Civ4 Realism Invictus Pitboss Game

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I already posted it on Civfanatics and on a couple of Civ related discord channels, but I thought that maybe someone here might be interested too:

I still need to work out the details, but would anyone be potentially interested in a long pitboss game with Realism Invictus? Taking it very easy, no turn timers, I could host the pitboss server, we play when we have time. Timezone would be Central Europe, my pc which would host the pitboss server is up almost all day long. Ideally, we could catch up from time to time for a session together and then we can play between sessions by connecting to the pitboss server when we simply have time to do it. I tried using ZeroTier to create a virtual LAN and BTS_Wrapper to transfer savegames in a reasonable time; already tested and it works. Anyone interested?

P.S. Anyone having experience with RI multiplayer/pitboss? How is it in terms of OOS? I've played up to the medieval era and it was just fine, but I know most problems arise later in the game.

P.P.S. PB Mod is not integrated into Realism Invictus, so for this game I've proposed ZeroTier and BTS_Wrapper because I tested this configuration and it works without issues. I also wrote a little python program to send an e-mail to players when a new turn is starting.

[Gavagai]

I like the idea very much in principle, RI should be very fun in MP (never tried it though). But I can only play this after PB66 is finished.
Some concerns:
1) "Realistic" speed is VERY slow but I never tried anything faster and not sure how well it is balanced.
2) No timer, really? It could take something like a decade in real life to finish a game.

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I like the idea very much in principle, RI should be very fun in MP (never tried it though). But I can only play this after PB66 is finished.
Some concerns:
1) "Realistic" speed is VERY slow but I never tried anything faster and not sure how well it is balanced.
2) No timer, really? It could take something like a decade in real life to finish a game.

Speed is still to be discussed; I'd preferer a slow speed, maybe realistic is too slow, but maybe something a bit faster might still work. It also depends on other factors as mapsize and number of players. No sense in playing rollercoaster on a huge map and no sense playing realistic on a duel map

About the timer, I'm in no hurry; as long as the game keeps going I'm fine. I suppose we should find something that might be reasonable for all players and then we'll see.

[Gavagai]

I like the idea very much in principle, RI should be very fun in MP (never tried it though). But I can only play this after PB66 is finished.
Some concerns:
1) "Realistic" speed is VERY slow but I never tried anything faster and not sure how well it is balanced.
2) No timer, really? It could take something like a decade in real life to finish a game.

Speed is still to be discussed; I'd preferer a slow speed, maybe realistic is too slow, but maybe something a bit faster might still work. It also depends on other factors as mapsize and number of players. No sense in playing rollercoaster on a huge map and no sense playing realistic on a duel map

About the timer, I'm in no hurry; as long as the game keeps going I'm fine. I suppose we should find something that might be reasonable for all players and then we'll see.

Speed (both in real life and in the game) is not a dealbreaker for me, I have no problem with a slow-paced game per se: busy enough in real life. My real worry is that slow games are rarely played to a conclusion because people lose interest or their circumstances change in ways that prevent them from continuing playing. Unlikely a problem in my case as I played civ multiplayer regularly for over 10 years and don't plan to stop but few people can keep engaged with the same game for several years and I think this is how long an RI game with the settings you described might take.
In any case, please, consider me a tentative sign-up and keep me in the loop if the game gets off the ground.

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Speed (both in real life and in the game) is not a dealbreaker for me, I have no problem with a slow-paced game per se: busy enough in real life. My real worry is that slow games are rarely played to a conclusion because people lose interest or their circumstances change in ways that prevent them from continuing playing. Unlikely a problem in my case as I played civ multiplayer regularly for over 10 years and don't plan to stop but few people can keep engaged with the same game for several years and I think this is how long an RI game with the settings you described might take.
In any case, please, consider me a tentative sign-up and keep me in the loop if the game gets off the ground.

I totally agree with you, that's why I proposed a Pitboss game instead of a DirectIP in the first place. People can play whenever they have time and we only have to agree to some longer sessions together from time to time. I guess we'll see how dedicated the players are but just in case someone can't keep up we can try and find a substitute or let the AI play at least temporarily. I know it's not an ideal solution and I hope the game can progress for as long as possible with real players. First prereq is that people be honest to themselves and other players: if they don't have time, that's acceptable and other players will decide what to do. I'll keep you updated but for the moment this is the relevant thread on civfanatics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/r...me.683833/ There are 4 other people interested, myself included, plus maybe one more I found on Civ4 Reddit/Ladder Discord channel https://discord.gg/8SJVTe8tSh
Let's see how we can work it out in the next days, and thanks for your insight, as I have no real previous experience with pitboss except with my family

[Mjmd]

You know 45 there is a greens game starting up for people who want to try out pitbosses! If you feel like the turn timer is intimidating maybe team up with a family member?

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

You know 45 there is a greens game starting up for people who want to try out pitbosses! If you feel like the turn timer is intimidating maybe team up with a family member?

Yes, I've seen it thanks  Problem is that my wife can't play regularly and the other family member is my 9 year old son and he's still learning how to play. Good to have 2 players in the family, but not really challenging, we play just for fun.

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

We're still discussing at civfanatics, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/r...me.683833/ Do you have any preference about time/day for sessions together? As I said being a pitboss game the server would be up almost all day, but the idea would be to have some sessions together once or twice per month, possibly around a couple of hours. We have players from India, Europe and Central US, so that makes a bit difficult to find a common time to play sessions together, but maybe once or twice per month is doable

[Ramkhamhaeng]

In order to speed up the file transfer, the game must be started with an ALTROOT shortcut; if you don't know what it is, it's just a folder you have to create where CivilizationIV.ini will be stored (and savegames, but these will be handled anyway by my server). You can set this folder (see next point) so that you don't have to mess with your default installation of civ4 or other mods you might have, both for singleplayer or multiplayer.

I want note that the ALTROOT-Param is not needed on the client/player side. It is needed for the Pitboss for several reason, e.g. for encoding the HOST-IP/URL information into a network packet. This will be used to evaluate the download path for the fast file transfer (BTS_Wrapper).

Please note that using the ALTROOT argument as normal player/client has one big drawback:
Civ4 will move (not copy!) the content of the normal root (My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword) to the given new path.
If you starting the game after this without the ALTROOT-Argument you will wonder where your (single player) saves and world builder files are.

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

In order to speed up the file transfer, the game must be started with an ALTROOT shortcut; if you don't know what it is, it's just a folder you have to create where CivilizationIV.ini will be stored (and savegames, but these will be handled anyway by my server). You can set this folder (see next point) so that you don't have to mess with your default installation of civ4 or other mods you might have, both for singleplayer or multiplayer.

I want note that the ALTROOT-Param is not needed on the client/player side. It is needed for the Pitboss for several reason, e.g. for encoding the HOST-IP/URL information into a network packet. This will be used to evaluate the download path for the fast file transfer (BTS_Wrapper).

Please note that using the ALTROOT argument as normal player/client has one big drawback:
Civ4 will move (not copy!) the content of the normal root (My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword) to the given new path.
If you starting the game after this without the ALTROOT-Argument you will wonder where your (single player) saves and world builder files are.

You are right, I've done it so many times that I don't have a problem anymore with the movement of the Altroot folder, but the first time it happens it's scary!
I think I've used the altroot on my other computers in the lan because this way I could both test pitboss games using your wrapper and DirectIP games using the other trick where the save folder is pointing to a shared Onedrive folder, without changing shortcuts or anything else.
Anyway you are right of course, Altroot is not necessary for the clients in a pitboss game.