Multiplayer is a joke (Please we need fixes)

[georgesir]

Dear 2k,

I have been an avid supporter of Civ since its humble beginning! I understand the game was stream lined for a wider variety of consumers in order to increase revenue. Its against my preferences but i understand at the end of the day 2k is a business and has to increase profits. But What you must understand the multiplayer aspect is massive, i am not talking about just the online side but of the lan side. Every now and then when my friends and i have a bit of time after work we meet up with our laptops and play some turns. But you have made this impossible in the latest installment! People constantly get disconnected and trying to figure out if they have re connected is crazy. At some stage we were all playing our own separate game and we didn't know. The crashing, bugs and freezing of the game in multiplayer is unbelievable, after you reach round 300 turns from start of game. The Game becomes unplayable. Literally we had to quit and begin a new game.

We understand the issues of the amount of units in the game and how the current structure leads to problems when people have big armies etc because the tile of doom has been removed. But we are talking about a time where ppl dont have much of an army. So instead of playing civilization 5 and having more of our friends buy the game we are playing good old civilization 4 and either waiting for some major fix for civilization 5 or writing civilization 5 off and waiting for 6. Seriously just think about the bad publicity we give about civ 5. We feel the multiplayer is an after thought, something just to have "just because" There is an entire community that plays multiplayer, personally after one single player game we dont really want to play it just by our selves anymore. The fun is with friends and other humans, who u can trick and make deals with.

Please fix this problem, as for the moment we have written off civ 5 as you guys have killed it for us... I mean look at the forums they are riddled with compliants and we havent heard a peep out of the company since the last patch.

I am sure many agree with me...

[M A F I A]

There's a badzillion threads like this one, perhaps you could have chosen one and add your thoughts there. Anyways, I do concur with you, multiplayer's flawed at the moment, let's hope they will fix it sooner or later.

[ARC]

I completely agree with what you have brought up here. I truly believe it is ridiculous for a paying customer to deal with a product that doesn't work. 2K have advertised a lan mullti-player game, yet has failed, every time I've played with my friends. Some kind of compensation should be made to 2K's clients/customers, from making money of a product that does not deliver. This will surely give 2K a bad reputation.

[georgesir]

There's a badzillion threads like this one, perhaps you could have chosen one and add your thoughts there. Anyways, I do concur with you, multiplayer's flawed at the moment, let's hope they will fix it sooner or later.

Hey mafia,

Yeah i know, but i wanted to address the issues mainly with the lan side. But you know they wont be able to fix it, its been designed badly. The major issue is the one army unit per tile. Its the cause of the majority of the crashing problems. Specially later on when armies get even bigger. Too many calculations and memory issues... sigh... how long do u think civ 6 will take?

[M A F I A]

Frankly speaking and single-player wise, I like the removal of the hex of death as it adds a layer of heavy strategy to the game; I am aware though that along with simultaneous turns in multiplayer it produces issues; hopefully they will find a compromise.

[TheBadSeed]

I mean look at the forums they are riddled with compliants and we havent heard a peep out of the company since the last patch.
...

Sure we have. We've heard about the alpha testing for Firaxis' Super Duper New Facebook Game! (Seriously, CIV on Facebook? FIX THE REAL GAME FIRST!)

Time to face the music. They just don't care about Civ V multiplayer. They'd rather move on to something completely different and lame rather than fixing the project that we all just payed good money for.

Sure would be nice if SOMEONE from Firaxis or 2K would pop on and at least let us know that they've at least acknowledged the problems in MP, and have a plan to solve them. Lacking that, I just have to assume that it's dead to them.

TBS

[Beliathon]

Time to face the music. They just don't care about Civ V multiplayer. They'd rather move on to something completely different and lame rather than fixing the project that we all just payed good money for.

QFT! All they seem to care about is making the next buck.

[kooljay2]

Frankly I like playing LAN games and have played and completed many with success. Perhaps you and I could put our heads together and correct whatever issues you guys are having that prevents you from finishing games. I am not 2KGames tech support, get no $$ from them, nor am I some super whiz-kid computer expert. What I am is a fellow playing offering to help, so that you can play and enjoy the game as I do. I await your message in my inbox so we can arrange a time to work together.

Isn't this approach better than yelling and screaming and feeling unappreciated?

[TheBadSeed]

Isn't this approach better than yelling and screaming and feeling unappreciated?

I guess that's dependent on whether or not you feel you've been short-changed on your purchase, and if you think they plan to make good on their promise.

[Bantams]

dont waste ya keyboards keys TBS seriously as if anyone from 2k gives a rats ass about the MP

[khrushchev]

Georgesir, I have the exact same issues that you do. I love the game, but it starts dying around turn 250 or so when I play on LAN. I really only play multiplayer, so what this means is that I no longer play. Frustrating, yes, very much so. My home network is solid, it's what I do for a living. It's simply a problem with the game.

The silence from 2K gets more damning every day.

[Zhenon]

I'm beginning to get a feeling of dread about when MP will be fixed. Someone in this thread mentioned that Facebook is the next way 2K will make their "buck." Following that same logic, Civ5 MP will be fixed in the first expansion. We will all have to pay for a properly working MP, even though some of us bought Civ5 vanilla strictly for MP.

So let's see... Civ5 pre-order is 59.99 + 29.99 expansion + DLC + etc = WOW. We got shafted.

[TheBadSeed]

The silence from 2K gets more damning every day.

Indeed. The silence is deafening.

[Andross]

While there have been many thread on this subject and several patches, the many problems of multiplayer have not been addressed at all it seems. Even the features of multiplayer vs singleplayer are odd, you can't play as the mongols in multiplayer (everyone has them after all) or even select all the map types (Lakes for example). Also the AI seems worse in multiplayer to me, and doesn't ever start diplomacy with players on its own.

I've tried playing multiplayer with only 4 people (myself included), after over an hour of rehosting and trying to get it to work with all 4 people we had to give up. 3 people is playable, and 2 people seems better still. Although for no real reason the game will (sometimes) randomly go to the loading screen mid game, and then resume after it loads. Honestly besides a rare out of sync bug, I didn't have much trouble with Civ4's multiplayer at all, and you could rejoin or join late as well (take over an AI), change game settings while in the lobby etc... I really can't defend the poor state of Civ5's multiplayer, it really seems like an after thought.

[PurplePaladin]

The fact that people are saying "I'll just wait till Civ 6" is exactly the kind of mindset they want. Why fix the current game, when they can just release another game for $59 that you will buy too. For me, if Civ 6 came out tommorow (made by 2k) I would never buy it after this game was released knowingly in the state it's in.

[Xill]

The fact that people are saying "I'll just wait till Civ 6" is exactly the kind of mindset they want. Why fix the current game, when they can just release another game for $59 that you will buy too. For me, if Civ 6 came out tommorow (made by 2k) I would never buy it after this game was released knowingly in the state it's in.

Judging by the time it takes to fix and improve the Multiplayer of civ5 (about 0% progress has been done in over 4 months) we can presume that Civ6 will only come at the end of the universe, when time cease to exist.

[foxdie]

fact is im reluctant to encourage my firends to play and learn without knowing multiplayer is ready. As it is now the enthiuthaism would die without giving it its full chance. So there you Firaxes, £60 on the line for you to get Multimplayer working!

[Bantams]

Judging by the time it takes to fix and improve the Multiplayer of civ5 (about 0% progress has been done in over 4 months) we can presume that Civ6 will only come at the end of the universe, when time cease to exist.

And are you going to be a sucker and buy civ 6?

sorry bad grammer starting with and but maybe thats whats wrong with civ v bad programming?

[Breecher]

OK - Anyone who wants a Multiplayer Save workaround until 2K gets around to listening to its customers listen up.
1st- To save in a Multiplayer game you must hit "ctrl-s" at the same time, or ctrl first. This brings up the save menu. There is an option to 'Save to the Steam Cloud'. Ignore it. It is only a single player option.
2nd- Name your save game "Autosave_(your save name)"
3rd- Then go into the save game folder
Win7 looks like this C:\Users\(your name)\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\multi
Then right click on the game you see from the 2nd step, either cut or copy then go to the only other folder in multi which is auto and paste the game there.
4th- load up from the multiplayer screen that says host or load.

Enjoy!

[Breecher]

2k has replied to 5 of my emails, but has pointedly said nothing helpful. I posted a multiplayer save workaround below.
Here is what 2K had to say

Dear Breecher,

The reason for this is the main save option of the game is the Autosave as you can set it to save after so many turns so you need not worry about saving the game.


Kind regards,
Carl

Technical Support

[kooljay2]

and still.... no replies to my offer to help. I guess it's easier to complain than to work and possibly find a solution. Oh well, I tried.

[Xill]

The major problem with the multiplayer load feature (autosave or manual save) is that it does not let you re-assign the players and often assign players to the wrong civilization. Also the kick button does not work and you cannot load a game unless there is the same amount of players as when it was saved.
Hurg.

[georgesir]

@Kooljay2, Have u tried more than 3 ppl? We play with 4-5 people and at 5 its impossible u cant get past like turn 5 without some issue. It gets worse and worse the more ppl you add.

U know what irritates me guys, is that 2k has released what 7 patches? inc dlc and stuff, gigs and gigs worth of stuff and not a single change to the multi-player. How hard is it to add a manual save option. They really don't care about multi player or us at all. There silence is proof of it all...

Thank you for all your comments!

[kooljay2]

@Kooljay2, Have u tried more than 3 ppl? We play with 4-5 people and at 5 its impossible u cant get past like turn 5 without some issue. It gets worse and worse the more ppl you add.

Yes, we've played six player LAN matches. Sometimes we save in progress and finish it later, and it works fine for us.

How hard is it to add a manual save option.

Ctrl+S works fine. One additional step afterwards, but no issues reconnecting and finishing the games.

Thank you for all your comments!

You're Welcome!!