posted 03-28-99 02:56 AM ET        

Let me give you a little backround information first.

Me and two of my freinds like games. Even more, we really like multiplayer games. We all got Civ2 gold when it came out (groan). So, since we got tired of sitting there staring at the screen watching the seconds on other people's turns tick down and doing nothing, we went out and got Alpha Centuari. So, we all installed it, learned the basics of playing and started itching for some mutli-player action.

So I hosted a game. I have a cable modem and a 233 PII prossessor with 64 megs of ram, so I was the one who hosted it. After joining up and exchaining some dialoug, we all picked names (one of us picked - I kid you not - "Tina Yuthers".) So, we set the custom rules and our custom Faction names, and the Nerds, Hippies, and the Yuppies were ready to grow and prosper!

Or not.

Definitly not. The game was unplayable. I hadn't had any problems in one-player mode, so I was quite surprised by such thing as, when trying to change a que, the box popping up, but selecting a building and hitting "Replace" did'nt do anything. I'd click "Replace", the button would light up like I clicked it... ...and nothing would change. Or, when trying to move a unit, I would keep getting messages like "This action is still being resolved on some machines" or "Another user is finishing a global" or some type of thing like that. One time, when trying to trade technology with Tina Yuthers, we offered each other some technology, we both hit Accept... ...and the game sat there, on Accept, with the timer frozen, for over a minute. This was odd, because we could still send each other messages like "You're a cheap whore, you dirty hippy." Other things were annoying - units would take upwards of five seconds to move; The snych time at the beginning of every turn was sometimes longer than the turn itself. Or dialoge boxes popping up while trying to move citizes from square to square. Or getting "Waiting for turn to move unit" when trying to move a unit. Anyway, I know games are laggy, but this is just ridicouls, escpially considering the host is using a cable modem. Any thoughs? Ideas? Fixes?

posted 03-28-99 03:09 AM ET         

But honestly, during this game I got nothing but "Some global actions are being resolved. Time will be added to your clock"... first of all, time wasn't added to my clock. And for that matter, time wasn't added to my clock for extra units. I got 55 seconds, no matter what, even though there was a 3sec/unit + 5sec/base + 15sec/base or whatnot bonus.

And not only that, but near the end it was so laggy that it was all I could do from destroying my computer in rage. the clock would tick off eating up my whole turn on units who had automove and autoimprove on, always "waiting for action to be resolved on some comptuers".

posted 03-28-99 05:23 AM ET            

I've complained about it, oh in about 5 different messages and followups. No one has addressed it really except to say, "Are you using the current patch?"

Multiplayer on this game is non-existant. It should be considered false-advertising that they actually put it on the box. Come on, Firaxis, at least ADMIT that multiplayer is bunked. It is IMPOSSIBLE to play a multiplayer game through to its conclusion.

If you won't answer peoples' questions about the multiplayer (non)playability, then at least fix the damned thing. Some of us paid money for this game with multiplayer in mind. I know I did. I can't take it back now that I've had it so long.

If you don't fix it, do you think any of us will ever buy another Firaxis game? I won't.

posted 03-29-99 01:06 PM ET         

I too have a cable modem on a PII 350 loaded with RAM. I too, as well as my friends, love multiplayer games. We were very excited when SMAC came out, especially with the addition of my new cable modem and it's incredible speed. (My friends aren't yet as lucky and are still using the ole v.90... ahhh, I remember it well.) What happened over the next several nights was very disappointing. Is there some magic to the way the game is configured for Multi-Player? Literally minutes between moves. Quite frankly, unacceptable. I have experienced no other problems with any other MultiPlayer games. There are no configuration issues and the game has run flawlessly for me in single player mode, so I am not saying that this game is a pile of worthless code. I love the game. However, today if a game cannot be played successfully in Multi-Player it will not be played to its fullest potential.

If anyone has any ideas or knows the secret to making this game run better in multi-player please pass them along. I don't want to five up on the game yet.

Is it possible that the cable modem is flooding the UART on the modems on the other side? Just stabbing in the dark....