CLI for probing turn status

[MarcinM]

Yes, sorry, my "yes, that's what I'm doing" was supposed to follow a quote from Gandalf Parker. Sorry for the confusion.

Sounds like you need to solicit the devs or Mr. Shoeller, as both of our solutions rely on making the logfile web-accessible.

[WraithLord]

Dear IW devs, if you by chance happen to read this and are agreeable to disclose this information I for one, would really appreciate it (and I think whatever script I'll come up with may be useful for other players).

Of course, you may have your reasons not to want to disclose this, this perfectly understandable.

Ahmm, come to think of this, I can probably get this information by myself (low level net. protos. + crypto is what brings food to my table ), but I won't do so without an explicit permission.

Anyways, its just a nice to have thing. I guess I'll let it drop.

[MarcinM]

Ever get an answer for this, WraithLord? Or anyone discover anything?

[NickW]

I did an ethereal capture just to see if any obvious information was in ascii or otherwise visible but it doesn't look like it.

If Illwinter wants to provide the protocol information just for the game status packets I could quite easily whip up something that would probe a server for game status but I don't have the time to try decoding their protocol the hard way. I've got more valuable things to do with my time, like playing Dominions!

[WraithLord]

IW has been generous enough to help with the protocol details, and I'm almost done with a small utility that checks the turn status, I'll post it here when its complete.

I don't care much for GUI (that is, I care, but I'm little fond of writing it), so I gave it a CLI interface.

[NickW]

Those protocol details posted anywhere public?

[WraithLord]

Not AFAIK.

[Johan K]

// ------------------------------------------
// ------------ Packet Description ----------
// ------------------------------------------

/* 1 char 102 (magic)
1 char 72 (magic)
1 int data length (x bytes)
x bytes packet data

All short and ints are sent in little endian (x86) format. Least significant byte first!
*/

/* Keep alive byte
1 char 101 (magic)

Sometimes the server might send out this byte instead of a proper packet
to check if connections are still up. It should be silently ignored. */


// ------------------------------------------
// ----- important packets to server --------
// ------------------------------------------
/* Info request. Requests a status update from the server.
1 char 3
*/

/* Disconnect. Send this and wait for reply before disconnecting.
1 char 11
*/


// ------------------------------------------
// ----- important packets from server ------
// ------------------------------------------

/* Status update.
1 char 4
1 int network protocol version
1 char status (2=waiting)
1 str game name
1 char era (new in dom3)
1 char magic = 45 (new in dom3)
1 int ms left till host time
1 str message from host (unused)
P chars players controlled by (0=no one 1=human 2=AI)
P chars nationstatus
P chars connected or not
1 int turn nbr
1 char 0
*/

/* Disconnect reply. Wait for this before disconnecting.
1 char 12
*/

P = max number of nations = 80

[Gandalf Parker]

OK I was right. I wont be creating anything with that.

[Johan K]

If you are interested in doing something similar I could post the details for the game status retrieving part here.