[TECH] Announcement thread for Pitbosses/NatNeg Server hosted by Zulan/Ramk

[Zulan]

So what should we do about changing the patreon payments? Cal could claim the cash less often and forward it, but that sounds like a hassle. How do people normally contribute for the server Ramk?

So far I use inner-European bank transfer for very few people which is simple and free but not anonymous.
To my knowledge setting up Patreon for non-US citizens is a bit iffy in terms of (tax) bureaucracy, plus costs ~8% and there are some recent reports about ill-founded account closures. Then there's PayPal, where I unfortunately had bad personal experience in the past.


I guess the viable options do depend a bit on your location.

I am actually considering steam gift codes which are anonymous and don't take a cut, but aren't easily recurrent. I might reconsider when I can't spend it anymore but I won't take more than to offset the server costs anyway.

[Caledorn]

Thank you guys for taking over the hosting, Ramk and Zulan :-)

I would very much like to know what to do with the Patreon. Should we shut it down, or should we continue to do it as is? If someone else could be responsible for it that would be great, as until autumn 2018 there was no tax issues for me with it since I it was my only Patreon. However, autumn 2018 I started up a Patreon for my YouTube channel, and I'm making about $50 per month on that Patreon now, so tax issues will become a problem for me during this year if my number of Patrons grow.

I can transfer the current Patreon account to someone else if needed, but I would need a private confirmation that I am no longer the beneficiary, and it's a bit complex because there is some personal information in there that I'd rather keep private at the moment unless it is transferred to someone I personally know in this community (Anyone on the old admin team for the pitboss.watto.no server falls within that category). :-)

It was an honour to be able to host the Pitboss games for all these years! Thank you so much the trust you have placed in me for all this time, everyone!

Oh, and PS! This thread should be pinned, and the old thread for the old server should now be unpinned, for anyone with the capability for doing so :-)

[superdeath]

Need a reload, Server crashed me. details in thread.

PB40.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Reload request: PB41. Cairo's log in/out save, whichever. Misclicked and spawned a golden age rather than building a shrine.

01/07/2019 16:57:59 114 Mr. Cairo logged out
01/07/2019 16:57:08 114 Mr. Cairo logged in

Thanks.

[Old Harry]

I reloaded both.

Caledorn - Thanks for your efforts over the years! I think you should shut the Patreon and we can redirect our cash towards Zulan. Can you let the contributors know in case they haven't been following?

Zulan - I have no problem with lack of anonymity so bank transfer sounds fine. Brexit might screw things up, but we'll jump that hurdle when we get to it. Should we come up with a list of contributors for you to pm your bank details/steam id/bitcoin pouch to?

[Zulan]

Zulan - I have no problem with lack of anonymity so bank transfer sounds fine. Brexit might screw things up, but we'll jump that hurdle when we get to it. Should we come up with a list of contributors for you to pm your bank details/steam id/bitcoin pouch to?

Yes, that would be great. For those who want to contribute it would be good to know whether they prefer one-time or regular transfers and have SEPA/steam/paypal.

[Caledorn]

I reloaded both.

Caledorn - Thanks for your efforts over the years! I think you should shut the Patreon and we can redirect our cash towards Zulan. Can you let the contributors know in case they haven't been following?

Zulan - I have no problem with lack of anonymity so bank transfer sounds fine. Brexit might screw things up, but we'll jump that hurdle when we get to it. Should we come up with a list of contributors for you to pm your bank details/steam id/bitcoin pouch to?

The Patreon has been disabled :-) Any pledges has been automatically removed.

[Ramkhamhaeng]

Now, as the RB games apparent running stable, I want introduce our way to speed up the joining to a Pitboss game.

As PB player, you probably notice the annoying slow transfer of the save game (10kb/s). We developed a solution for this problem and bypasses the save game loading by an HTTP request. This leads to an almost instantly loading of the game. The PB games at Zulan's server already support the new save transfer variant.
The default save loading algorithm is still available and if you do not want install this tool 'from an unknown source', skip the rest of this post.


=== 1. How it works ===
I didn't changed the Civ4 executable directly, but wrote a wrapper application called 'BTS_Wrapper.exe'. This program starts Civ4:BTS and remap (hooking) the network related functions of Civ4 to a filter which detects the 'save loading commads'.
Due this approach…

• … the wrapper exe needs the same firewall settings as the Civ4:BTS executable. Windows treats them as different programs.
  
• … Some anti virus programs could warn because of the hooking. They can not distinct between this harmless tool and malware. I do not see a way how to solve this trust-problem, but published the code of the Wrapper here.
  

Sketch:

   

2. Installation instructions:

• Unzip the content of https://kirk.zulan.net/pb/BTS_Wrapper_v9...py_fix.zip
  into your Civ4:BTS-installation directory.
  
• Replace Civ4BeyondSword.exe by BTS_Wrapper.exe in your start link of the game, i.e
  ...\BTS_Wrapper.exe mod= RtR_4.0.0
  Example screenshot for an other mod
  
  
  Because many users had problems to find the correct arguments here are some examples for the the BTS_Wrapper.exe call:
  • Auto search best Civ4-executable:
    "X:\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\BTS_Wrapper.exe" mod= "PB Mod_v9"
    
  • With explicit name of Civ4-exutable:
    "X:\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\BTS_Wrapper.exe" Civ4BeyondSword2015.exe mod= "PB Mod_v9"
    
  • Version for Linux+Wine.
    cd {Civ4:BTS-Folder}; wine "BTS_Wrapper.exe" mod= "PB Mod_v9"
    
  
  
• If you want start the game without the wrapper try following. Note the missing space between mod= and the mod name…
  Another char is needed at this place as place holder!
  • Start with 2015er executable
    "X:\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword2015.exe" mod="PB Mod_v9"
    
    
  • Wrong are:
    "X:\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword2015.exe" mod=PB Mod_v9
    "X:\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword2015.exe" mod= "PB Mod_v9"
    
• Now, join a PB game. The loading bar should disappear within a second. If it does not work or an error occurs, please check for the log-file BTS_Wrapper.log in %TMP%. (%TMP% is a variable which refers to C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Temp or similar).
  

Regards

P.S. It could also be used in normal MP-games, but this feature is disabled as default. Take a look on the
Github page if you want enable it.

[Ramkhamhaeng]

Lewwyn, need a pause?

I'm lurking in your 'Pitboss tech issues threads' and it would be easy to pause the games, but …
… as external person it is difficult to decide if such request should be considered.
Thus, if the affected player does not reply, I will not interfere in your games.

It might still be useful to register one of your players as admin for each game. This gives you the opportunity to pause the game without starting Civ4.
Currently, only OldHarry could react and I'm not sure if he is following all games.
   

[Elkad]

So by using your BTS wrapper, it's player independent, correct?

So I could use it and get the fast load speed, and another player in the same game could keep using the slow method?