Bah! Turns uploaded on Connect

[deccan]

PhilD said:
Yeah, if you want to do your orders offline, you should just connect to get the turn file, not play the turn, then only play the game as you would a local game; and only reconnect when you have valid orders.

In theory that's what people should do. But sometimes, when you get a new turn, you can't help but view what's happened, check things out and give a few obvious orders, and then you realize, oops, I don't have the time to issue orders for everything right now, but you don't want to start from scratch again either later.

[Sheap]

deccan said:
More flexibility is always handy, Sheap, like when you asked me why I would want to be able to download and upload turns via a browser.

Heh. You seem to hit all the places where the game doesn't do things well

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying "you should never want to do this," or that flexibility isn't good. It's just that often, people will complain that something is difficult, when in reality they are just trying to do things the hard way.

If you need to check the server without uploading, you can rename your "<nation>.2h" file in the subdirectory belonging to the game you are playing, and then you can safely reconnect to the server and check on your turn status. Of course, this is awkward, but hopefully it shouldnt be needed too often.

[Cainehill]

Sure, there are work arounds to avoid being bitten by this - as you say, connect once, complete the turn in offline mode, and only _then_ connect once every order is exactly as you wish it to be. Or renaming the .2h file (talk about having to do things the hard way ).

The fact that people have to do this is a relatively small inconvenience, sure - not something worth yammering for a big fix.

Except that people can and do get burned by it, because the documentation and interface doesn't at all make it clear that this is what happens.

And that seems to cry for some improvement - if nothing else, something like Illwinter did when people are about to connect and overwrite a pretender:

"If you connect to the game server now, your turn/orders as saved to disk _now_ will be uploaded to the game and possibly used before you have a chance to modify them. If this is not what you wish, Cancel and finish your turn in offline mode."

[deccan]

Sheap said:
Heh. You seem to hit all the places where the game doesn't do things well

So let me something in praise of Dom2 for once. Dom2 actually lets you issue partial orders for a turn, save the state and then come back later to finish completing orders. This is really useful for lategame, unlike say, SEIV, where once you start issuing orders for the turn you need to finish issuing orders for that turn since partial orders can't be saved.

[Cainehill]

That's true - it's a great feature for when the game gets into the later stages, and turns start to take longer and longer. You can see the turn results, give a couple of orders while you remember them, then meditate for a few hours or days and complete them.

[deccan]

I just made a discovery: if you type the wrong password you get in to see who's connected and who's played their turn or not, but you can't upload your orders. So you don't need to rename your game folder or anything.

[Ivan Pedroso]

deccan said:
I just made a discovery: if you type the wrong password you get in to see who's connected and who's played their turn or not, but you can't upload your orders. So you don't need to rename your game folder or anything.

Nice one Deccan ! - that's highly useful.