Dominions 3 and multiple rigs: [Gaming in Person]

[BigJMoney]

I know Doms 3 has hotseat play, but it can be a real pain to hop up from a chair every 30 seconds to 10 minutes with your buddy to play a game! I was wondering what my options are from a LANpoint of view. If I have a router and, say, 4 network capable laptops, how would I go about setting up a little game with 4 PCs, gaming cafe style? I'm trying to get this game into my local hobby store, and one of the ways I can do it is to show them how we can play this game together in the store, rather than at home.

Any help/tips would be much appreciated.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Frostmourne27]

AFAIK you would need to simply do TC/IP. Remember that the host game doesn't use up its own CD key though. You could use a script to automate the PbEM process of course. The problem is, you'd have to write one, since all the people who have them are too modest to share them.

[ceremony]

Frostmourne27 said:
You could use a script to automate the PbEM process of course. The problem is, you'd have to write one, since all the people who have them are too modest to share them.

I posted my script for PBEM Dom2 a long time ago - it should work just as well for Dom3.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[Frostmourne27]

Ahhh... that makes big email games much, much more attractive.

[BigJMoney]

Frostmourne27 said:
Remember that the host game doesn't use up its own CD key though.

I don't understand this part. Are you saying that two of the players can play off one CD as long as one of them is the host? Or, am I misunderstanding your meaning?

Also, I'm not entirely sure how TCP/IP works when you are on the same intranet. On the internet you just type in an address and join as long as the host has permission set correctly. On an intranet, I know things can get weird. I don't have a lot of experience with LANs, to be honest. I know they're actually very simple though, if you understand the rules.

=$=

[DominionsFan]

BigJMoney said:

I don't understand this part. Are you saying that two of the players can play off one CD as long as one of them is the host? Or, am I misunderstanding your meaning?

Also, I'm not entirely sure how TCP/IP works when you are on the same intranet. On the internet you just type in an address and join as long as the host has permission set correctly. On an intranet, I know things can get weird. I don't have a lot of experience with LANs, to be honest. I know they're actually very simple though, if you understand the rules.

=$=

We've played many LAN games in Doms 2. Im not entirly sure that how can you set that up, since it wasn't me who connected the comps etc. but afaik you can give a specific IP address for each comp in windows [some "offline IP address"], and it will work perfectly then.
I am also not sure that how many copies the people gonna need, since we all used our own copies.

[Agrajag]

DominionsFan said:
But afaik you can give a specific IP address for each comp in windows [some "offline IP address"], and it will work perfectly then.
I am also not sure that how many copies the people gonna need, since we all used our own copies.

AFAIK:
In a LAN network, each computer has an "internal" IP. That is, a LAN network is just like the internet, where each computer has its own IP, only in this case this is a much smaller "internet", so in the LAN network, each computer has his own IP adress specific to this network.
This network IP is what you use to connect to each other in a LAN network, and depends on how you set up the network (if you are using a router, or the windows network wizard, for example, each computer is assigned his own "internal" IP adress automatically).
As for the number of copies, AFAIK you need a different copy for each machine, though that's just from picking up tidbits over here on the forum.

[DominionsFan]

Ah yes thats it, internal IP. lol I've forgot that how is it called.

[Arralen]

Internal IPs are most likely in the 192.168.x.y range. Start a command line window and type "ipconfig /all". You'll find a LAN ethernet card listed with IP given.

1 PC has to be set up as "host", though one player might play on this machine, too. You'll have to start 2 instances of Dom3 on this machine. The instance which runs as host does not need a seperate KEY - only the player (clients) need one each.

For hosting, make a seperate shortcut with the following command line options:
PATH\dom3.exe -fsmw --tcpserver --res 800 600 --port 4000 --noclientstart

This will start up Dom3 in a small window, without sound and music, and will take you directly to the "enter game name" screen (hint: if you want to continue an old game, just use its name). After you entered the game name, the server is waiting to accept connections from the clients. On top of the window it will show the local ip and the port its running on (set to 4000 by the command line switch).

Now start up Dom3 on the different players PCs and chose "network game, connect to server", type in the IP and port number given by the server.
If you're playing on the same comp the server runs on, use "127.0.0.1" for the IP, or "localhost" if that doesn't work.

When all players are connected, hit "start game" on the small server screen.

[Bluebird]

The technical term is NAT, or network address translation, that maps different internal IP addresses to a single external IP address (on different ports).