Matrix Games Forums

Greetings!

My brother and I and some friends are long time Close Combat fans - we've been playing head-to-head since we bought A Bridge Too Far in 1999, and everything in between.

We recently started playing Panthers in the Fog; at first we were able to connect without issue and started out playing a few individual battles without incident. The fact that we can do this should indicate that are games our updated and running the same version (we always make sure we have the latest updates before starting).

However, we are unable to play the multiplayer Grand Campaign: we connect, get to the lobby, etc, but when we try to start the game, it simply freezes; it doesn't "crash" or exit, it just freezes indefinitely, and we are both forced to kill the game manually. So, we have never even been able to start the Grand Campaign!

Help, please! This is quite frustrating; this is the most trouble we've have with any CC release since Battle of the Bulge and Normandy Invasion (which worked, but had issues). On the other hand, we still play Cross of Iron with our vast stockpile of custom maps and mods.

Regards,

Bludingutz

There is a sizeable data exchange that occurs when you first start a multi-player campaign game. You should see a message about this while it is in progress. How long have you waited before shutting down your games?

Steve

Hi Steve,

We have waited about five minutes. I honestly don't recall seeing a message about it, we'll be more observant next time we try.

FYI, we are both running Windows 7, and game version is 1.0.1.

We tried again the other night; my friend usually hosts, but this time I did, and we were able to start the campaign. I suspect it worked because of RAM (I have considerably more). However, after about 15 minutes of game play, it froze on the first map and we lost connection.

Regards,

Bludingutz

A better computer can process the initial data faster, which may have helped. Do either of you have port 1944 open for inbound connections on your router/firewall software? If the host computer has this port open the games will connect directly, which will help considerably with network throughput. I would definitely recommend trying that as well.

If you lose connection mid-battle for some reason, it can take a minute for the host to realize this. Usually the client will report a lost connection right away, but the host will appear to be 'hung' waiting for info from the client until it times out. That may be what happened.

We are currently doing some multi-player testing and optimization with Gateway to Caen, and once that is complete the plan is to port those changes back to Panthers in the Fog. I don't have a set date when these will be available, but this may also help resolve the issues you're seeing, once available. There will be postings here on this forums when it is.

Steve

Hello Steve,

I will continue to host as long as I have the better machine, and I'll give the port 1944 option a go!

Greatly appreciate the information.

Regards,

Bludingutz,
Wichita, Kansas