Simultaneous movement buggier than turnbased?

[Randallw]

Fyron, could you elaborate with a bit more technical stuff. every turn I play is on the same computer. I keep a copy of every turn I download zipped in a folder for each game I play.

eg. se4\savegame\gamename\gamename1.zip etc.

some games have the info for everything like player1_events and player1_stats. Most don't. When I want to replay combat I copy the combat file to the root savegame folder. Are you saying I need a file from the previous turn plus the current turn?.

editns out placing pointy brackets on each side of a word makes the word not appear.

[ March 11, 2004, 07:12: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[Tanus]

How the movement log ('play all' part anyway) works is that it will play the movement for the entire system the ship is in, but it does this for every ship you have.

So if you have 20 ships in one system, you will see the movement log for that system 20 times, and so forth throughout your empire.

It's a rather confusing way to do things, but it kinda maybe makes sense if you try hard enough to come up with a reason for working that way.

[Randallw]

I don't know if I am going on a misunderstanding or not. I want to run the log so I can watch a system and see if someone else whose ship was there before, has left the system or if they moved the ship into an opaque storm in the system.

[Alneyan]

When I want to check what was going on in a system,I use the "Play Movement Log Stepped" in that system. I can then see all movement in this system day after day. (You will have to use the Play Movement Log button to clear the stepped playback though, but it only shows all movement in a given system so it should be fast enough)

It is useful for recon in a system as well, order a ship to warp in an unknown system, and then to warp out as soon as possible. If there is no defence on the other side, you will have the information you need without any notice. (Unless you are unlucky and the enemy does look at the movement log in this system) Slinky, and doesn't tell the Evil Ones you are planning something.

I concur with PvK about staying clear from the "Play Movement Log for all ships" or something along these lines, as it does include every single system in the whole armada.

As for your other question Minipol, you can save the game during a turn even in simultaneous thanks to the Last patch. Save the game while doing your turn, and then load this savegame when you want to play again. You will resume your turn when you left it. (Only works with the latest patch, that is, 1.91)

[geoschmo]

Randallw, storing the zips in the \savegame\gamename\ folder is fine to keep things clean and organized. BUT, are you unzipping EVERYTHING into the root savegame folder and playing it from there, or just the .cmb file like you specifically mentioned here in your post. If you leave the other files in the savegame\gamename\ folders and play it from there, that is why your movement replay is not working. All those files have to be in the root save game folder together while you play your turn. You can actually browse to the gamename filder and play the turn in the subfolder, but the turn replay will not work. (I think the combat replay wont work either, but I am not positive about that. The game may be smart enough to look for the .cmb file in the same folder with the .gam file.)

Also, there is a Space Empires IV\Temp\ folder that has to have a file in it frm the Last turn you played. That is what Fyron was alluding to when he said you need to play all the turns on teh same pc. You mentioned you do, but if you are deleting the files out of that folder you will not be able to play the turn replay either. I don't think that is your problem though because when that file is wrong the error you get is slightly different then the one you are reporting. It doesn't say the turn is unavailable, it says the replay is not for the correct turn or something like that.

Geoschmo

[Roanon]

Originally posted by Randallw:
When I want to replay combat I copy the combat file to the root savegame folder. Are you saying I need a file from the previous turn plus the current turn?

Yes, this has been programmed very sloppy. The most common problem is, as soon as you have done "End Turn", you are NOT able to use the replay log any longer without some trickery. In fact, you do not only need files from the previous turn, but these also aren't stored in the game directory to make things even more unworkable
Check our the TEMP folder. There are files like [gamename]_Lastturn and [gamename]_CurrTurn. You need at least one of these (I didn't test if both), saved with an "End Turn" from the PREVIOUS turn of the game, to be able to watch the replay of the CURRENT turn. Sounds complicated? It is.
This means, if you archived all your files from the games folder and want to see the replay from a past turn: you have to unzip the turn before the wanted turn first, click End Turn, unzip the turn you really want, and then you can replay. Of course, as the temp directory is directly beneath the SE folder and used for ALL games regardless of their directory location, this will destroy the replay ability for your actual game copy unless you install a second copy of SE. Or save the temp files. Or use a copy of the previous turn and do "End Turn" again. Wooaa. How silly

[ March 11, 2004, 11:31: Message edited by: Roanon ]

[Randallw]

I found the temp folder and it contains some current turn and Last turn files including a current turn file for the game I am talking about. I have saved the previous turn to savegame, played it and closed, then opened the new turn. No replay, and no Last turn file in temp. Nothing seems to get the replay to work. I may just have to accept that the replay doesn't work.

[geoschmo]

Hmm, well it does work usually, but it does have some quirks.

Sorry if I am being redundant, but I just want to make sure. You have unzipped the .gam file into the root savegame folder, correct?

And what exactly is the error message you are getting?

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The movement log should work fine if you played the previous turn on the computer you are trying to play the log from.

I'm not going to bother looking up patch 1.91, but didn't they fix that so it could be played from any PC?

[Randallw]

It works.....sort of. First off I have a very bad short term memory, so I forget what I did 5 seconds ago. I can remember what I did but not the order. I think I unzipped the files into not the se4 savegame folder, but the mods savegame folder. Anyway I checked temp and there was a Last turn log and current turn log. I went into the game and started the movement log and amidst various Ai settings errors and the game saying the data was incorrect all the ships moved about. Although I don't know what i did to get it to work, at least I can see it works, and if you know something works its much easier to work out how.