit: Umm... or did I misinterpret the Monday-Friday thingy meaning Monday And Friday, than rather Monday TO Friday?
Then I have to resign again, I just won't be able to do a turn every weekday.

[ June 18, 2004, 16:58: Message edited by: Karacan ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Just another question on quick-host: If it's enabled together with that fixed schedule, then there wouldnt be any problem, would there be?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Quickhost and a FIXED schedule is BAD.


Say that it will next host on Tue 12.00h, but now all turns were committed by Tue 11.00h, so it will host at Tue 11.00h and skip the hosting at Tue 12.00h, scheduling for hosting on Wed 12.00h. (Was explained that way in an older thread) So everybody knows for sure that his turn will be available (at least) after 12.00h and that he has only to commit before 12.00h the next day without getting a stale turn. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wrong. If you set it to host at a FIXED time every day, and the Last player sends his turn in, at, say 1130, the game immediately hosts, because it is set for quickhost. Because it is set for quickhost, the game then immediately hosts. The player who Last sent his turn in sees this, takes his turn again. Then the game will host AGAIN at the fixed time of 1200, and everyone will STALE!

So enabling QH doesnt hurt with a fixed schedule<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Quickhost with fixed schedule is BAD, 'mkay?

What you're thinking about that is harmless is Quickhost with a timer. If the game is set to host in, say, 48 hours, and the Last player sends his in turn at 0900, the game will host. The next time the game will then host is in 48 hours from 0900, or when all players have again submitted their turn. Say this happens tomorrow at 1700. Then the game will host again in 48 hours, or when somebody else sends in their turn. The result being that the game will not host on a consistent schedule unless somebody is staling, but you will ALWAYS have at LEAST 48 hours.

The game will therefore not host on a consistent schedule, but you will ALWAYS have 48 hours. Maybe more....but don't count on it, slacker! Besides, if you really need more than that, then you are deliberately procrastinating.

Would you like be to open a port for sign-in now?

[ June 18, 2004, 18:27: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Chazar:
Just another question on quick-host: If it's enabled together with that fixed schedule, then there wouldnt be any problem, would there be?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wrong. If you set it to host at a FIXED time every day, and the Last player sends his turn in, at, say 1130, the game immediately hosts, because it is set for quickhost. Because it is set for quickhost, the game then immediately hosts. The player who Last sent his turn in sees this, takes his turn again. Then the game will host AGAIN at the fixed time of 1200, and everyone will STALE!
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have tested this and found something different, same as Chazar, three Posts below.

Quickhosting prior to the fixed time will cause that next-scheduled fixed host time to be skipped.

[ June 18, 2004, 18:50: Message edited by: Reverend Zombie ]

[Norfleet]

Is that so? This is not how I remember it. Perhaps they changed it in a patch. If you're volunteering to make this the game that guinea-pigs this theory, fine by me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 18, 2004, 19:18: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Cainehill]

Guess we'll guinea pig things. I'll take Pangaea - we going on Karan then, with 6 players?

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Karacan:
So it's a twice-a-week-hosting?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, sorry. It started out as 48h, but it's intended to be at least 5 times a week hosting now.

I guess twice a week will take to much real time to complete the game...

[Kel]

You might want to do a head count, it's been a bit of a confusing start http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

We went from 2-5 days to 24 hr.

- Kel

[Chazar]

!!!New Players interested in participating: Please look at the continually updated first post of this thread!!!

Originally posted by Kel:
You might want to do a head count, it's been a bit of a confusing start http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure, but I dont know how. I mean, there is the second post in this thread, which I edit to maintain it updated, and I hope that everyone took a look at. Currently it list:

Abysia:JJ_Colorado
Ulm:Mark the Merciful
C'tis:Kel
Caelum:Chazar
R'lyeh:Pickles
Pangaea:Cainehill


Or should we ask that everybody sends me/us a life-sign? Or should I simply use the email message mechanism of this forum to send everybody a message once the server is up and running?

[ June 19, 2004, 18:52: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Chazar:
That would be very kind, although we didnt come up with a "snarky" name so far... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif How about something like "PulseOfGods" picking up the theme of a fixed schedule? No? Well, I guess "UTC12" would do for me pretty well...<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's not snarky. Besides, the conditions dictate that I will come up with the snarky name.

It shall be...."Fat Obstreperous Jerks".

Are all our settings clear? (see first post on this thread)<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">By "standard", I assume you refer to the commonly accepted MP standard of Indy-6, Sites-50, blah, blah, blah.

You may begin sign-ins at:
kludgemush.com 10297

[Reverend Zombie]

I would like in as T'ien Ch'i.

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

It shall be...."Fat Obstreperous Jerks".
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No need for insulting!
(BTW: I've lost 7kg Last month so I'm not fat anymore!!!)
EDIT: I looked up "obstreperous". Seems ok with me now that I know the meaning...

Originally posted by Norfleet:

By "standard", I assume you refer to the commonly accepted MP standard of Indy-6, Sites-50, blah, blah, blah.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, I meant standard as the game offers it! What does everybody taking part else say?

[ June 19, 2004, 21:06: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Reverend Zombie]

If I am in, I vote for the settings as specified by Norfleet, which are "standard" in much of the MP community, though not the "defualt" ones the game gives.

As for Fat Obstreperous Jerks, it is a small price to pay for free hosting, no? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Chazar]

You're in...

...I am a bit worried about setting that I don know about. If these are standard, then I will abide, but it would be nice if someone could explicitely list them here...

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Chazar:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Norfleet:

By "standard", I assume you refer to the commonly accepted MP standard of Indy-6, Sites-50, blah, blah, blah.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, I meant standard as the game offers it! What does everybody taking part else say? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I figured you meant standard MP settings - which as Norfleet wrote, tends to be Indy-6, Sites-50, normal research, normal richness, common events, and usually (but not always) Hall of Fame 15.

I'd lean towards those settings - Indy strength 3 is ... single ply tissue paper. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif It's a very easy setting that is, I think, meant to ease newcomers into the game, as they don't get their initial armies slaughtered right away.

So - as one of the players, I vote for the standard MP settings. I'll play either way - Indys-3 simply means less time chasing down routed satyrs in the early game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Chazar]

Thanks!

Soooo...we're waiting for everybody to join in right? Come on everybody! So far only Caelum and T'ien Ch'i have been uploaded...

[Pickles]

Standard MP is better by me than default but either is OK

I wanted to mess with my pretender which would mean uploading on Monday. If this is too slow - one day making a difference for some reason - I will do it tommorrow (well later today GMT)

Pickles

[Chazar]

Cainehill:... we going on Karan then, with 6 players?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's fine with me! But I wouldnt mind someone else joining until the game is finally started... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif So once Norfleet has set up the game and opened a port, we should start after all six of us have uploaded their pretender If anyone else still wants to join, please post here!

About Quick-Host:
Actually I learnt that the behaviour is as I described from a very old thread on this board, before testing it myself...

The important thing is that the hosting time interval is set to 0, and only Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri are set to a certain time. Mixing a time interval with certain fixed days is what makes things truly messy!

[ June 19, 2004, 12:29: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

Would you like be to open a port for sign-in now? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be very kind, although we didnt come up with a "snarky" name so far... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif How about something like "PulseOfGods" picking up the theme of a fixed schedule? No? Well, I guess "UTC12" would do for me pretty well...

Are all our settings clear? (see first post on this thread)

- I wouldnt mind if renaming is enabled to help management, but I respect people who want it disabled, as it can surely be abused.

- It would be probably sensible if there is a masterpassword set, but I would prefer if you, Norfleet, would keep that a secret to yourself only. Just in case of emergency.

[ June 19, 2004, 12:18: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[undead dolphin hacker]

Is there room left in this game?

[Chazar]

@undead dolphin hacker:
Yes, there is still one final slot available, so you're welcome. Please respect the nations already taken (not everybody has ulpoaded his pretender yet), which are tracked in the second post of this thread.

@Pickles: No need to hurry I'd say - after all this Game is sort of assumed to be pausing on weekends anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

@Kel and others, HEADCOUNT DONE
Everybody enlisted has either uploaded his(?) pretender or posted recently in this thread, except for one player which I've sent a private message to now, giving a deadline for any kind of response until monday noon. Assuming that he will respond an that undead dolphin hacker joins, we're eight which is nice for Karan.

[ June 20, 2004, 12:03: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Chazar:
@Kel and others, HEADCOUNT DONE
Everybody enlisted has either uploaded his(?) pretender or posted recently in this thread, except for one player which I've sent a private message to now, giving a deadline for any kind of response until monday noon. Assuming that he will respond an that undead dolphin hacker joins, we're eight which is nice for Aran. [/QB]<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Still here - just didn't have a reason to post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Just fiddling with my Pretender design - will be uploaded this evening.

Mark

[Mark the Merciful]

OK, Ulm is up.

[undead dolphin hacker]

Mark me down for Marignon.

And what's the command line switch to make a shortcut that immediately connects to a given server IP/Port?

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by undead dolphin hacker:
Mark me down for Marignon.

And what's the command line switch to make a shortcut that immediately connects to a given server IP/Port? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Using Windows, I create a Dom2 shortcut and edit the properties as follows. For this game:

"C:\Program Files\dominions2\dom2.exe" --tcpclient --ipadr kludgemush.com --port 10297

[undead dolphin hacker]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by undead dolphin hacker:
Mark me down for Marignon.

And what's the command line switch to make a shortcut that immediately connects to a given server IP/Port? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Using Windows, I create a Dom2 shortcut and edit the properties as follows. For this game:

"C:\Program Files\dominions2\dom2.exe" --tcpclient --ipadr kludgemush.com --port 10297 </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Danke.

[Chazar]

Cool, so we might get it going already on monday, but probably not before 12.00h UTC to avoid stale turns for everyone... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Cainehill]

Eight pretenders uploaded - looks like we can start it Monday, eh? And there was much rejoicing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Norfleet]

Okay, the game has been started. Currently the timer is disengaged.

The system time, as of now, according to date -u, is "Mon Jun 21 04:10:52 UTC 2004". I have no idea whether this is correct or not, as I have no idea what time it is now HERE, let alone what time it is where the server is, not that I know where the server is physically situated, so I'm just gonna go with that. If this time is wrong....well, somebody had better complain fast.

I will engage the timer and set it to begin sometime after 1200 UTC by the system clock.

[JJ_Colorado]

Ok, so can someone who followed all of the Posts and arguments (?) below update the rest of us on when exactly the game is gonna be hosting? :-)

Thanks!

[Kel]

Weren't we starting with 4 provinces ?

- Kel

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Kel:
Weren't we starting with 4 provinces ?

- Kel <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That was the plan, yes. Not sure it's worth restarting to get 4 provinces now though - probably take a full day or more to get everyone to upload a pretender to a corrected game.

[Norfleet]

Sorry, I must have missed the 4 provinces thing in all of the bickering and squabbling. It's been a long thread. I hope it's not too much of a problem.

[Chazar]

I'm also strongly against restarting - I'm too anxious to get the game going finally!


As for the time:
Seems pretty correct to me, since the forum is currently at UTC-5h, and you posted at 23:13h forum-time which corresponds to 04:10h UTC as you have written.

Please remember that we are guniea-pigs and enable quick-hosts. Do not set the timerintervall or any pause days. Thanks!

[ June 21, 2004, 08:56: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Don't mind either way.

Er, I mean my carefully crafted strategy has been completely wrecked and if I get elminated early that'll be the reason. Oh yes.

[Pickles]

Just to be argumentative delaying one day to get 3 extra provinces seems a good deal as we would take over a week to get that much stuff.
Of course personally I prefer the 1 province start and after I spent 45 minutes* doing my turn I would be averse to restarting

Pickles

* I mean seconds

Of course in my facetiousness I forgot my pertinent question -
What is UTC? - looks like it's what we call GMT here in London. So the turns are lunchtime-ish in Europe. Getting paranoid as there is no countdown.

[ June 21, 2004, 09:17: Message edited by: Pickles ]

[Chazar]

Originally posted by JJ_Colorado:
Ok, so can someone who followed all of the Posts and arguments (?) below update the rest of us on when exactly the game is gonna be hosting? :-)
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure:
If my hideous plans of schedule are properly set and Norfleet does start the timer as he wrote down below somewhen after the next occurrence of 12:00h UTC(+0), which is in about 3h from now or Monday, 9:00h forum time(-5), the next host will take place on Tuesday, 12:00h UTC. Hosting is scheduled to take place on each weekday:
Monday 12:00h,
Tuesday 12:00h,
Wednesday 12:00h,
Thursday 12:00h,
Friday 12:00h.
The quickhost option will cause hosting to take place as soon as all turns are uploaded and cause the next scheduled hosting to be skipped so for short: you will always have at least 24h before getting a stale turn!!! If it happens to be a rainy weekend globally we might progress a turn on weekends as well, but you wont receive a stale turn on weekends if you'll manage to submit somewhen after Friday 12:00h UTC and before Monday 12:00h.

Sorry, I just cant keep it short, but believe me its much more simpler than that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

PS: I wont edit this particular post, since the edit function of the forum messes up the time stamp somewhat (the edit tag seems to be always displayed within UTC, contrary to the post time, as you can see in my previous Last post which was edited almost immediately after I posted it, although there is a 5hour time discrepany from header to edit tag).

[Chazar]

Actually I already posted what UTC translates to for everybody taking part and who indicated his location in his poster-profile: It's written in my first post, which I kept continually updated to help understanding what's going on. Anyway, I will repeat it here:

12.00h UTC, which is indeed just the posh and politically more correct term for GMT +0, means:
13.00h BST (UK, British Summer Time)
14.00h CEST (Europe, Central European Summer Time)
07.00h CDT (Central US Daylight-savings Time = Forum Time)
06.00h MDT (Denver or Albuquerque, Mountain Daylight-savings Time)

[ June 21, 2004, 09:39: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Please remember that we are guniea-pigs and enable quick-hosts. Do not set the timerintervall or any pause days. Thanks! <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Uh...if I don't set any timer interval or hosting days, and have only quickhost, what you have is "indefinite" quickhost, in which the game will NEVER host until everyone has sent in their turns.

I thought you wanted me to try to get it to host at 1200 UTC weekdays, with quickhost enabled?

Originally posted by Chazar:
Actually I already posted what UTC translates to for everybody taking part and who indicated his location in his poster-profile: It's written in my first post, which I kept continually updated to help understanding what's going on. Anyway, I will repeat it here<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, yeah, that's great. But I barely even know what time *I* have, let alone what time the server box, which is not physically mine, is. Even then, I don't even know if it's correct. Based on the information I posted, could somebody tell me what time zone, if any, the box time is in? Time of day is not exactly a meaningful concept for somebody who rarely sees the light of day, you know.

[Pickles]

Sorry for the confusion - I did check your timings on message 1 I was just being nervous

Quoting Chazar
"12.00h UTC, which is indeed just the posh and politically more correct term for GMT +0, means"

What I actually wanted to know is what does UTC stand for. (OT of course)

Cheers
Pickles

[ June 21, 2004, 11:21: Message edited by: Pickles ]

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Uh...if I don't set any timer interval or hosting days, and have only quickhost, what you have is "indefinite" quickhost, in which the game will NEVER host until everyone has sent in their turns.

I thought you wanted me to try to get it to host at 1200 UTC weekdays, with quickhost enabled?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, once more: There are two ways to schedule the game. One option is setting a timing interval, like 24h. This is not what we want! So leave it at zero please, that is disabled.

The other schedule method means setting a bunch of fixed dates, which is what we want! The GUI allows this by listing each day by name. I refer to that listing which is on the lower end of the screen (the first being checkboxes for pause-days, all should remain unchecked). If you click these, the game will ask for a two digit number. Click Monday and enter 12. Rinse and repeat for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but not for Saturday and Sunday. Finally enable quickhost. You can set this up anytime now. Thanks!

Please contact me if you need a full commandline. I am at work, so I cant compile it right now, but I recall that the options should contain something like "-t 2 12 -t 3 12 -t 4 12 -t 5 12 -t 6 12 -q", but I will have to verify that later if you really want to set it up like that.


Originally posted by Norfleet:
Based on the information I posted, could somebody tell me what time zone, if any, the box time is in?<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I actually already did that five Posts below:

Your host system is set to UTC. No corrections needed.

(You can verify it yourself with a web browser window at this web page (http://time5.nrc.ca/webclock_e.shtml) which displays the current UTC time, so for this purpose there is no need for the sun and a real window anymore. Since I assume that you had obtained your host-system-time shortly before posting it in this thread a few Posts before, together with your Posts timestamp, your system is set at UTC.)


English is still a foreign language to me, and I know that I have a huge problem with making short and easily comprehensive sentences, so please excuse me if my instructions above are a bit to explicit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif


---


@Pickles: Please look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utc) for an explanation to your question. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 21, 2004, 12:06: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Chazar]

Actually it doesnt look right to me: its only 15h hours to next hosting, where it should be 39h by now. This is not in accordance with the behaviour I observed in my tests on my private LAN...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

After testing it over and over again, the only explanation I got is that the server might have been restarted? Norfleet?

[ June 21, 2004, 22:42: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Norfleet]

There hasn't been any "server restart", except when I instituted the host times.

However, it seems that it is your math which is off!

You specified that hostings were to occur Monday-Friday, at 1200 UTC. That's a gap of 24 hours between them, and some time has already elapsed. Therefore, the time shown is correct.

[Chazar]

Oh, UTC 12:00h just passed two minutes ago...

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Ok, once more: There are two ways to schedule the game. One option is setting a timing interval, like 24h. This is not what we want! So leave it at zero please, that is disabled.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I know that!

The other schedule method means setting a bunch of fixed dates, which is what we want! The GUI allows this by listing each day by name. I refer to that listing which is on the lower end of the screen (the first being checkboxes for pause-days, all should remain unchecked). If you click these, the game will ask for a two digit number. Click Monday and enter 12. Rinse and repeat for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but not for Saturday and Sunday. Finally enable quickhost. You can set this up anytime now. Thanks!<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That was my plan. However, the system clock isn't set for UTC, so I had to check hour it was right now.

Your host system is set to UTC. No corrections needed.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, it's not, although I can tell it to regurgitate what it thinks UTC is using date -u. I had no idea if it was correct, though.

English is still a foreign language to me, and I know that I have a huge problem with making short and easily comprehensive sentences, so please excuse me if my instructions above are a bit to explicit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't worry about it. I wasn't really listening anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I tend not to ask vague questions like "How do I do that?", I tend to be more specific, and all I wanted to know is if the UTC time given by the system was correct...and what time zone this box is in.


TIMER ACTIVATED!
If anyone encounters any aberrant behavior with regard to quickhosting AND interval hosting, let me know immediately.

Have a nice game, and try not to get gruesomely killed.

[ June 21, 2004, 12:33: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Cainehill]

Yeh, I'm not sure how there'd be 39 hours between a Monday turn and a Tuesday turn, unless of course you have a job situation where it seems like there's 96 hours on Monday. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Only time we should see 39 hours til next hosting is the weekends, if your theory (and Norfleet's settings) are correct.

[Kel]

Really ? See, my understanding (from Chazar) was that it would skip the next host so 39 hours was possible if everyone made their turn 9 hours after it was available.

That is, if the Last person to move made their move at 9 (9 hours after it normally hosts), then it would host right then and skip the normal host that would occur in 15 hours, thus making 15+24 = 39 hours until next hosting, according to the way it was described earlier in this thread.

If this is not happening, and more than 5 turns can occur in a week, we are on normal 24H QH (which would be bad for me).

- Kel

[ June 22, 2004, 04:24: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Kel:
If this is not happening, and more than 5 turns can occur in a week, we are on normal 24H QH (which would be bad for me).
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If this is not happening, then this is WORSE than 24h quickhost: Because that would mean that my theory is correct, and if a player thus takes his turn minutes before the forced host, a quickhost occurs, then a forced host will occur shortly afterwards on schedule.

However, the schedule is currently set for 24h scheduled hosts with quickhosting....so unless the game is already on turn 2, then it SHOULD be approximately....7 hours remaining.

Light a fire under it, ladies!

[Norfleet]

dp

[ June 22, 2004, 04:49: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Kel]

so unless the game is already on turn 2, then it SHOULD be approximately....7 hours remaining.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

The game is on turn 2 at this moment.

- Kel

[Norfleet]

It is? Well in that case, Chazar's suggestion seems to be wrong....because I don't have an interval set, merely host at X day and time.

This would seem to suggest that quickhost and scheduled times don't mix. Which is as I said. Quickhost and scheduled hosting bad, 'mkay?

[Chazar]

Pickles comitted his turn now, which caused a quick hosting. The timer went up from 3hrs to 27hrs as it should, hence skipping the fixed hosting scheduled today at 12:00h. So everything seems to work well as assumed!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif


@NORFLEET: I am not sure what happens if the server is restarted, however. So if you ever have to restart the server then please disable the timer, just to be sure. I guess things are fine as long as the server is not touched anymore, although I will keep an eye open on that issue. If you think that the server has to be restarted more than once in a while, then disable quick-hosting for the remaining game, please. The benefits of QH is not worth the trouble: Its nice to have, but by no means necessary. Thank you!

[Mark the Merciful]

OW! Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!

Plague on turn three kills half the population in my home province. Misfortune is its own reward, but that's a really unpleasant way to start a game.

OW!

[Norfleet]

Life is like a sandwich. Some days you eat the sandwich, other days the sandwich eats you.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Mark the Merciful:
OW! Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!

Plague on turn three kills half the population in my home province. Misfortune is its own reward, but that's a really unpleasant way to start a game.
OW! <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In the future, remember - the latrines go downstream from the cooking and drinking water. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Chazar]

Yeah, pretty bad luck. Thats why I always take some fortune: Not because its worthwhile gamewise, but because it keeps my pretenders morale up...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Anyway, you're not alone having a bad time: I should've played a Solo against Independent 6 to learn what that means before...

...but isnt it a bad idea to whine about an ongoing game, especially with statistics turned off? "Ally with the stronger, prey upon the weak"?

---

Oh, by the way, I wont be able to do some extra turns this weekend, although it seems going to be pretty rainy around here...

[ June 23, 2004, 07:48: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Chazar:

...but isnt it a bad idea to whine about an ongoing game, especially with statistics turned off? "Ally with the stronger, prey upon the weak"? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but more important is; "when liable to early elimination, get your excuses in early and loudly".

[Chazar]

I really hate to raise the topic again; although the things I said about quickhosting seem right, there might be a small pitfall that I feel compelled to warn you about again:

Suppose you submit your turn on friday evening, satisfying the next schedule on monday. Hence your next deadline is tuesday noon. Correct.

Now it is a rainy saturday and you check the server again. There had been a quickhost and you happily do and submit your turn again. Now it is wrong to assume that you already satisfied the tuesday deadline as well and that you wont have to do a turn until wednesday!

The pitfall here is that this thinking is usually ok, but not necessarily so: There might be a second quickhost on sunday which consumes your turn, and this second quickhost will not skip the tuesday deadline, since the monday deadline has not passed yet. Hence:

Never rely on that two consecutive deadlines will be skipped!

Do not expect quickhosting to give you more time than you would have in a fixed schedule without quickhosting, although you will experience this sometimes...

-----
Mark the merciful: Yes, but more important is; "when liable to early elimination, get your excuses in early and loudly".
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Ahh yes, robbing the winner of his pride; a classical revenge in death. How merciful of you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ June 23, 2004, 09:43: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Pickles]

Hi Is the server down today?
I did a turn earlier which was before I expected to be able to and is stated there was 2 hour until hosting (not 26 as I would have expected)
Hm I cannot really remember what happend and I have not been able to log on again. So I do not know if I need to do another turn or not.

For the record the confusion caused by quickhost means I will be reluctant to go near it in future with or without fixed intervals, except in the first few turns.

Pickles

[Norfleet]

Due to the fact that we're having unexplained technical difficulties with the server connection going out, I have temporarily disabled the deadline timer and switched the game over to pure quickhost.

This means that until the connection seems to be more stable again, the game will only host when everyone is ready.

I hope this won't be too much of a problem, and that it clears up soon. Must be ISP problems or something.

[Cainehill]

Server is back up, but ... I got a stale turn, which I shouldn't have. I suspect maybe everyone got a stale, if the server hosted again when Norfleet restarted the server.

Either that, or the server reset lost at least some of the turns.

Everyone else get a stale turn?

[Chazar]

Bad luck. I got a stale turn now and I dont know now why my prophet and his army vanished. It shouldnt have hosted again after 12.00h anyway...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Alternatively I can also offer to host the game myself now, as a good friend of mine allows us to use his DSL-connected routing PC (a solution I havent thought of before), so we might consider to simply restart the game with the 4 starting provinces as intended if everyone else wants that as well, saving Norfleet the trouble to take care of our game.

I wont be available from now on until Tuesday morning, so please discuss the matter without me. (I suggest we take a vote?) I will agree with whatever is done - I am just desperate to play...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

If everybody Staled, then it's mostly irrelevant, isn't it? Carry on with either the current or new server.

The problem with Norfleet's server is irritating, but it seems unlikely that any other privately owned server is going to be more reliable. People lose internet connections, PCs crash, cats tread on keyBoards etc.

I don't mind a restart if the majority votes for it, but that would obviously be a big advantage to me (the chance to cancel out that turn 3 plague) so I'll have to abstain.

Like Chazar, I'm just keen to play.

Mark

[ June 24, 2004, 18:30: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]

[Norfleet]

Normally, it's more stable, but seems like we've had a rash of spike outages that have hit within the past day or so. The sysadmin blames the ISP for this. It'll probably go away soon.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Bad luck. I got a stale turn now and I dont know now why my prophet and his army vanished. It shouldnt have hosted again after 12.00h anyway...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep, sounds like it re-hosted when the server came back up - I didn't get to see the results of my battle the turn before, but happily only lost troops, not commanders.


Alternatively I can also offer to host the game myself now, as a good friend of mine allows us to use his DSL-connected routing PC (a solution I havent thought of before), so we might consider to simply restart the game with the 4 starting provinces as intended if everyone else wants that as well, saving Norfleet the trouble to take care of our game.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A possible problem with this is that your friend's DSL probably has a dynamic IP address, which will change if he reboots or the DSL connection is reset. This winds up being a real pain, since the game is then stalled until the host informs people what the IP address has changed to. (He might have a static IP, but most DSL providers either don't provide statics at all, or charge extra to set one up.)

I'll go either way - restarting with 4 provinces, or continuing the game as is. The restart would probably take a while for everyone to get their pretenders in before it could be started.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Mark the Merciful:
If everybody Staled, then it's mostly irrelevant, isn't it? Carry on with either the current or new server.

The problem with Norfleet's server is irritating, but it seems unlikely that any other privately owned server is going to be more reliable. People lose internet connections, PCs crash, cats tread on keyBoards etc.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep. Having played a good number of games on Norfleet's server in the past, I've found it to be one of the more stable / robust - until two days ago it was at least as stable / robust as mosehansen, which is the other top notch server I know of.


I don't mind a restart if the majority votes for it, but that would obviously be a big advantage to me (the chance to cancel out that turn 3 plague) so I'll have to abstain.

Like Chazar, I'm just keen to play.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So what say we continue this one then? I'm not keen on my starting position, but at least the game is moving along, and we all got stales.

We could always start up another game with Chazar's new hosting via DSL if people wanted - maybe with a 48 hour (or 72 quickhost) hosting cycle, so it doesn't wind up chewing up too much of people's time.

[Kel]

We could always start up another game with Chazar's new hosting via DSL if people wanted - maybe with a 48 hour (or 72 quickhost) hosting cycle, so it doesn't wind up chewing up too much of people's time. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would actually like to participate in a slow, relaxed game like that. 72 hr QH sounds yummy to me.

As for the current game, I have no strong preference. If *everyone* missed a turn, this early on, I don't see a problem but whatever the majority prefers...

- Kel

[JJ_Colorado]

Hi,

I'm Abysia. I vote to continue.

Chazar - Are we also starting a second game also? I got a private message from Chazar about a game on another server. Is this correct? Do we take same countries?

Thanks,
John

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Yep, sounds like it re-hosted when the server came back up - I didn't get to see the results of my battle the turn before, but happily only lost troops, not commanders.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The server didn't "come back up"...the server's uptime indicates that it has been up the entire time. Therein lies the problem. If the server had entirely gone down, the game would be entirely down, and I'd have to manually restart it when I got back on.

Unfortunately, it seems that the network collapsed for some unknown reason that neither I nor the sysadmin can fathom. I've recommended chewing out the ISP.

[ June 24, 2004, 19:19: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Reverend Zombie]

I vote to continue.

[Chazar]

Hi, I'm still there, but my train is leaving at 22:51h and I still dont have my bags packed... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
(I'm not commuting home but going on a short holiday...)

So for short:

I dont doubt that Norfleet's Server is stabel! This was just a try of a kind offer of mine. Why:
When I told my colleague about the difficulties of finding a server while we were jogging on tuesday, he said that he could host a game with DSL (to my surprise, having no idea about this kind of stuff). The IP-Address changes, yes, but thanks to DYNDNS this does not concern us, since you always type in the domain name rather than the IP-address.

Then the our server broke down today and instead of packing my bags, I convinced my friend to set the server up right NOW, just in case, because I was afraid that everyone might abandon this game while I am away this weekend, especially after that very long and tiresome "we-do-quickhosting-we-dont-do-quickhosting" discussion which I had started...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
(Did I tell you that I have problems forming short sentences?)

I sent you all the host-domain and port in private, because we forgot to disable the client-start stuff, and I wanted to make sure that there is no further trouble with someone else logging in.

I just want to keep playing this game, since I havnt played a real MP game yet, but I am crazy about this game. (Tell my fiancee about it: She almost forbid me to play on the weekends when I am with her...irritating, isnt it?)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Another TINY reason for proposing a restart might have been my dead prophet and my annhilated army as well, err.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

So, I really have to go now. I also think that we continue this game. I am always willing to start another game (provided that I dont have to play on every weekends) so upload your pretender if you like. I dont mind if someone else manages the sign up and Posts domain and port if not everybody wants to play again...

Have a nice weekend and multiply your worshippers... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Bye!

[Kel]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Hi, I'm still there, but my train is leaving at 22:51h and I still dont have my bags packed... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And I suspect it is being force hosted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

[Mark the Merciful]

Sounds like we've got a consensus for continuing this game, and I've submitted my turn.

Norfleet, just to confirm and make sure we're clear. Are we still on Qickhost only at the moment?

Mark

[Norfleet]

That's right. It should be impossible for anyone to stale. I'm leaving it this way until everything appears to be stable again, and I've given everyone a day or so's worth of notice that the timer will be engaged following the next 1200 UTC.

[Kel]

Ugh, regular QH is something I need to avoid. We can't do a regular old force host like we were going to do ?

- Kel

[Norfleet]

It's only a temporary thing until the problem seems to go away. The alternative being people staling if the connection conks out while the sysadmin isn't around.

[Pickles]

Hi
I did not get a stale turn I think (I am sure I would have noticed, probably).
I did it at 10 am-ish IIRC
I am happy either to continue or to restart. I am also interested in another game.

Norfleet - is the Quickhost operating over the weekend too?

Pickles

[ June 25, 2004, 00:39: Message edited by: Pickles ]

[Norfleet]

Quickhost always operates. Basically the game never hosts until everybody sends in a turn. It is impossible to stale under non-timed quickhost.

This measure was instituted due to recent server connection outages, and we will probably resume regular timing if this problem doesn't recur over the weekend.

[Cainehill]

Okay - this game keeps going, and also we're starting a new, but nice and slow, game, sounds like?

Caelum and I (Pangaea) have both uploaded our pretenders for the new one. Y'all should have a private message with the server and port; just remember to click 'Disconnect' rather than 'Start Game', eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

Can I make a bid for Arco this time? I'll submit a Pretender this evening (UTC +1)

Edit: Arco now up

[ June 25, 2004, 20:36: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]

[Cainehill]

Hmmm. Were the rest of y'all not interested in the slow game Chazar sent the message about (with the server and port)? Only 3 of the 8 of us have uploaded pretenders.

Remember, this is the one that should start with 4 provinces each for a faster start, but either 48 or 72 hour long turns, so it doesn't take too much of our time.

( Even if it's just 3 of us or so, I'd still like to do the slow game as well; maybe open the game to others, but 3 would give some elbow room before the burning of temples and the crucifying of Prophets begins. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[Pickles]

" Hmmm. Were the rest of y'all not interested in the slow game Chazar sent the message about (with the server and port)? Only 3 of the 8 of us have uploaded pretenders."

I am interested but cannot decide what to play so I was waiting until more people had joined before commmiting (good decision making capabilities here you notice). Of course if everyone does this it may take a while....

If you set a deadline I will be in ..

(I assume noone minds me using one of the races that noone has already got)

Pickles

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Pickles:
" Hmmm. Were the rest of y'all not interested in the slow game Chazar sent the message about (with the server and port)? Only 3 of the 8 of us have uploaded pretenders."

I am interested but cannot decide what to play so I was waiting until more people had joined before commmiting (good decision making capabilities here you notice). Of course if everyone does this it may take a while....

If you set a deadline I will be in ..

(I assume noone minds me using one of the races that noone has already got)
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Kinda thought we'd mostly be taking the same nations, only this time with the 4 province start that had originally been intended; it'd certainly help get the game going much faster.

As is, there's still only 3 pretenders uploaded; not a single one went up over the weekend or today, which as you say, isn't exactly a great pace for getting a game started. *shrug*

[Chazar]

I'm back again and submitted turn 7 and 8...
(aah, finally some victory! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif )

...as for a starting a second game: I will start up another thread to avoid messing this thread up, since not everyone of us seems eager to get involved in a second game, and also to recruit further participants. I'm a bit busy right now, so dont expect this thread to pop up until tomorrow. If you wish to participate meanwhile, dont hesitate to upload your pretender.

[Norfleet]

Whatever glitch that was plaguing the server seems to have subsided, so if it's not a problem, I'll reinstate the timer sometime after Tuesday 1200 UTC to go off again on Wednesday.

[Chazar]

Thanks Norfleet! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
---
Second Game: delayed for unknown time. Since there is no immediate emergency anymore and only three persons uploaded their pretenders, my colleague just decided to take his server offline again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif He has to do some maintenance on it and doesnt need the server for himself either for the next few weeks. So I consider the second game cancelled, sorry. If the server is up again and available, I will post it in this forum...

However, I am happy to participate in a 48h (non-weekend) hosted game if someone else wants to start one... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Whatever glitch that was plaguing the server seems to have subsided, so if it's not a problem, I'll reinstate the timer sometime after Tuesday 1200 UTC to go off again on Wednesday. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Should the timer have gone off at 1200 UTC today? Doesn't seem to have (just as well for Marignon).

[Norfleet]

Oh, yes, let me turn that on now.

[Norfleet]

Hmm. We did have a phantom stale in another game, but that problem hasn't occurred again with anyone else. Did you receive any strange Messages to accompany your stale?

Other than that, the only thing I can think of is a peculiar interaction between quickhosting and timered hostings. How much time did it say you had before the hosting, prior to a stale? Hopefully you didn't miss anything of life-threatening importance.

[ July 01, 2004, 16:27: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Mark the Merciful]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Hmm. We did have a phantom stale in another game, but that problem hasn't occurred again with anyone else. Did you receive any strange Messages to accompany your stale?

Other than that, the only thing I can think of is a peculiar interaction between quickhosting and timered hostings. How much time did it say you had before the hosting, prior to a stale? Hopefully you didn't miss anything of life-threatening importance. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it must have been the second option; Last night's orders were executed (my army's in a new province etc), then I've received an extra turn's income and the Stale turn message. I didn't actually look at the "hours before hosting" indicator, unfortunately. I just assumed we were on the normal schedule.

Chazar, can we live without Quickhosting? I'd really rather do without the uncertainty it engenders, and barring Act of God, it must have been the quickhosting option that caused this.

[Chazar]

I received a stale turn as well, but fortunately I didnt loose my prophet this time, since she is still dead... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (Sorry for my bad humour, but I just returned from a fun fair and I am bit drunk... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

No, seriously, the same happened again as we had begun this game, were the first quick-host didnt skip the schedule as well, which caused some minor confsion. I also assume now that quick-hosting and fixed schedule is bugged somehow whenever the server is set up. However, it seemed to work well once everything was up and running!

Therefore: I recommend to let things as they are for now, but as soon as Norfleet has to touch the server again for whatever reason (or if they are any further natural stale turns) I would vote for disabling quick-hosting once and for all. Quick-hosting is nice as it might allow us some turns on some weekends (I will be available this weekend, btw.), but it is not essential!

This is just my view on the topic and I dont want to rule what we do. All I say is: As soon as there is another quirk, then disable quick-hosting - until then, watch what happens to the counter whenever you're the Last to submit your turn!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Other opinions?

[Mark the Merciful]

Despite submitting a turn yesterday evening (about 7pm UTC IIRC), I seem to have Staled after the 12pm processing today. Has this happened to anyone else? Have there been two turns processed since then?

Grrrr.

[Reverend Zombie]

Stale turn here, too.

Whoever vouched for this fixed time/quickhost schedule should be shot!

[ July 02, 2004, 02:30: Message edited by: Reverend Zombie ]

[Kel]

I staled again as well...
We need to figure out a fix for this. It is inconvenient and challenging now but if it happens later, it could prove devastating.

- Kel

[Norfleet]

I think this should be taken as evidence that Quickhost and Scheduled Hosting don't mix. The next time the server is in need of a restart, we'll just use the scheduled host, not both.

[Chazar]

Arrgh! It quick-hosted again and did not skip the schedule! And I also have problems getting a stable connection to the server...

Norflet: Please disable quickhosting before we receive another stale turn, thanks!

[ July 02, 2004, 05:24: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Norfleet]

It is done. Quickhost is gone. The game will now only perform hostings at 1200 UTC sharp.

[Chazar]

But only on weekdays right? [Edit: I wrote weekends here but meant weekdays of course...]

Can you skip todays schedule as well? I assume that not everyone will notice in time...

[ July 02, 2004, 06:00: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Norfleet]

You mean weekdays? Yes. The next scheduled hosting, the one for Friday 1200, has been cancelled this week at your request. I'll reinstate it sometime after the deadline has passed so that it'll be there next week.

[Chazar]

The game will move to a new server soon. Stay tuned.

[Chazar]

...that is hopefully. I need to go to sleep right now, so if someone else takes care that would be nice. Otherwise I will look into things again tomorrow...

[Reverend Zombie]

...that is hopefully. I need to go to sleep right now, so if someone else takes care that would be nice. Otherwise I will look into things again tomorrow...



I notice that the game appears to be down on Norf's server. Does this mean you have the fatherland file, Chazar?

If you need me to host, I'll be happy to do so, but will need to get the file from someone.

[Cainehill]

I notice that the game appears to be down on Norf's server. Does this mean you have the fatherland file, Chazar?

If you need me to host, I'll be happy to do so, but will need to get the file from someone.



Don't think he has the files - he sent me the URL that Norfleet gave him, but all we got were permissions denied, and in my case, directory does not exist.

So, hard to say if we'll get the fatherland, etc, and be able to continue. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[Chazar]

I've got the file by now and I've mailed Reverend Zombie the address for download as well.

Please let us know when we can continue, but let us skip today's hosting to be sure that everybody noticed.

By the way, turns get pretty busy right now for me, so I would really appreciate if we could loosen our schedule a bit, like skipping Wednesdays hosting...opinions?

[JJ_Colorado]

Chazar - I would be ok with slowing down the game by skipping Wednesdays, or continuing w/ the current schedule is fine as well. I'm easy.

John

[Mark the Merciful]

Glad you got the files.

I'm happy to slow down if you want to.

Mark

[Pickles]

I am ok to slow down too (not that I am doing much anyway)

Pickles

[Reverend Zombie]

Game should be up and running at i.p. zombie.dyndns.org, port 10000

Next host I have is 0800 EDT on Friday, which I believe is 1200 UTC taking into account Daylight Savings Time.

After that, the consensus seems to be that we should have fixed hosting on Mon.-Tues-Thurs.-Fri. at this time?

Also, the wireless connexion for my server goes out intermittently. I will try to catch this and restart to avoid stales.

Post in this thread if you have difficulty connecting, and when you will be next able to take your turn should the connection be down.

I am EDT, so depending upon where you are located, when I restart the server may not leave sufficient time for you to upload your turn--if you are sleeping when the next host is scheduled to go off for example. In this situation, you need to let me know that the next host should be skipped. I can force host once everyone has their turn in when this happens, then resume normal fixed host schedule.

[Mark the Merciful]

It's all workin smoothly for me.

Mark

[Chazar]

I could connect fine and uploaded my turn for friday right now. Its good that we skip thursday: my girl-friend surprisingly got a job where I live, so she's moving into my place and we're arranging marriage...which means I am a bit busy right now, but I am still hopful to manage 4 turns a week... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Esben Mose Hansen]

and we're arranging marriage...


Congratulations!

[Chazar]

Not everybody has made his turn by now, although we're hosting within 1 hour. I've sent a private message to every player that hasnt moved to notify them.

[Chazar]

Ehm, isnt it Thursday today and shouldnt there have been a hosting today? I am somewhat confused...

[Reverend Zombie]

Chazar said:
Ehm, isnt it Thursday today and shouldnt there have been a hosting today? I am somewhat confused...



Should have been; I am away from the server now, but will check on it as soon as I get the chance.

[Reverend Zombie]

I failed to set the Thursday host time (I had left it off Last week to allow everyone time to get their turn in after the move.)

Our next scheduled host is Friday 1200 UTC, then we resume hosting Mon-Tues and Thurs-Fri.

Sorry for the oversight. (Gives Mari extra time to get that turn in w/out staling, though)

[Chazar]

I cant connect to the server...anybody else?

[Cainehill]

Not since sometime Wednesday night, no - figured it was a momentary blip, but still can't.

[Reverend Zombie]

My wireless link on the server is not working and may have died.

We probably need to find a new host for this game.

Would any of the current takers be able to take over hosting duties?

[Chazar]

I am asking my friend whether he might host it, but I am not sure. I am away over the weekend, so I am not sure either whether I can give you an answer before monday...

[Mark the Merciful]

Bum

[Reverend Zombie]

Well, the game is up and running again on my server; switching the wireless channel seems to have cured the problem.

[Chazar]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif you hosted with my previously submitted turn, now I am doomed! (well not really but its annoying)

Nevertheless I am happy that you will continuing hosting, do you? (Otherwise my friend can host, but his server is quite slow...)

[Reverend Zombie]

Ahh, that is the host that went off this morning, before I was aware we had a problem. I was a few minutes late checking the server, or I would have skipped the host.

I will continue hosting, assuming incidents like this every now and again don't both anyone too much...

[Mark the Merciful]

Oh hell, does this mean the server's going to host again in 3 hours time? That means I'm going to stale (again - if what you're saying is that the restart effectively forced a stale already).

[Chazar]

I would also recommend to set out hosting whenever the server was unavailable for some time, because it could be just that time window a player had planned to submit his turn. So I would like to set out this hosting, since two players (Ulm &amp; Marignon) are still missing!

(Or we might switch to QuickHost only to prevent such problems at all. I'd rather enjoy a good fight than my enemies staling...)

@Mark the Merciful: Didnt look like you were staling Last turn, since your forces attacked according to my reports. BUT it is indeed hosting within to hours and you have not submitted a turn! Can you reach Reverend Zombie to set out hosting?

[Chazar]

@Mark: I had submitted my turn before I read your post, i.e. I did not take advantage of knowing that you might stale. Nevertheless, a stale turn is certainly a huge disadvantage for you while being involved in battle with me, so I am willing to even out the score:

I could imagine of not moving all my armies concerned with our battle once within the next three or four turns. Would you consider that fair? Its not exactly like a stale, but you could prepare for that on the other hand as well. Any other suggestions?

[Reverend Zombie]

Ulm will not stale, we will skip the host today.

I think Marignon has missed a couple of recent turns lately, not all of which were caused by the recent server outage.

So...I am not sure quickhost is a good idea unless we can verify that Marignon is still with us.

[Chazar]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Pretty good! Thanks Reverend Zombie!

I am unavailable over the weekend, so could someone else try to contact Marignon please?

[Mark the Merciful]

Phew! Thanks very much Reverend. I was not looking forward to staling against Caelum!

[Reverend Zombie]

Chazar said:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Pretty good! Thanks Reverend Zombie!

I am unavailable over the weekend, so could someone else try to contact Marignon please?



Marignon is "undead dolphin hacker," I'll send them a PM.

[Cainehill]

With regards to the "Pangaea has had an unexplainable increase in wealth ths turn, probably caused by cheating" message, that apparently comes up now even when you _don't_ remove the Alchemist Stone from the mage doing alchemy.

And with a treasury that now contains 44 gold, I have a nagging suspicion that the game -stole- money from me, as I'd had something like 500 the turn before. Hard to be positive, what with the ... 3 day pause between turns. (Did Alchemy, sent the resultant gold to another player.)

[Chazar]

When exactly are we all updating to V2.13?

(@Cainehill: Alchemists rejoice with the new bug fix... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

[Reverend Zombie]

As your host, I'd like to finish this game under 2.12.

[Chazar]

Umh, ok... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif I thought that Mosehansen's server will be updated soon and most of us are playing there as well, so updating our game would safe those of us playing there as well the hassle of having two different Versions of Dom2 on their harddisks. Since I also do not see any disadvantages of updating, I thought we are updating as well, but by any means, I do not insist in updating.

[Cainehill]

No problem with staying with 2.12 here - albeit there may be more "cheating" Messages caused by my using the Stone of Alchemy.

[Reverend Zombie]

Chazar said:
Umh, ok... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif I thought that Mosehansen's server will be updated soon and most of us are playing there as well, so updating our game would safe those of us playing there as well the hassle of having two different Versions of Dom2 on their harddisks. Since I also do not see any disadvantages of updating, I thought we are updating as well, but by any means, I do not insist in updating.



I'm playing games on Mose too, and agree that is a compelling factor bearing on when to patch. Let's keep an eye on that, shall we?

[Cainehill]

Chazar said:
Umh, ok... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif I thought that Mosehansen's server will be updated soon and most of us are playing there as well, so updating our game would safe those of us playing there as well the hassle of having two different Versions of Dom2 on their harddisks. Since I also do not see any disadvantages of updating, I thought we are updating as well, but by any means, I do not insist in updating.



The disadvantages of updating are never known until several days after people have downloaded and installed the patch, possibly breaking things. (Look at how long it took to get the Skratti and Great Warlock back, as a minor example of this.)

[Mark the Merciful]

I'd vote to stay synchronised with what's running on mosehansen, if possible.

[Reverend Zombie]

Mark the Merciful said:
I'd vote to stay synchronised with what's running on mosehansen, if possible.



Problems with the Linux patch probably means Mose won't upgrade till that gets straightened out.

[Chazar]

Mark the Merciful said:
I'd vote to stay synchronised with what's running on mosehansen, if possible.



That is exactly what I wanted to express in my previous Posts!

(The Linux-patch seems to be there, but there are still other issues which might prevent mosehansen from updating anyway...)

[Chazar]

HELP!

I have problems connecting with the server: It asks my password, but then the screen goes black and nothing happens for at least 10 minutes. It probably something weird with my laptop computer or with the Internetcafe I am in, although other Dom2-Games seemed to work...

...so please, could you stop hosting until Tuesday next week? I am away from home at a conference right now and I wont return home until Tuesday next week, so that I could try and reinstall the game. I also wont visit the forum regularly since I need to go to an Internetcafe to do so, which is quite away from my hotel (which doesnt offer any connection to the internet despite calling itself a buisness-hotel! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Thanks!

[Chazar]

PS: I did try my laptop before and did my Last two turns via my laptop, just to make sure that everything works while I am away. I cant understand why it isnt working right now!

PPS: I can connect with Mosehansen (Glacier) just fine, so I assume that there is indeed some Problem with the server! So please disable hosting for this week! Thanks!

[Reverend Zombie]

Has anyone else had trouble connecting? Seems to be running fine.

[Cainehill]

No problems here - I guess that explains the 170 hour hosting I was wondering about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Alternatively though, perhaps Chazar could email his .2h file to Rev. Zombie? Then it could be placed in the game directory, and we could avoid going to 7 day 'quickhost' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

No problem for me (either connecting, or giving Chazar time to get things working again).

Cainehill: Your plan doesn't work if Chazar wasn't able to connect to see the results of Tuesday's hosting in the first place.

I sort of wondered if an internet cafe would have a firewall that objects to the strange IP ports that the DomII host uses; but if he can connect to mosehansen then it's hard to see why Rev. Zombie's server should be treated as a different case.

Mark

[Reverend Zombie]

On another note...

I could set the game to quickhost, but Marignon is AWOL and did not reply to my PM.

Chazar originally set up the game on Norfleet's server, so I don't know if there is master password.

The remaining players *cough* might want to think about setting Marignon to AI if there is indeed a master password. Then I could set the game to quickhost.

[Cainehill]

Mark the Merciful said:
Cainehill: Your plan doesn't work if Chazar wasn't able to connect to see the results of Tuesday's hosting in the first place.



The plan works if the .trn is mailed to him - then it doesn't matter at all if he can connect to the server.

Also - if Chazar is Marignon I don't see a need to set him to AI, even if we do have to wait out the week. If it's someone else who hasn't been taking their turns....

[Mark the Merciful]

Chazar is Caelum, and would probably be completely screwed if he missed 2-3 turns (I'd make sure of it).

Mind you, given that he's turned down my highly generous peace terms, perhaps I should be taking a different line...

Er, Reverend? How much would, say, three hostings by Monday cost me? Cheque OK?

Mark

[Kel]

It's someone else.

- Kel

[Reverend Zombie]

Marignon/Chazar are separate issues.

I am holding the game till Chazar returns, but we still have the problem of AWOL Marignon preventing quickhost.

[Chazar]

-I thank you all for waiting for me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I am still away from home, but I will return on monday evening...

-I still got problems connecting with my laptop (still a black screen after the password entry), while other Dom2-games (on mosehansen) work fine. So maybe mailing the .trn file to me would be very nice! I havnt seen the Last turn yet!

-I dont know the masterpassword. Norfleet set up our game and I didnt ask him for the masterpassword when he sent me the files. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

-Marignon seems to be missing, and UndeadDoplhinHacker did not appear in this forum either for some time. This is odd, since I had diplomatic dealings with him and would have expected him to tell us if he would drop out... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Chazar]

I am back at home and could connect without any problem. I am too tired to play now, but I am sure that I can do my turn tomorrow morning just in time for the 12.00h deadline!

Dont know whats wrong with my laptop and why it didnt like just this game out of three other Dom2-games. I even deleted the directory and tried to connect anew, but it hangs after choosing the nation as well. Weird! My Dekstop still uses Win98SE, while my Laptop uses WinXP, could this be a problem? I am going to update my Desktop tomorrow (after submitting my turn first - of course) and I am worried that the Problem might therefore return, but I need to update my machine...(In case of emergency I might use an alternate machine...)

[Cainehill]

Cool. Let me see if I remember right - this is the game with Aliens versus Pretenders? It's been a while.

Just kidding. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Chazar]

What are we doing with respect to the Marignon problem? Since we cannot set Marignon to AI, I would suggest that everybody should ignore their provinces from now on...

I mean, both Abysia, Pangaea and Caelum could easily invade Marignon territory, but where is the sense in this if there is no opposition? So I would treat those provinces as non-existing for the remainder of the game or until Marignon returns...

[Cainehill]

There's still the armies which Marignon had built. More importantly, what you suggest is equivalent to changing the map long after the game was started, when people have built fortresses, consolidated armies, etc, with certain plans in mind.

For instance - it was quite on purpose that Abysia has an open passage to the lands of Marignon, so that they could expand after T'ien C'hi was destroyed, without having to decide whether or not to break treaties made with Pangaea.

Given that I have to finish off T'ien C'hi, and then eradicate R'lyeh for starting a war with me, I'm not going to be benefiting particularly much from Marignon's going AWOL.

But it ain't right to penalize a couple of nations because a player (undead dolphin hacker, was it? I'll be staying out of games with him in it, in the future) dropped out, and because the game was created without a master password.

[Kel]

Hehe, it's a bit ironic that this is a constant problem in games and a protocol/etiquette never seems to have been settled on by the community.

- Kel

[Pickles]

Cainehill said:
Given that I have to finish off T'ien C'hi, and then eradicate R'lyeh for starting a war with me, I'm not going to be benefiting particularly much from Marignon's going AWOL.





Ha Start a war indeed our mighty ally Tien Chi invited us to fight the nasty green things and promised us great rewards when we did so. We are looking forward to these rewards with great anticipation...

Nyarlathotep

edited to make the next post nonsensical http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Kel]

Antipation ? What is that, some sort of squid bodily function ? j/k

- Kel

[Reverend Zombie]

Pickles said:
Ha Start a war indeed our mighty ally Tien Chi invited us to fight the nasty green things and promised us great rewards when we did so. We are looking forward to these rewards with great antiipation...

Nyarlathotep



Yeah, sorry about that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

Abysia and Pangaea were too much for even the "mighty" T'ien Ch'i to handle. Did you two coordinate your attacks, or was that just coincidence?

[JJ_Colorado]

Hi,

I happen to have the missing Marignon's email address and have mailed him to ask him to set his country to AI. Hopefully he'll do this which would solve the problem. However if he will not do this I (Abysia) intend to attack Marignon. I have no other choice really. But I would be willing to basically just carve a single-province path through Mari to minimize my gains and get me into contact with the rest of the world. Of course if someone starts attacking Mari provinces and flanking my single line of provinces I'll have to expand out some to defend my silly single-chain of provinces. :-)

Regds,
John

[Mark the Merciful]

Given that mosehansen has now upgraded to 2.14, can we do the same?

Mark

[Reverend Zombie]

Done. 2.14.

[Cainehill]

Bah.

Edit: Okay, not as bad as I thought.

[Chazar]

Uhoh: Does this means that the turn I had submitted yesterday evening is going to be rejected? Help!
(I cannot redo my turn here at work!)

[Chazar]

Ok, I got home, patched my Dom-Version, found that the turn was still there, altered the turn a bit and resubmitted it to the server... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

So I hope that everything is well now. I just recall that I have read somewhere here that one ought to reload the turn from the host in order to cope with the patch...phew!

I am okay with whatever we do with marignon, but it would be nice if UndeadDolphinHacker could be convinced to set himself to AI or find a replacement...

[Mark the Merciful]

I think, as you've found, that according to Illwinter turns from 2.12, 2.13, and 2.14 are essentially compatible, apart from battle replays.

Mark

[Mark the Merciful]

Reverend,

I've been trying to connect to the server to get in a Last-minute turn submission, and it seesm to be down. Could you check it for me when you've a chance, and give me a couple of hours to get my turn in once it's restarted?

Thanks

Mark

[Chazar]

Mark the Merciful said:
I think, as you've found, that according to Illwinter turns from 2.12, 2.13, and 2.14 are essentially compatible, apart from battle replays.




Ah! I was not aware of that. I've searched the forum and all I found was a post were it was recommended to patch only after hosting and that turns had to be reloaded, which made me fear. However that post was pretty old...


As for connection: Not so long ago I could connect just fine (server displayed 3 hours to hosting). Alas, I cant try now as I am at work now...

If the server is up and running, then something is really odd: As I have written, I couldnt connect with my laptop two weeks ago, but could do so with my desktop. I tried the next turn with my laptop and everything was fine again, although I did not alter anything on either machine... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Reverend Zombie]

Mark the Merciful said:
Reverend,

I've been trying to connect to the server to get in a Last-minute turn submission, and it seesm to be down. Could you check it for me when you've a chance, and give me a couple of hours to get my turn in once it's restarted?

Thanks

Mark



Server appears to be running fine. Anyone else having difficulties connecting now?

[Chazar]

JJ_Colorado said:
I happen to have the missing Marignon's email address and have mailed him to ask him to set his country to AI. Hopefully he'll do this which would solve the problem. However if he will not do this I (Abysia) intend to attack Marignon.
John



Any news from Marignon?

I dont think that your suggestion of carving a path through Marignon-territory makes much sense. Either we leave Marginon in peace as it is or we attack full scale. Either case is fine with me (I understand the arguments given) as long as I get informed what we agree on in time.

So how long do we wait for an email-response? Or are you already attacking? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Kel]

The lands of Marignon should clearly revert to their original owners, the swampfolk of C'tis, from whom all the other humanoids eventually devolved. I assume there is no dissent on this matter ?

- Swampfolk of C'tis http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JJ_Colorado]

Hi Chazar,

Marignon responded to my email and seemed to be unaware that we'd moved servers (he thought game was over). So I think(?)he is going to set himself to AI or else do his turns. Anyway, attack Mari if you like. I'm planning on it.

John

[Chazar]

JJ_Colorado said:
Anyway, attack Mari if you like. I'm planning on it.


Since I've seen Abysian forces attacking Marignon territory Last round, I have already put a few idle units that were in reach into action this turn. You wouldnt have thought that the Lord of Ice would watch the Forces of Fire wreak havoc in north without any response...? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Its a shame though that my armies are still engaged elsewhere...

However, if Marignon wants to resume gameplay, I will respect the non-agression treaty that was once made again...

[JJ_Colorado]

Well, I've taken one Mari province and I got a stale turn Last turn so my advance is certainly no blitzkrieg so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

John

[Chazar]

JJ_Colorado said:
...so my advance is certainly no blitzkrieg so far.


(Edit: Post deleted in shame after the current turn...)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif That certainly looks like a Blitzkrieg to me!

[JJ_Colorado]

Yeah, turn 2 of my invasion was much better than turn one. LOL.

Seriously, drop me an email at johnpruner at yahoo.com and we'll work out a border if you'd like.

John

[Mark the Merciful]

No! Don't "work out a border" with evil monster-Caelum. Attack! Attack! Attack!

*cough*

[Cainehill]

Say, would anyone be opposed to us trying to go to a sane schedule? 48 or 72 hour hostings, instead of sometimes 24, sometimes 48, sometimes 72? Would've gotten a stale this turn if I hadn't gotten out of bed at midnight to check. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Chazar]

I would be really happy with any slower schedule, provided that there is still no hosting on Sat/Sun required.

A few of us (including me) are also playing in "Glacier" on Mosehansen's, so it might be convenient to mimick the schedule, i.e. 96h-Quickhost-Only. Glacier seems to progress quite nicely despite of the slow schedule and 17 players being involved...

If this is rejected as being to slow, then I would like to keep the fixed-time hosting, i.e. swichting to something like MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, &amp; FRIDAY, which would give a -48-48-72 rythm (instead of our current rythm -24-48-24-72).

[Reverend Zombie]

I'll be happy to make any changes the players want, but as mentioned before, quickhost won't work if Marignon hasn't set themselves to AI. I haven't checked on that lately, so they might have.

[Cainehill]

Chazar said:
I would be really happy with any slower schedule, provided that there is still no hosting on Sat/Sun required.

[...] it might be convenient to mimick the schedule, i.e. [...] 96h-Quickhost-Only. [...]

If this is rejected as being to slow, then I would like to keep the fixed-time hosting, i.e. swichting to something like MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, &amp; FRIDAY, which would give a -48-48-72 rythm (instead of our current rythm -24-48-24-72).



Glacier really moves a bit too slow; 48/48/72 would seem far more preferable than 96; if it's tricky to set that up, a pure 72QH maybe? It shouldn't really matter if there's a hosting on Sat/Sun with that, because you could still take your turns on Friday and Monday.

[Chazar]

Reverend Zombie said:
I'll be happy to make any changes the players want, but as mentioned before, quickhost won't work if Marignon hasn't set themselves to AI.



If Abysia continues its current progress http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif , Marignon wont see another turn, so quickhost is indeed an option, at most within three turns...
(@Abysia: Let me know if you need some aid to finish Marignon off... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

----

I dont see why 48-48-72 is tricky to set up? All that needs to be changed is disabling the scheduled hosts on Tuesday &amp; Thursday and renabling the scheduled hosting Wednesday again as it once was...

I dont think I can manage a 72h QH: It is true that I can avoid playing on the weekend, but still it means an additional turn per week. I can hardly keep up to do the 4 turns per week with our current schedule. I really like to play this game, but I must also work on my PhD-thesis real hard, and in no way I can afford to play an additional turn per week, sorry! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif 96QH would be really beneficial to me and my thesis!

[Cainehill]

Ummm.... 72 would be 2 1/3 turns a week, less than the current 4.

[Reverend Zombie]

Okay, this math hurts.

You all figure this out, delegate a spokesman, and have them post here what the FINAL, DEFINITIVE, hosting schedule ought to be, and I will MAKE IT SO.

Please make clear when you are posting that you are the SPOKESMAN and that the schedule is FINAL and DEFINITIVE, else I'll ignore the post as merely another entry in the running debate.

[Chazar]

Cainehill said:
Ummm.... 72 would be 2 1/3 turns a week, less than the current 4.



Okay, okay, 72QH is fine with me. However we still need to wait until Marignon is defeated. What about our other players? Everbody ok with that schedule change?

@Reverend Zombie: I did not expect you to watch this thread since TienChi was defeated, so sorry if this discussion is annoying you. It might be more convenient for you if we will send you a private message via the Boards messaging facility once we've decided to alter the schedule. Is that ok for you?

[Kel]

I find that I can make my moves quite quickly this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

[Mark the Merciful]

I'll go with whatever the consensus is.

Mark

[Pickles]

As asked :- I like that this is fixed host so would rather stick with that (although it has confused me in the past)

I would not object to QH though if everyone else wants it.

Pickles

[JJ_Colorado]

I'd go for 72h quickhost.

Marignon is conquered as far as I know. I can't see any Mari provinces or troops left. I'm not sure why the Mari global is still up, a bug I guess??

John
--Abysia

[Chazar]

There had already been a message that the Pretender of Marignon had been defeated two turns ago, and one could also confirm this with the nation info screen. (Can somebody check this? I cant right now.) I guess the continued global is still due to the old bug.


So regarding the schedule, the votes seem to be:

72h QH : Cainehill, JJ_Colorado
Fixed Mo,We,Fr: Pickles, Chazar
Indifferent : Kel, Mark the Merciful

So its a tie, but since both Pickles and myself have admitted that we would not object to 72h QH to prevent a deadlock, we're decided on that now.

I thus send a message to Reverend Zombie to alter the schedule, but I have another problem: Unexpectedly I need to go to a workshop on Mon-Thu next week, and with the bad experiences from another workshop a few weeks ago, I severely doubt that I might connect to the internet again. I already bought myself a phone-plug adaptor for the UK though, so I will try to connect at least. I can make my Last turn on Sunday ~07.00UTC and again on Friday, so it would be nice if somone would volunteer to submit his turn as late as posssible before the deadline (on Wednesday morning with the new schedule). Anyone? Otherwise I beg my enemies not to take the opportunity that my stale turn might offer them...

[Mark the Merciful]

I'm having trouble connecting. Is this general?

[Chazar]

I've uploaded my turn yesterday evening without problems, but I cant try right now since I am at work... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Send a PM to Reverend Zombie! Maybe he can stop the server...

[Chazar]

Mark the Merciful said:
I'm having trouble connecting. Is this general?


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I cannot connect anymore either!!! I will send Reverend Zombie another PM should the problem persist until tomorrow!

[Chazar]

Still cant connect to zombie.dyndns.org (resolved to 66.66.186.60 - could those who still can connect verify the IP-address? Thanks!).

I also got no reply from Reverend Zombie about the schedule change...

[Mark the Merciful]

The Reverend is on Honeymoon until th 10th, I think, so if there's a problem with his server at home I imagine we're going to have to wait for a few days.

[Chazar]

Hmm, alright, that's a good reason! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Can anybody else connect or will it be just the two of us that are going to stale then?

[JJ_Colorado]

i can't connect either

j

[Cainehill]

He's on a honeymoon so we can't play? Make that 102 reasons why Marriage is a Bad Thing! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And nope - seems none of us can connect, I'll be somewhat curious to see how many of us do wind up with a stale.

[Reverend Zombie]

A quick check of the server seems to indicate things are okay, though it looks as though everyone staled Last time.

Can anyone connect now?

[Cainehill]

Nope - still not getting anything at 66.66.186.60 port 10000.

[Chazar]

I can connect again at 69.201.103.35, port 10000. Seems like dyndns lacked behind a bit, strange... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I cant manage my turn right now as I need to go to work, and in anycase I'd recommend to let it on pure QH for a couple of days until everybody notices that the game continues and that everything is back to normal business...

Oh, btw, it seems like I only got a single stale turn... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

I can connect again.

[Chazar]

Greetings from Scotland!

Had anyone encountered further connection problems recently? Seems fine with me!

[Cainehill]

It's good, only problem is waiting for Ulm (who just returned from overseas trip) to check email and do his turn.

[Reverend Zombie]

So is this game dead or what? Ulm has been holding things up for over a week, yes?

[Cainehill]

I've been sending him Messages, but he just got back from travel, and the in-game Messages he hasn't gotten because the game was stopped.

Give it a couple more days, okay?

[Chazar]

It would be really a shame if this game isnt played up to the end...and I do not mind a delay!
Even though Ulm will probably not win this game anymore, he might be capable of seriously damaging me, so I also vote to wait for Mark the Merciful to make his turn. And being away is good excuse and a short term thing anyway.

We should switch to QH72hrs as soon as he (and everyone else) is back.

[Cainehill]

Cool! Elvis, I mean Mark the Merciless, has entered the building, and a new turn has run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Chazar]

The Server seems to be down again...or at least I am unable to connect...

Update: ReverendZombie experiences some problems and is already working on it...

[Reverend Zombie]

Chazar said:
The Server seems to be down again...or at least I am unable to connect...

Update: ReverendZombie experiences some problems and is already working on it...



Server is up and running again.

[Mark the Merciful]

Hi folks.

Thanks to everyone for their understanding and patience as expressed above.

I seem to have overloaded myself with games, but done it in such a gradual way that I didn't notice until I went abroad on holiday. The holiday was very nice, but I found when I came to settle up that I'd run up an internet access bill that was bigger than my bar bill in trying to keep up with my games. The rhythm I'd got into pre-holiday was completely disrupted, and I missed a large number of deadlines in different games during the week after I came back.

I've now, mostly, got my game schedule re-organised and running again. So sorry to everyone for delaying things. I plan to be submitting turns on-time from now on.

Mark

P.S. I really doubt I'll be able to "seriously damage" Caelum at this point. Aggravate and annoy, maybe. Attack him now or you're all doomed!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Chazar]

Mark the Merciful said:
P.S. I really doubt I'll be able to "seriously damage" Caelum at this point. Aggravate and annoy, maybe. Attack him now or you're all doomed!



Whilst thou ever shut up, thee thiny undead vampire wurm that writhes in the dust between the cracks of my ever stomping boots? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

...and "serious" is kind of relative: Sure the temples you burn down every other round are not that much of a harm; the fully equipped High Seraphs and Seraphines you destroyed can be recruited and trained again; the fully equipped AirQueen you mercilessly slaughtered may be summoned and equipped again; sure none of these do permanent damage - but never ever underestimate the huge moral loss I myself am constantly suffering for not catching this evil ethereal wind-ride-resisting blood-sucking vampire wench of yours! You suck me dry alive! Considering the magical might I command, what a shame to live with is this?! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

---

Nevertheless am I happy that you are back and that you did not suffer a stale turn, for that would only even magnify my shame. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Furthermore I am pretty busy myself and happy for any delay not being my own fault. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif Now I go back home and do my turn...

(Honestly: I really appreciate that both you, Mark the Merciful, and Kel are not abandoning this game at this point!)

[Chazar]

According to our earlier agreement and since connecting seems ok, I asked Reverend Zombie to switch to 72hrs QH now...

So please remember to email him to switch it back to QH should you know that your are away for sometime, I guess nobody has problems with that...

[Chazar]

BEWARE:The 72hrs Quickhost schedule is now in place...

[Chazar]

It seems that the 72hrs schedule is somewhat problematic: R'yleh already staled according to my scouts and Pangaea's player is currently pretty busy. I prefer a delay rather than staling opponents anyway, so I propose to switch back to unlimited Quickhosting after the next turn (C'tis was just defeated but is still shown as active for this turn, so I assume that this could prevent an ordinary quickhost?)!

That game is pretty exciting for me and I would really like to see it played to the end. So please remind yourself to do your turn once in a while! It would be a real shame if this game would be dying...

[Cainehill]

Woulnd't mind pure QH myself. Especially as right now the host (zombie.dyndns.org) isn't resolving - anyone know the IP address, or is the machine offline?

[Reverend Zombie]

Try 69.201.103.35 for the i.p.

DNS problems, I think.

[Cainehill]

Yep, the IP address did it. Thanks.

[Chazar]

Beware: the 72hrs schedule is still in place, and the game host within 3 hours, although R'yleh has not made its turn yet. I have asked Reverend Zombie to switch the game to QH only yesterday anyway!

[Reverend Zombie]

My apologies for the delay; game is now QH-only.

[Chazar]

Thanks! Besides, everyone knew that we where on 72hrs limit...

[Chazar]

Does anyone know something about Pickles? He staled the Last turn, has not done his turn up until now, has not replied to my private Messages via this board and is about to stale in the Glacier-game as well (5 min to hosting)...

It would be nice to know whether he is just temporarily busy and will return to the game eventually. So does anyone know something about Pickles? Maybe an email-address?

[Chazar]

How long are we going to wait for Pickles to return? How do we continue if that time is up?

[Chazar]

Cainehill? JJ_Colorado?

[Cainehill]

Not sure about Pickles - is he R'lyeh? Have you sent him a PM yet? Myself, I'm not in a _huge_ hurry since my GF is here until Saturday morning, so if I don't have to take a turn before then, so much the better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But if he doesn't reply to a PM, since he didn't say anything about being temporarily AWOL, guess you'll have to AI him or something, presuming you have the master password?

[Chazar]

Yes, Pickles is R'yleh and has not replied to PM so far. I do not have his eMail. And, no, Norfleet did not tell me the master password, so we cannot set him to AI... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

So considering Cainhill's situation, I think it is the best to ask ReverendZombie to set the game back to 72hrs QH after this weekend. Since in my view the game is still interesting enough even without R'yleh. So do we three (Cainehill/Pangaea, JJ_Colorado/Abysia, Chazar/Caelum) continue our epic struggle for godhood or is anyone else giving it up already???

@JJ_Colorado: Are you still there as well and interested in beating me up? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (Not that I will let you beat me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

[Mark the Merciful]

I haven't been paying much attention to this game, but I have noticed that turns haven't been executed. I can contact Pickles in RL and pass on your message.

Mark

[Cainehill]

Mark the Merciful said:
I haven't been paying much attention to this game, but I have noticed that turns haven't been executed. I can contact Pickles in RL and pass on your message.

Mark



Doesn't seem like you've been paying any attention to For_Who_The_Bell_Tolls - could you please at _least_ go AI there?

[Chazar]

@Mark the Merciful: That would be very kind! Please tell him that we are waiting for him to do his turn and that we have set the game to QH only. It would be nice to know whether he will resume to play and is just temporarily busy or whether he has already abandoned our game without going AI nor giving any notice to us!

[Chazar]

No reply from Pickles nor from Mark the Merciful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I have already send emails and PMs more than a week ago.

I am tired of waiting any longer. I do think that this game might be interesting to play out, even with R'yleh staling. So I suggest asking ReverendZombie to switch back to 72hrs schedule. (in fact 96h would suit me better, but I do not worry to much, but both Abysia and Pangaea seemed to have problems with 72hrs, no?)

So, please, Cainehill and JJ_Colorado, what do you think? Are interested in playing out this game?

[Cainehill]

I wound'nt mind, if JJ is still in. This is one of the ones where we don't have a master password, right? (Because it'd be better if we could set nations to AI, but I don't think we can.)

Mark has been ... Well, I don't want to say what he's been in a public forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif but he's been taking turns occasionally in some games, and ignoring others, despite Messages sent. I say burn him at the stake, and serve him with poblano BBQ sauce! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Chazar]

I dont know about other games, but Mark the Merciful has played this game until the very end of his nation - and it had been quite a slow end where he continued to fight me when hope of recovery was already lost for quite a couple of turns. I really appreciate that and would play with him again!!!

His offer to contact Pickles was also quite kind, and I remember that he posted in another MP Game thread (which I am not connected to) that he is pretty busy and occupied by something. @Cainehill: so please do not continue to be rude towards him within this particular game thread!


I am disappointed by Pickles abandoning this game without a notice, but we do not know the circumstances and he seemed to have disappeared completely. So I do not want to judge this, and I do not think that this could serve any useful purpose anyway.


Anyway, as soon as JJ send us a live-sign and signals that is willing to continue play, I will send a message to Reverend Zombie asking him to
set the game to 96hrs quickhost (72hrs might be a bit too short for me over Christmas).