Perched on the cusp of Immortality

[Grand_Armee]

Today, Garoco and I were finally able to get together and do a little TCP/IP playing.
We played two games, one with me hosting and the other hosted by him.
He played france each time while I played Prussia when I hosted and Russia the other time. Both times we played 1796 scenario/difficulty normal/highest glory/23 years.

At our first turn with me as host he was able to make a treaty...as was I and the AI. On turns afterward, he wasn't. Almost perturbed, we gave it another go, starting from our saved file which we updated each turn. Voila! Both parties plus the AI were making treaties again...this continued for about 4 hours while we attempted to see how other features worked. At about the 4 hour mark he lost the connection to the game...we were still connected via MSN messenger. Diplomats not owned by the host still suffered previously reported problems. We agreed to set them on goodwill to keep things even. IMHO the little buggers got too much MOJO anyway. Coup Poland!?!? You gotta be Shi++ing me!

For our second game, he hosted and I played the evil green empire. For the first 4 turns I had to reset my development screen (yes, EVERY province) EVERY turn. Since the first time took so long, I didn't try to make a treaty on that turn. After 4 turn of resetting I was just a bit miffed. So, we tried the same approach that worked in the above game. Leave, and restart from the recent saved file. Well, guess what...it worked! Treaties and finally my development screens were as I left em'.

Due to time constraints, we didn't get to do anything like check on ports and naval landings...docking rights, what have you...

Minor irritations:

1. Garoco couldn't seige a seige report on the MAIN map as the turn was cycling. It did however show up on his events report. I was hosting at the time, and much of the movement that happened during the turn wasn't seen by me. I couldn't scroll as the game was cycling though the turn. While he was hosting and the game was cycling, I was able to scroll about the map.

2. While I was playing Russia my cursor happened to land on Novgorod. That province became a pale blue (Much paler than the french blue)...this was early into the game. At first I suspected revolution, but it was just a screen problem. The province was still mine and fully functional. If I clicked on it it reverted to green. If I clicked another province it went to light blue.

3. While Garoco was fighting a quick-battle against the Austrians I right clicked on one of the Austrians just to see if it was suffering from any negative modifiers. It was, but worst of all, that little window that showed it's deficit, numbers and approximate morale stayed on my screen until we finished the game a turn later. Won't do that again if it's not my battle!

4. I know people complained about corps counters disappearing when entering enemy lands without troops...but on this occasion I think your fix wasn't justified. In my case I took my Prussian fleet of 2 counters to sea. We'd DOW'd England with our eyes hungrily fixed upon rich Hanover.
The English AI had been incredibly stupid and had allowed Garoco to rampage around with his French fleets sweeping the seas of every British merchantman. So, I dow'd Mecklenburg and set to blockade Rostock. Of course at this time the British navy belatedly decided to arrive on the sea after a year and a half of tardiness.
Quicker than you can say John Bull was my poor flotilla routed to the north, and finally the eastern English coast where the final remnant was destroyed by English gunnery. No unexpected dramas there...except that my fleet counter still rode the waves. Yes, our pre-Tirpitzian admiral and his staff survived with nothing but a worm-eaten dinghy and a bedsheet to gather the breeze. Neverless they sailed straight through two British fleets and safely returned to Danzig to foment their revenge upon the evil Englander.

I think gamewise that this will enable players to lose entire fleets and maybe corps but get them back cost free.

a non-issue:

We had worried about not receiving upgrades...it took my Prussia a seeming eternity to get its first one. France didn't get any, but I think this may have had more to do with surrendering to too many powers and losing too much territory.

Austria received three in quick order early in the game. Here, I remembered that Austria always got these before anyone else while playing the AI. Musta had a surplus in barracks level or something. I had to get my barracks level to 5.67 before I got one. Russia got one a turn later.

I think this game is gonna be around for a long time. There's no reason for it not to be. I can't heap enough praise on it at this moment.

Well Done, EB!

[Khornish]

I'd rather see a corps/army/fleet container captured and turned into a POW than have any of the other possible solutions that have been mentioned or alluded to.

In my view the container represents the staff, ADC's. clerks, etc., of the formation represented. If these folks were caught trying to sneak through enemy lines, then hi-ho hi-ho it's off to prison they go.

I'd not mind having a percentage chance of evading capture, but if caught they should become POW's and then released from captivity, just like regular troops, at conflict's end.

This would still help prevent the player from being too sneaky for his own good without consequences, but it doesn't unduly penalize the player either.

[garoco]

yes pay off you efforts, I had received some proposal of trade too like cliente, however continue the problem with the diplomats. These bad boys [;)]

[ericbabe]

I'll look at the diplomats some more; they have been working in our tests.

Odd about the development levels resetting -- we were (after a lot of effort) able to reproduce the other bugs you mentioned, but not that one. I'd assumed therefore that it had been fixed by the packet-trailer code I fixed last version. I'll take a look at that code and see if I can figure out what might be happening.

1. Garoco couldn't seige a seige report on the MAIN map as the turn was cycling. It did however show up on his events report. I was hosting at the time, and much of the movement that happened during the turn wasn't seen by me. I couldn't scroll as the game was cycling though the turn. While he was hosting and the game was cycling, I was able to scroll about the map.

Some of the messages are suppressed on multiplayer to try to speed up the movement phase, and sieges may be one of these, I don't remember off-hand.

Sometimes the screen scrolling has to be locked to prevent multi-threading problems.

3. While Garoco was fighting a quick-battle against the Austrians I right clicked on one of the Austrians just to see if it was suffering from any negative modifiers. It was, but worst of all, that little window that showed it's deficit, numbers and approximate morale stayed on my screen until we finished the game a turn later. Won't do that again if it's not my battle!

I'll add that to the bug list.

Quicker than you can say John Bull was my poor flotilla routed to the north, and finally the eastern English coast where the final remnant was destroyed by English gunnery. No unexpected dramas there...except that my fleet counter still rode the waves. Yes, our pre-Tirpitzian admiral and his staff survived with nothing but a worm-eaten dinghy and a bedsheet to gather the breeze. Neverless they sailed straight through two British fleets and safely returned to Danzig to foment their revenge upon the evil Englander.

I think gamewise that this will enable players to lose entire fleets and maybe corps but get them back cost free.

I too would prefer fleets to be destroyed when empty at sea, but a lot of players found it really frustrating when they saved up their resources, built a fleet, and then (not knowing what they were doing...) moved it out into the sea zones only to find it disappearing.

I think this game is gonna be around for a long time. There's no reason for it not to be. I can't heap enough praise on it at this moment.

Well Done, EB!

Thank you, and thanks for looking into the TCP/IP issues. (I'll feel more confident when I get these TCP/IP issues sorted out.)