PBEM combat results do not agree

[Knavey]

My brother (Feinder) and I are playing scn 19 in a PBEM game and are once again having minor problems.

I am the IJN and when I execute my turn I get different combat results than when he executes the Combat Result file that I email back to him. The text file is fine and reflects accurately the results that I observe during my turn.

Another strange part is that the air to air results are almost identical, but its the ship to ship stuff that is wrong. Engagements occur that he never sees, and he has combat happen that I never saw. The combats that falsely occur are plausible in that we may have a sub and a task force in the same hex, but during my game, they never saw each other and in his game there was an engagement between the two forces.

He has told me that he completely restarts the game before running the replay, and we are both using version 2.2.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

[Admiral Scott]

Is your brother on drugs? Just kidding.

Could the fog of war be doing this?

I just had a sub damaged badly and I am pretty sure it didn't show me that in the combat replay.

[Admiral Scott]

I just replayed a combat replay for the second time.
I saw different combat actions the second time around.
Different destroyers were torpedoed, one was attacked 3 times in the first replay, but just once in the second. A large and successfull follow up air strike from the first replay didn't even occur in the second replay, it said it was cancelled due to weather.

If this is due to Fog of war, then the fog is too thick.

[Knavey]

This is sort of what happens in our game.

The problem is that he cannot rely on the results that he is seeing in the combat replay. Some of the battles that occur during his replay NEVER occur during mine. Its not like one of his subs sent a torpedo at the Sho and reported a hit...its just that they never occur. The sub and the Shok may be in the same hex, but the battle that he sees never happens in the game. My combat "replay" that occurs initially agrees with the combat txt report that is generated.

It also may effect the way that he is tracking my task forces. If he doesn't get the reports from his PBYs like he should be getting, then he is at a disadvantage.

Thanks,

[Admiral Scott]

Maybe we should have 3 or 4 Fog of war settings, High, Medium, Low, and off.
What we have now would be considered High and off.

[Feinder]

Knavy is IJN, I am USN.

When Knavy sends me his turn, and the combat replay, and combat text file...

If I start the game FRESH, and immediately load the combat replay
a. I get "plausable" results, but the DEFINATELY differ from the combat text file that he sends (that reflects what HE sees in his combat replay).
b. When then loading his turn (to make my own moves), the condition of my ships reflect HIS combat replay. I even verified this down to ammo usage (for example in my replay, I had a sub attack his TF, it did not occur in his text file; and when I checked the ammo of the sub in question during my turn, it hadn't fired a shot). So basically, the replay that I'm seeing is of no effect.

I tried
1. Running the replay file from a completely fresh load of the game.
2. Again restarting the game (for a fresh seed), and the running loading his turn, backing out to the main menu, and then running his combat replay.

In both cases, it created an identicle combat text file for me, but it was STILL different that his combat execution.

I don't know if this matters, but we're both running Win2k, and I know that some games have had "issues" with this operating system.

Furthermore, we are using Outlook Express to to email the files back and forth. My email server on Earthlink, and his is on RoadRunner.

But it looks like the random seed that is following his combat replay is different for him than it is for me. Again, I can recreate consistant results for myself from a fresh load of the game, but they're still different than what is produced when HE runs the combat replay.

FWIW, for now, I comb thru the text file; that way I can check everything that was involved in the text file. The most important thing that I'm missing tho, is the criticals. I actually -DO- read those things very carefully. I put 2 torps into one of his CAs, and I need to know how wide to make the ring of subs to try and kill him.

Wierd.
-F-

[Knavey]

The errors occur mostly the SECOND day of the 2 turn game that we are playing right now. The first days results seem to agree, the second day is when they get skewed.

[Erik Rutins]

Knavey,

2.20 was supposed to kill any PBEM sync problems once and for all. Can you confirm that you both are on 2.20 and have been running this game using 2.20 from the start? I know you posted to that effect, just double-checking.

Given a fresh restart and 2.20, I can't imagine what's causing this. If you can, please e-mail your save files from Turn 1 and Turn 2 with passwords and a copy of your posts here (a brief note on which specific event that is "out of sync" would help as well) to rossm@matrixgames.com. Thanks. In the meantime, keep exchanging those combatreport.txt files to make sure you are on the same page.

Regards,

- Erik