I have my version of Gal Civ 3 on Steam, and a friend of mine has just bought it via GOG. We've tried setting up a multiplayer game, but when I set one up he can't see it, and vice versa. He's using the GOG Galaxy client.
So does anyone know if this is a bug, or is multiplayer somehow restricted to Steam vs Steam / GOG vs GOG?
Devaed,
Multiplayer is limited to either Steam/Steam or GOG/GOG.
Well that's just amazing game design.
It has nothing to do with game design. Educated yourself about servers and how they work.
Back in the old days game designers allowed you to enter the IP address of the host of the game (admittedly this meant a lot of fussing with firewall settings).
The only reason I bought GalCiv III is to play multiplayer! Incompatible networks is a major flaw. Long, long ago I bought GalCiv II and loved it but never played it because it lacked multiplayer.
There really should be some option for direct connection if you know the host player's IP address.
+1 for multiplayer over IP
No worries, disappointing but I suspected that was the case. Thanks for the reply.
It has a *little* to do with game design. They chose to depend on Steam servers / GOG servers, rather than choosing a server ecosystem that would be cross-compatible. They also neglected to include a direct IP option. There are undoubtedly reasons for these choices - perhaps even good ones - but it's not as if when designing the game, they didn't have the option to include this stuff.
They also don't make this restriction clear to anyone who isn't as 'educated' about the server situation. Thus my friend now needing to apply for a refund on GOG.
Well said!
I've waiting years for a multiplayer GalCiv, now I talked my friends into joining me in buying it and we (after the fact) discover that the ability to connect for multiplayer is extremely limited!
As a software developer, I can certainly understand Stardock's decision. However it should have been clearly stated so any purchasers wouldn't be rudely surprised by this limitation.
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