TCP/IP Works?

[targul]

Someone else on the board and myself just spent about 2 hours trying to get it to work to no avail. No firewalls or anything. It would sometimes connect but after half a turn it would lock up.

Too bad this game is perfect for this media but it seems to have some serious connection problems not exhibited in the other TCP/IP games I play.

[firepowerjohan]

Ok, since you did connect then it means the firewall did not prevent it. Does anyone of you have a shaky Internet problem or temprarily bad Internet connection on the day of the tests? Did it work any better when you tried later on? Would be interestin to know if this problem only arrised on this day or if it always exist between you two. Also, if you try TcpIP against some other player and if it worked better.

[Forwarn45]

No internet problems at all for me - but somehow the connection didn't stick. I'll have to give it a try another time. The best we got was through 1 German turn and then it froze on the Allied turn. Usually, didn't make it past a couple German attacks........

[targul]

We even tried this using direct DSL without going through our ISP in case connection was the problem but no luck.

[targul]

Since I had been on a couple of IP games today prior to this one without problem and went on one immediately after we stopped playing this one I really doubt it was connection.

[firepowerjohan]

TcpIP is one of the top priorities for the next patch so I am trying to put together as much information as possible from ppl playing. Currently, there are quite few ppl posting about TcpIp games so it is hard to tell how many and why they had problems.

[Forwarn45]

We were also only able to connect one way, with me as host. When we tried to switch hosts - we could not get the game to connect.

Anyway, the farthest we made it was through one German turn and the first attack of the Allied turn before we lost it. All the other times it crashed sometime during the German turn. There was usually no warning and you could keep playing, but the opponent wasn't there anymore.

[Dave Ferguson]

I am well into a TCPIP game and it does work once you have overcome the problems and follow a well established procedure.

I had the game crash problem playing as the axis and also could not host the game, so my opponent had to host.

It turned out it was my windows firewall which I had not set to recognise commander as a valid exception to the blocking filter. I reckon this can cause a problem even if you are not hosting as occasionally the remote computer will send some form of request that is blocked.

Easy fixed though by adding commander to the allowed programs list.

Both computers should be running the same version of the game, maybe even the high/low machine settings, as i have a 'low' spec machine I still sometimes see high zoom when opening the game.

Beware graphic mods. I tried those new graphics which were mentioned here on the forum and when we fired up Commander yesterday it just kept freezing after a turn or so. Rebooted and reverted to the original graphics and the problem went away!. I think commander might be actually sending the graphics to the other computer?

Your broadband connection might vary, my isp uses dynamic addressing so every time I go online I get a different IP address, this has caught us out a few times.

Save the game at critical times during your turn, it avoids having to replay a complete turn.

The player who ends the session has to host the next one as control is still with him until the game is loaded.

So TCPIP does work for some

The procedures are not documented in detail yet but the developers are working on a help file.

Dave

[firepowerjohan]

My firewall asks me the first time I run CEaW whether I want to allow CEaW to access Internet and since I answer "yes" then it does not interfer anymore with my TcpIP. Might be different depending on firewalls so we need to get to the bottom of this. 

I am wondering if those who say it crashes on first German turn if they actually turned off their installed firewall but kept windows firewall running?

[JudgeDredd]

Just wondering, seeing as there is a graphics mod out there....it wouldn't be because one of you is using a modded game and the other is not?

[Dave Ferguson]

i had a double firewall issue and my installed norton firewall turnd the windows one off, so i have to turn it on again every time i reboot. Norton firewall had other problems so i dont use it.
 
Hardware firewalls also complicate matters? i have one but never set it up, not idiot proof enough for me.

[Dave Ferguson]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Just wondering, seeing as there is a graphics mod out there....it wouldn't be because one of you is using a modded game and the other is not?

Well the TCPIP session crashed when just one player had the mod installed and ran OK when the mod was removed. Might have had nothing to do with the problem though.

[IainMcNeil]

There are software and hardware firewalls. You can configure your software firewall to allow you to play the game, but probably not hardware firewalls. Do you have a local LAN? If you do you are connecting to the internet via a NAT firewall. There is no way to configure this to allow you to host (as far as I know). This is because the NAT firewall is creating a "fake" IP address for your machine to allow your LAN to connect to the Internet and there is no way to directly connect through a NAT firewall for a head to head game. This goes for all games, not just CEAW. The only way around this is to have a server hosting the games and clients linked together through this or some very complex match making code as provided by Gamespy.

[Bacillus]

I'd recommend a program called Hamachi. I have used it in many occasions. It creates a direct link between computers that are behind NAT firewalls. It works wonders with network problems. You can get it here: https://secure.logmein.com/products/ham ... wnload.asp

[targul]

I use Hamachi for one of my games but most people dont have it and I havent tried it for this game.  I did find Hamchi is full many times and unuseable.  Waiting a couple hours for a Hamchi contection is also not one of my favorite things.  I will say once it is available it does work well though.
 
It would really be better if they would simply fix the IP system they have and give us playback for PBEM.  This could be a good game but most of us are stuck without being able to play via IP or PBEM and this games AI is very close to the worst in the industry.

[targul]

We tried the Hamachi for this game tonight it worked well so for those having trouble it is worth a try.

[firepowerjohan]

ORIGINAL: targul

I use Hamachi for one of my games but most people dont have it and I havent tried it for this game.  I did find Hamchi is full many times and unuseable.  Waiting a couple hours for a Hamchi contection is also not one of my favorite things.  I will say once it is available it does work well though.

It would really be better if they would simply fix the IP system they have and give us playback for PBEM.  This could be a good game but most of us are stuck without being able to play via IP or PBEM and this games AI is very close to the worst in the industry.

This game also has the biggest map in the industry so alot more space to maneuver hence more space to exploit weakenesses that exist in the nature of AI
If you want a real challenge where the AI can show of its skills better in tactical battles then try the 1944 scenario let the AI command the Allies. I do not mean that 1944 is good just because Allies have the upper hand but because the 2 front lines are defined (since Allied will land immediately and gain a footholkd in the west) so the batttle is pure tactical. You can even give Axis a handicap to even out the odds abit.