PBEM question

Elmo · #1 April 29th, 2002, 07:38 PM

Playing a Gold 1.67 PBEM game which I started on my computer at home. When sending turns from my home computer there are always several files created to accompany the main .gam file. However if I send a turn from work I almost never see those extra files generated. Is it a problem to play some turns on one computer and some on another in this manner? Thanks.

Mudshark · #2 April 30th, 2002, 02:31 AM

I have had no problem playing Play-by-Web at home or at work (excluding bosses). I have never tried a PBM game, perhaps if you move to PBW? I know this is not a answer to your question, but perhaps a solution?

geoschmo · #3 April 30th, 2002, 02:38 AM

Elmo,

Are you the host for this PBEM game? If not the only file you should ever get regardless of where you run it is a .plr file.

If you are running the host part then you will get extra files sometimes. You will get events files and stat files for each player, a combat file and turn file for the turn. But you won't get all these every turn. If there are no events for a particular player, it won't update the event file that turn. On your home computrer it should still have the old event file for that player though so you may think it did unless you look at the time/date for the file. I am not sure about the combat file if it will create a blank file if there is no combat or if it just carries over as well.

Geoschmo

Elmo · #4 April 30th, 2002, 12:16 PM

quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
Elmo,

Are you the host for this PBEM game? If not the only file you should ever get regardless of where you run it is a .plr file.

snip

Geoschmo

I've never seen a .plr file in PBEM. Are you thinking of PBW?

Saxon · #5 April 30th, 2002, 04:46 PM

Elmo,

Do you have any problems when you run a turn at the office, then at home? I wonder if these extra files are needed by the game or if they are extras.

I am playing PBEM with only one other friend and we are doing two turns at once. I run a turn, then play my turn. I send him all the files in my directory, including my .plr file. He then receives them, plays his turn and then runs the turn. He then plays his second turn, copies all the files, and sends them to me. We find it goes faster this way and we get a bit more continuity. However, we also trust each other a lot, as this system is wide open to abuse.

But back to your question, we always send each other all the files, as we think the host machine needs them to run the game. In my three person game where I am the host, I only send the .gam file and receive the .plr files. As I can not run it at work, I always run it on the same machine at home and then carry the files on disk.

geoschmo · #6 April 30th, 2002, 05:08 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Elmo:

I've never seen a .plr file in PBEM. Are you thinking of PBW?

Ah ha! You are playing turn based. If you are playing PBEM and have never seen a .plr file that must be it. And that does change things a bit.

The turn based game does not generate a .plr file. It makes a .gam file, but it renames it to show the game turn and the player who's turn it is. It also make stats, events and combat files. I don't think it make .trn files, but I am not sure about that. All the files get named as the .gam file with the game turn and current player turn. You will quickly have a large number of files in you savegame folder, but the only ones you should be concerned with are the ones from the current turn. And really only the .gam file is needed to play the turn. The combat file only is needed if you want to replay the combat log, and the stats and events files are used for the history graphs that the game can show you. But the game will play fine without them. That is true for Turn based or Simultaneous turn multiplayer.

PBW is just simultaneous turn PBEM, nothing special about it. It uses the files generated by Se4.

It's been a while since I played a turn based game. What are the file extensions you are getting on you computer that you aren't getting on your home machine? That might help figure out what is going on. If it's not one of the ones I mentioned abouve, something else is going on.

Geoschmo

[ 30 April 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Elmo · #7 April 30th, 2002, 06:29 PM

geoschmo

I think the missing file at work is a stats files but I'll have to compare with home. My opponenet always seems to send me two stats files but at work I only generate one IIRC. If they are only related to the graphs and don't affect game play then I'm not worried. Thanks for the help.

Elmo

geoschmo · #8 April 30th, 2002, 06:31 PM

Yes, I think that the game makes a stats file for player one only when they play their turn, and then after player two plays it makes one for both players, and so on. So that makes sense sort of.

Geoschmo