Awful Multiplayer Experience

[Renzor]

I made the mistake of trying out the multiplayer for Civ5.
Unfortunately after getting a taste of playing against real players instead of the dummy AI, I really have a hard time going back to playing single player.

Playing multiplayer should be an awesome experience for this game, but it's not. In the past 24 hours alone I've had 3 multiplayer games end because of it freezing. And not just my game freezes, but everyone's. We can all still continue talking in the chat box, but the game is permanently stuck on some kind of loading. Sometimes it gets unfrozen when a player or two gives up on waiting and leaves, other times it doesnt fix at all.

Another time it likes to crash out altogether is when it is attempting to resync the game. Everytime it does this I pray nothing bad will happen since in the past week it has crashed me out 4 times. Thankfully I've made some friends playing the multiplayer and they've invited me back into the game, but that's a very chance situation.

Speaking of reinviting to a game, there has GOT to be a better way to keep track of who was playing besides writing it down on paper. Yes, paper. I've resorted to writing down people's names when I play multiplayer just so I can reinvite them to the game after the inevitable random D/C that WILL OCCUR to a random person in the game.

Right now it seems the best way to help minimize the lag, disconnects, and crashes is to minimize or remove altogether any AI presence in the game (no barbarians/minimal city states if at all). I've noticed a significant improvement when I do this, although it still crashes.

I would like to see the multiplayer stability improved. I would like to see a better way for reinviting people who accidentally drop. I would like for people other than the host be able to save the game. Mostly, I would just like to be able to play a full multiplayer game without having to deal with people getting d/ced or crashing out of the game. There is a ton of DLC and now the expac out for this game, how has the multiplayer been allowed to be this unstable for so long?


note: these problems are occurring in games with 5-6 players via Steam.
All the players I have met and played with via Steam are reporting similar problems, although I am confused as to why there aren't more posted complaints on these forums.

[civdiss]

although I am confused as to why there aren't more posted complaints on these forums.

It's because a lot of players have given up on MP because 2K/Firaxis have given up as well. To have so many stability issues 2 years after release is unacceptable and the only way to play MP now is against 1 friend and preferably on LAN. Though even on a LAN there are issues but at least re-inviting is easier.

[Koden]

The multiplayer on Civ 5 is a sick, sad joke. I've been suffering with it since day one and honestly am even more ticked off because even after the expansion pack things are still borked. It irritates me because I bought this game only to play it via multiplayer. I would sink hours with friends on Civ 4 playing with and against them and not even vanilla civ 4 had multiplayer that functioned this poorly for this long.

[Olek]

I and a lot of my friends bought this for multiplayer as well, as we played Civ 4 multiplayer often and had some good times, but with Civ 5 multiplayer we were deceived and obviously they are able to live with themselves.
I'll not forget, nor let anyone else forget Gregs words before release "Multiplayer is awesome".

[metalhawk]

It's puzzling to see this and other's experiences that are similar, because, in my group's experience, this doesn't happen at all.

For that matter, Civ IV is much less stable MP-wise for us than Civ V (regular OOS errors. we just go back to Civ IV for the MP-able mods, really).