Multiplayer not ready

Yes we went from the largest map size down to small with reducing AI opponents we even swapped who hosted the game with the same dire results even 3 human players crashed straight away and then we tried 2 human players only no AI no minors on a small map and it froze on the very 1st turn (sorry supreme Ham) This needs sorting out asap especially with the launch date coming up next week.

Btw while I was playing single player today I had a bug where I had multiple birthing subsidies appear on every planet queue the most was 4 then it reduced to 2 and when I restarted the game it went back to normal (I have screen shots if you want me to make them public so you can see them?)

Anyway I'm enjoying the game but multiplayer really needs a shot in the arm.

Okay I attempted to play a moment ago with another player with insane map and 50 races and got it to load.  Game became non-responsive in first turn.

P.S.  This is the furthest I got in version [0.97.5.0] I got to this point I believe by completely unistalling Gal Civ III, reinstalling deleting old saved files and obsolete files in my folders (although the cloud sync brought some back).  having steam run its cache check and was able to get it this far...

So it appears at least some of the crash issues I was seeing may be related to old or obsolete files...

After what felt like endless Start button crashes on MP games we actually got a game going for about 60 turns (in 0.97.5), with numerous crash>reloads along the way, before we encountered a persistent crash point that no amount of reloading would get us past.  Game over.

Please submit tickets if you haven't already on this issue w/ your dmp files and debug.err and saved games...  all this helps to fix it....

The information is very appreciated, we are all beating on it here at Stardock too. Stay tuned.

I'm sure if you wanted to we have plenty of players in the forum or game that would join you lol, keep up the good work, however, we all understand you can't work 24/7 as you all have families too  [or I'm sure at least most of you do]

Another thing related to this is with 50+ races on insane map the first turn time is horrible, the game goes into a 100% processor usage period (single or multiplayer) for 5+ minutes before it drops back down and the game continues.  This causes it to appear like the game has frozen.  After that the turns go by quickly.  If it's this bad at 50 players I hate to imagine what it is at 100+ on insane map

Don't tell them they have families. They may want to go home. We can't have that.

We updated the opt-in tonight with MP fixes as well as some limits. Our most troublesome issues are in mods, custom factions and pirates. So we disabled those in MP. Please test and let us know if MP works for you now. We want to make sure this works, and then we will focus on adding the additional features back in.

Multiplayer game open if anyone wants to join...

Just tried multiplayer with Seilore....WORKing MUCH MUCH better.

Thanks Derek,  Game appears to be a lot more stable... Played 40+ turns on huge w/ another human and 8 ai and all minors no crashes appears a lot more stable... Miss the custom races though  

Another change we noticed is the different race colors (being changed with same colors on map).  Thanks for all the hard work...

Thanks Derek your a star

Hey Seilore hit me up if and when you want to try out another rematch seeing as MP is getting fixed

Looking forward to giving MP another attempt later on.

Great work guys...  Played some more this morning...  This time with 3 human players, and all 8 AI players, huge map, abundant, and max minor races...  The first game on launch failed crashed for both of the other two human players.  The second game though is up and going strong.  So far 15 turns in...  Still missing custom races but, at least it appears playable.

Woohoo. Thanks for the kudos, but it really belongs to the developers that were in all weekend getting this working and the great QA staff we have here helping them identify problems.

Chat is a bit buggy the text of it. Had one game that stalled on waiting even the player had hit end turn.  I think if MP is fixed it is amazing.

Still crashes during MP, mostly when someone is designing a ship.

When restoring from a save game the map is messed up with large square chunks of explored space turning unexplored.

Econ wheel also resets itself for the client on save load, which can be a colossal PITA when you've got lots of colonies.

Hmm really hope they fix mp. Play by email would be great as well. As it is now it is a broken feature Had 2 more crashes now one as hosting one as joining. I am on a high end computer with a high range adsl and router that is set up to to dmz to my ip so should not be any problems.

UP is still busted as well: on the host UP resolutions are declared even before any of the clients have voted.  Also, if a client is Chair then the game is reloaded it seems to forget that detail. 

Given this, and the map problems, it looks like restoring a MP session forgets a fair bit about what the clients had set/chosen, were doing, and had explored.  The game crashes quite a lot in MP and with client data not all being saved it makes for a very, very frustrating experience.

That has to be fixed. Must have fixes:

1. Reloading should reload the exact same data

2. In case of out of synch there should be an option to resynch the game where everyone is thrown back to a lobby then can continue. (Look to endless legend how they do this)

3. Make sure that using custom factions is fixed. (that includes those who use custom images etc.)

4. Fix chat window. Right now sometimes the chat is bugged in the lobby screen.

Optional stuff: (my opinion)

1. Add a simultaneous move mode if possible. 

2. Add a play by email mode. (I think this game could be very suited to PBEM). If you want to make it really cool add a PBEM server so the sending is automated and you can log in to your game and see you have another turn.

3. Add more features for the metaverse with MP. Get back the good old clans and guilds and have a map that is influenced by score of games. This was such a cool feature back in the good old days and now with MP added for a first in the series it would be great if looked into again.

fluffy (even more optional and even more my opinion):

1. Make the game less micro intensive. Right now with no overflow of production it is crazy micro intensive to every turn adjust ever single planet for 1 turn builds. I think there should be overflow in this game. If this cannot be done atleast in the overview screen let us easily tweak the social manufacturing spending so this can be adjusted more quickly.

2. Add in game information. Right now how scores are calculated is a great mystery.

3. Add turn timers and stuff like planet elimination rules. (X numbers of planets lost your out of the game. See how civ4 did this.)

There is actually overflow in the game, manu and research both overflow over when they complete an item.

Cool stalker0 if that is the case. It did not look that way for the buildings I had on my planet. For example when a building cost me 30 it would not help to build for 60 and then next turn nothing more.