A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Civil War 2 is the definitive grand strategy game of the period. It is a turn based regional game with an emphasis on playability and historical accuracy. It is built on the renowned AGE game engine, with a modern and intuitive interface that makes it easy to learn yet hard to master.
This historical operational strategy game with a simultaneous turn-based engine (WEGO system) that places players at the head of the USA or CSA during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

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GamesaurusRex
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A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by GamesaurusRex »

Need help for two devoted Matrix customers.

Wheat and I have both purchased Civil War 2 and have been having extreme problems getting it to function by PBEM. We did succeed in getting the Shiloh scenario to work in PBEM when we were using the 1.05 patch, but since the 1.06 patch it has been non-functional. The problem seems to be that the game refuses to recognize the game mode is human-to-human via PBEM and acts as if one side is AI, despite having the AI options clearly switched off. The "replay" file for the opposing side is also not being generated now (which is probably because the game thinks it is running against AI).

Just for the record, the manual is abysmal. There is no excuse for Ageod, Slitherine, or Matrix failing to at least post on their forums full instructions for executing a PBEM game. I am especially surprised about the Matrix forum because this is NOT characteristic of Matrix as they are usually very informative regarding their products. I assume the reason for this that Matrix actually had nothing to do with the coding of this game and is merely marketing it. Slitherine and Matrix have added to the problems of the game by the fact that the code versions of the game sold directly from Matrix apparently do not interface and operate with the code versions sold on Steam. I did finally manage to get a Steam key from Slitherine (because I purchased my copy of the game directly from Matrix) to get a Steam copy installed to match Wheat's Steam copy, but it took me several days of experimenting and tinkering with Slitherine's website to do it. The instruction on how to do that required me to exercise an inordinate amount of psychic mental powers to get it done.

I'm appealing to Matrix here to raise this issue of PBEM playability with Slitherine and Ageod as I it is my opinion that Matrix is the more responsive of the three.
"Real Life" is a game... THIS is war !
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JosephM
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by JosephM »

Hello Gamesaurus,

I'm sorry if you feel that parts of the company are more responsive than others, but Slitherine and Matrix are the same company: the same producers, production staff and we on Tech Support work with games on either Slitherine or Matrix. In fact, the main difference is that the "Hardcore" wargames are generally released with the Matrix brand, whereas the "lighter" wargames tend to be Slitherine released. However from a back-end point of view it is the same staff who work on the games and we respond on both forums. Also, the Ageod staff are found on the Ageod site, as well as on the Slitherine and Matrix sites. It might be that certain times of day we are more active on one forum than another, as Paulo and Iain (two of the most active users on the forums) work to GMT, whereas Pip and Erik are in US timezones so they tend to be more active in the evening, but we try to be as active on the forums as we can.

There is also no difference between the Steam or Stand-alone versions. The Standalone version uses a serial and our own launcher, whereas the Steam version auto-updates and uses its own DRM, but the same game files are across both versions.

I'm sorry if you do not think that the manual is good enough, but the manuals do vary by games depending on the developer. We have contacted Pocus of Ageod to ask about this issue, as there should not be any issues on 1.06 which are not in 1.05 so we will let you know when we hear back from them.
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GamesaurusRex
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by GamesaurusRex »

NOTE: NOTE: PLEASE REREAD THIS BECAUSE I EDITED OUT SOME DESCRIPTIVE ERRORS..
Thanks Joseph M for your quick response ! And thanks for educating me on the relationship between the various company names and their function. I'm in the U.S., so perhaps the time zone has something to do with my perception that questions are answered more quickly on the Matrix board.

Wheat and I initially had 1.05 CW2 games (Wheat's copy from Steam and my copy direct from Matrix download). We successfully played the Shiloh 8-turn scenario twice via PBEM with me doing the turn processing as the CSA player. I would email Wheat the .hst file and the replay file, while he would email me his .ord file to use to process each turn. I should note here that on turn three of both of these games it crashed and we had to redo the third turn, but after that there were no crashes.

After we updated our CW2 to 1.06, (Wheat updating from Steam and me updating via the update routine button on the Matrix version) the game no longer worked. When I would send the .hst file to Wheat to load and do his turn 2 move to generate his .ord file, his game would crash and throw an error. Wheat sent the log to Matrix/Slitherine and they said they thought possibly a corrupted file was the culprit. We reloaded everything and it still did not work and still threw the error. At that point I guessed it might have something to do with the two differing Matrix/Steam versions of update... So I went through the procedure at Slitherine's websight to get a Steam Key so I could load a Steam version of the game. (I use Steam anyway for other games.)

Now that we both have Steam copies, the game has stopped throwing errors and seems happy for the first two turns... but on the third turn, right after I have pushed the "process turn" button to generate the state of the game for the beginning of turn three before the move orders... the game fails to write the results of processing of the turn two orders to the .hst file and, as a result, we cannot proceed to turn four because there is no overwritten .hst file to send to Wheat so he can make his turn 3 move to generate his .ord file. At that point I have looked for a way to force the game to save the gamestate to the .hst file, after turn two is processed, but there appears to be no way to do this. (NOTE: The "Save Turn" button appears to only overwrite the .ord file and not the .hst file.) I have carefully observed the time/date stamp on the game files to see the foregoing happening. (I should also note we have checked to make sure our anti-viral is not interfering with the game.)

Anyway, Thanks for the quick response. I'm sure you are working on it and will get it solved. It is no great issue for Wheat and I, because IT JUST MEANS WE HAVE MORE TIME TO PLAY GRIGSBY'S WAR IN THE EAST ! [:D]

(Patiently waiting for the bugs to get ironed out.)

P.S. Apologies for posting this here, perhaps it should be moved to the Tech Support section.



"Real Life" is a game... THIS is war !
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VPaulus
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by VPaulus »

Both of you (GamesaurusRex and Wheat) please try the following:

Open the game installation folder and delete a file named userpath.ini.
Start a new game and check if the issue is persisting.

With the userpath.ini file deleted, the game will start saving the logs and the save game files, in the game main installation folder instead of the default one, in the Windows documents folder.

Another thing that could help in stabilizing the CW2 is to install the game in a different folder than C:\Program Files(x86)\....
By default, Steam installs Steam application and games in that folder. You can add a new Steam library folder, uninstall the game and reinstall the game on the new folder.
On how to add a new Steam library folder please check the guide presented on the site below:
http://www.mameau.com/add-existing-stea ... y-folders/
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GamesaurusRex
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by GamesaurusRex »

PARTIAL MYSTERY SOLVED !

It turns out that Outlook mail was changing the tilde " ~ " to a dash " - " on SOME .ord file transfers... That explains the missing ord file indicators on the load page... but this still does not explain why the one game where this tilde problem did not happen and the game still did not process the turn two-to-turn-three and did not overwrite the .hst file. We are still working on it... we suspect the .hst file may have been corrupted on turn three because we were emailing the files without zipping them. We are trying zipping now and will report the results.

Thanks VPaulus for the help !
"Real Life" is a game... THIS is war !
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GamesaurusRex
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by GamesaurusRex »

Thanks Joseph M and VPaulus for the help. We seem to have resolved the problems now.
For the benefit of others, those problems were:

1) Anti-virus was preventing access to game files.
Solution: Exempt game files from AV program.

2) MS Outlook email program was randomly substituting a " - " dash for the " ` " tilde in the .ord files when emailed.
Solution: Use ZIP file compression to email files.

3) Game would randomly fail to write the new .hst file.
Solution: This was happening because non ZIPPED .hst file would be corrupted. So use ZIP file compression to email all files.
(Actually, this corruption of files seems to be rare and you can get away without zipping the files most of the time.)

"Real Life" is a game... THIS is war !
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jwilkerson
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by jwilkerson »

We are having the same issue I think ... pbem game turns into two games with both of us playing AI instead of each other.

==
In looking at the manual, page 13, we note we got part of the situation correct, my name is Joe and my opponents name is John ... exactly as specified in the manual!

But, we have never seen any TRN files ... we see HST files and ORD files.

We have noticed the ~ to - issue but we did not realize that might be the problem. Now we do. So we will try correct the - to ~ in a new start and see if that works.

Thanks for the tip !!!
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jwilkerson
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by jwilkerson »

Changing the - back to the tilda ~ solved our issue we can play the game PBEM thanks so much!!!

==
Next challenge is trying to figure out how the non-host player can view the replay file. Well maybe more general question is how can ANY player view the replay file?

All ideas welcome
:)
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Ironclad
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by Ironclad »

To run replay:

Press the tilde key (the one under the Esc key on a US keyboard, on the middle right with the number sign on a UK one). The console will appear, write loadreplay and press enter. The screen will change to replay mode and pressing the space bar stops and starts it moving through days 1 to 15. To see all the action across the board you will need to move around the map, and press space to run through the cycle each time. You can also use zoom when in replay mode. To leave replay I exit the program completely and re-enter to play normally.

Replay is generated by the host switching on replay save in options and sending his opponent the appropriate replay file (USA or CSA) with the hst file.
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RE: A PLEA FOR HELP FROM MATRIX

Post by jwilkerson »

Thanks! That worked ... now we can play PBEM AND watch the replays!!!


It's all about the Tilda !! :D

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