TCP/IP in really bad shape

[Grand_Armee]

Earlier today I was so furious that I started a thread then cancelled it as if it were an angry letter balled up and thrown into the can.

We've had troubles with TCP/IP before, but now it's really getting impossible to play.

Problem 1: Diplomacy functions.

a. Only the first player, France was able to initiate treaties. The AI initiated none that were seen by us human players, and all of mine disappeared fast enough that they never made the events screen. Turning on the diplomacy expert allowed him to make alliances without other clauses to make them worthwhile.

b. Again, the first player was able to make his diplomats do whatever he wanted them to do. Once mine were set on a function I couldn't change that function.

c. As Austria I wanted to keep my diplomatic lead in Bavaria. To this end I sent 2 Dips on "Charm" missions and subsidized Bavaria each turn. Then France began to subsidize Bavaria. After that I was unable to subsidize Bavaria. Nothing in the events report. It was as if the Bavarians weren't even given a chance to smell the gold below their noses.

I was hoping to get in a situation where I could make France surrender so that I could see if I would be able to force a treaty on her. I fear that that may not be possible.

Problem 2: Surrender, what surrender?

It took a bit of time to get a decent army over to France. When I finally did, I was hit with a disaster. I got beaten by the French, but that wasn't the disaster.
It was done in QB with both forces at nearly 120K apiece. I still had a large force one move from the French capital and it was about to grow larger.

Two turns later I saw that I had lost Tyrolia!
I am accustomed to see Austria lose some internal provinces when her NML gets too low, but mine had only reached -256 after the battle. No biggee...the AI is just getting prepared for a long war at -256. It had been at 460 before the battle and I was keeping my people well supplied with luxuries, spices, and booze. I had no doubt of my ability to continue the war with France.

On seeing Tyrolia blue, I asked my opponent what had happened. He told me I'd surrendered. I saw nothing to tell me I surrendered. Nothing showed me that a surrender treaty had been sent to me. I was clearly miffed. That's when I decided to turn off the game.

3. Detailed battle problems:

I found myself in a detailed battle against France along with my Prussian allies. I had two armies in the province and the Prussians had one. But only one of mine arrived on the map. Across the screen showed the line "Austrian reinforcements on the way". They never came. Eventually the game froze up during the DB. We couldn't blame this problem on internet...we were still able to communicate via MSN messenger. Trying to restart the game later showed that my opponent had a file problem. I've heard of others having this same difficulty.

It's all a bit frustrating.

[Mr. Z]

No, no, we actually *want* to hear about TCP/IP issues!

What systems were being used by the players? Were they all XP SP2?

So, seems like diplomacy is still a problem sometimes. Also occasionally freezing in hexwar.

[garoco]

Hi Mr Z
I was the server, and I use XP in my notebook Compaq Presario R3000.
CoG updated with 1.2.16
Any other thing, sir?

[Mr. Z]

I don't know...Eric, would it matter what systems the other players were using?

[Erik Rutins]

We will be looking at TCP/IP over the next two days to try to address any issues there before the official patch release. Any and all info on TCP/IP problems is very much appreciated.

Regards,

- Erik

[garoco]

Thanks Gentlemen, I´m sure of that

[Grand_Armee]

I'm using Windows XP as well. Conceptually (and when everything is working correctly) this is the best wargame I've ever played. If the TCP/IP issues can be worked out I'm certain this game will NOT become one of those games that eventually makes it's way to the closet 3 weeks after the AI has proven itself repeatedly beatable.

[ericbabe]

How many players were in the game?

As I've mentioned, we've been unable to duplicate these types of TCP/IP bugs, but figuring out these TCP/IP problems you're having is the only thing I'm working on presently. I'm working on additional code to check for dropped packets, and to ensure doubly the synchronization between server/clients. We'll hopefully get something figured out soon, but it's been hard to fix this because of our inability to duplicate these issues on our LAN.

Thanks for your patience and for your kind words regarding COG.

[Grand_Armee]

There were two of us, EB. But this has happened in a game with 3 players as well. I've sent Garoco a msg asking if he has time to spare for us to try some other things like me hosting...even though I have the slower connection speed. Maybe we can eliminate some possibilities. I wonder if the diplomatic woes are either part of his machine or connection speed related.

AS for the surrender without notification, shouldn't I get my diplomatic advisor popping up saying I have to surrender as if I was playing the AI? Still...surrender after one battle...that sucked.

[mogami]

Hi, we need to get a game with Ericbabe so he can be there. We normally go every sat at 9am est.