Okay, we are having the same issues (also in Germany), we tried different and same Steam regions and nothing helped...

nexinex wrote:
Then you are the first one to mention that you have connectivity problems with other games as well! So this might be a hint that your hardware/software/configuration is the cause.



Sadly, for most people here the MP issues are so annoying because they are really ES-related and all other games work fine. So the devs are the ones to determine what goes wrong in that case :3

However, I'm not the first one to mention that Civ 5 has problems, but I noticed that in every case of not working Civ 5 multiplayer, the players were from Southern Asia, so again - problems are not on the users end.

Hi, I had this same problem, that the multiplayer would be stuck at the loading screen. The issue me and my freind found was Hamatchi, we had to complete uninstall it, and then it worked perfectly fine. Hamatchi creates a new network to play games over lan between computers that are not lan'd. I guess it was messing things up.

graynk wrote:
It's kind of off topic, but I'm having the same problem with Civ 5, but nothing like that with other multiplayer games, like Borderlands 2, or Left 4 Dead. Is it the turn-based strategy curse? D:

Then you are the first one to mention that you have connectivity problems with other games as well! So this might be a hint that your hardware/software/configuration is the cause.



Sadly, for most people here the MP issues are so annoying because they are really ES-related and all other games work fine. So the devs are the ones to determine what goes wrong in that case :3

Steph'nie wrote:
I understand that B1 is having issues here: Hamachi running, or router/firewall you need to set properly? Please check my previous post in this thread.

As I've already said, he does not have hamachi installed and every other steam game works fine. Firewall can't be a problem since he's been using the same laptop on both locations.

Additionally, when the third guy hosts, B1 can play with us, which is completely strange. Why? This just can't be a problem on our side.

Steph'nie wrote:
Did you try what I suggested a bit above (checking if you have Hamachi running [throughtaskmanager] and your router)?

I don't have Hamachi. Ports are open, everything in steam works perfectly, all the other games too, only two games don't work properly. And in both cases it's kind of a massive problem, so I seriously doubt that it has something to do with router.

graynk wrote:
Well, I'm here to confirm the %updating issue. I had just connected to the random game, and I could see only one of the people there, others were %updating. However, they said that they are able to see ME. And then, they started the game and I got disconnected. I tried to host myself, and people were connecting to me, and I could see their nicknames, but again - once I started the game - they got disconnected. It's kind of off topic, but I'm having the same problem with Civ 5, but nothing like that with other multiplayer games, like Borderlands 2, or Left 4 Dead. Is it the turn-based strategy curse? D:

Did you try what I suggested a bit above (checking if you have Hamachi running [throughtaskmanager] and your router)?

Well, I'm here to confirm the %updating issue. I had just connected to the random game, and I could see only one of the people there, others were %updating. However, they said that they are able to see ME. And then, they started the game and I got disconnected. I tried to host myself, and people were connecting to me, and I could see their nicknames, but again - once I started the game - they got disconnected. It's kind of off topic, but I'm having the same problem with Civ 5, but nothing like that with other multiplayer games, like Borderlands 2, or Left 4 Dead. Is it the turn-based strategy curse? D:

izohaz wrote:
okay, news from us again!

Another friend bought the game now aswell. Three people: A, B, C. B has 2 different locations B1 and B2. Host is always the first one:

A - B1 does not work

B1 - A does not work

A - B2 does work

havn't tried B2 - A

A - C does work

C - A does work

A - B2 - C does work

C - B2 - A does work

C - B1 - A does work aswell

I understand that B1 is having issues here: Hamachi running, or router/firewall you need to set properly? Please check my previous post in this thread.

okay, news from us again!

Another friend bought the game now aswell. Three people: A, B, C. B has 2 different locations B1 and B2. Host is always the first one:

A - B1 does not work

B1 - A does not work

A - B2 does work

havn't tried B2 - A

A - C does work

C - A does work

A - B2 - C does work

C - B2 - A does work

C - B1 - A does work aswell

EvilTactician wrote:
I'm not sure how much the developers can actually do about this - as the problem is hard to trace down to its roots and with full Steam integration for multiplayer the majority of the code base for that aspect is outside their direct control anyway.

Yes, there is something they could do: Make an alternative for the multiplayer connection mode! (LAN-Mode?)

phelipus wrote:
and we had those problems "updating%" and can not play multiplayer at all.

I live in Germany and me and my friends have the same problem (%updating error). Germany generally has got some internet infrastructure I think...So that is not the reason. We tried to find a solution or workaround for 4 months now and had no success.



Try disabling (or uninstalling!) Hamachi or other networks, that did help a few people.

Steph'nie wrote:
Well, if it works at your parents' and not at your own place, you should check your router settings (NAT or firewall). In any case, try opening a few ports: please check out this link. And if it still doesn't work, you might want to try to set the DMZ setting on your router.

In his appartment he doesn't use a router (directly connected via modem) so we can't really use DMZ or NAT. Additionally, other games that use steam multiplayer like TF2 or Dungeon Defenders work perfectly fine.

Not to point out the obvious, but to play multiplayer in a stable fashion, you need a stable connection to the Steam servers. I'm not sure what sort of connectivity you're getting there and how well Valve covers the region, but I suspect it's not quite as comprehensive as the US and EU regions.



Brazilian payment and pricing methods were only brought in on Steam just 3 weeks ago, for example.



The fact your friend lives only 5km away doesn't matter a huge deal - you're most likely still dealing with servers that aren't exactly local.



Luckily as time and technology moves on and gets more widespread, you'll have less and less problems. I still don't envy people gaming from more remote areas, though.

Hello EvilTactician,

Did you know tell me about players in South America? I live in southern Brazil, and I have another friend who also have downloaded the game, both on your desktop and in your laptop.E live in the same city, somewhere around 5km away, and we had those problems "updating%" and can not play multiplayer at all. Can you tell me if there are other players in my region who managed to play in multiplayer?

I find these topics quite interesting. I am not sure if it's any help but I play almost solely multiplayer (besides for mod testing/development) and have not experienced any of these issues.



We always play with 8 players, a mix of AI and humans and have done 4 humans for a full game with no problems at all. All players are UK based, in completely different regions of the country.



In 12 or so games (all played to the very end) we've only had an issue twice. In both cases Steam servers collapsed entirely and nothing else on Steam was working either for 10-20 minutes. Probably related to the sales, which tend to overload the Steam servers.



I'm not sure how much the developers can actually do about this - as the problem is hard to trace down to its roots and with full Steam integration for multiplayer the majority of the code base for that aspect is outside their direct control anyway.

izohaz wrote:
Huh, I thought I'd already posted an answer, but it didn't appear... well, I'll post it again



His parents are about 200km away. The strange thing is that his parents are further away from me than his appartment. We've even tried setting the steam download region to the same one (germany - Munich) but it didn't help. We'll try again after the patch and will report back



Edit: oh, found out why my post didn't appear, it was on the second page. My bad :P

Well, if it works at your parents' and not at your own place, you should check your router settings (NAT or firewall). In any case, try opening a few ports: please check out this link. And if it still doesn't work, you might want to try to set the DMZ setting on your router.

I know that this thread exists like a thousand times, and I have to say that I've read through all of them, but I still have the problem.



I bought the game in the steam sale yesterday, a friend of mine aswell. We tried to play together through multiplayer.

First of all I have to say that I have every VPN adapter disabled, my LAN adapter has the highest priority, no VPN tool is running. Every other steam game works with this configuration (even DungeonDefenders, which has problems all the time).

Our problem is the same that others have stated. We can get into each others lobbies, but the client only sees %Updating... for every other AI / User. After starting we are stuck in the Loading screen forever.



We've already tried various things. We started with disabled all firewalls. After that didn't help we verified the integrity of the game cache - we both had to download some files, but it didn't help at all. After that, we've set our steam location to the same one (Germany - Munich) which helped a bit. Sometimes (!) we were able to see each others race / nick in the game lobby then, we even saw it when the other player pressed ready. But AI players still showed the %Updating... text. Still - stuck in the loading screen. We tried a 2player game without AI, even then we were stuck in the loading screen.



We are really, really annoyed of this problem because we both bought the game to play with each other. It sounded so promising, but not being able to play with each other spoils all the fun. Is there any hope that we will ever be able to play it? If not, I really want a refund...

Huh, I thought I'd already posted an answer, but it didn't appear... well, I'll post it again



His parents are about 200km away. The strange thing is that his parents are further away from me than his appartment. We've even tried setting the steam download region to the same one (germany - Munich) but it didn't help. We'll try again after the patch and will report back



Edit: oh, found out why my post didn't appear, it was on the second page. My bad :P

izohaz wrote:
We've played with 4 AIs. Much diplomacy (declaring wars / starting alliances), everything worked fine. Once we were stuck in the "Standby" Mode after the turn, so I saved and we loaded and everything worked fine again.

Finished the game - only had to reload this one time.



Edit: okay guys, it seems like it's not about whether he uses his PC or his laptop - it's about his location. He was at his parents for the weekend and it worked fine. Now he went back to his apartment and took his laptop with himself and it doesn't work anymore.

How far away were his parents? Perhaps the steam region related. Be interested to hear if after Wednesdays update if it works for him.

We've played with 4 AIs. Much diplomacy (declaring wars / starting alliances), everything worked fine. Once we were stuck in the "Standby" Mode after the turn, so I saved and we loaded and everything worked fine again.

Finished the game - only had to reload this one time.



Edit: okay guys, it seems like it's not about whether he uses his PC or his laptop - it's about his location. He was at his parents for the weekend and it worked fine. Now he went back to his apartment and took his laptop with himself and it doesn't work anymore.

Nice. Do you have AIs? Do you have much diplomacy going on?



We noticed that the game becomes desynchronized when someone wants to declare war or open borders in mid-game. And then nothing works, not even reloading the savegame.

We've just played to turn 142 and it worked fine.

Tell us if your game gets stuck after some turns (100 or more).

"Great" news guys He's just downloaded the game on his laptop and played it with his laptop instead of his computer. It's now his laptop / my PC instead of both of us using their PCs. I have no idea why, but it works. At least we can play, that's something already

nexinex wrote:
Maybe the release was 6 months too early...

certainly possible, although without extra funding perhaps they couldn't carry on... cyclic problem

Maybe the release was 6 months too early...

My only problem with this is, that I've only bought this game for mulitplayer (steam told me that it is a multiplayer game). So for me buying the game was worthless now. Even if it's a great game, as far as I've played it in Singleplayer it's fun. But I've bought it for multiplayer so I've actually thrown out my money for nothing.

nexinex wrote:
I'm sure they'll do... but ask yourself what your priority should be as a dev. A widely dysfunctional MP is not a little bug, it's a major game feature! I appreciate all the work that they've spent on all the things that make this game so nice. But, really guys, weeks are okay for fixing the MP, but 4 months??? That's fit to get some negative reactions...

You make a compelling case and I find myself in agreement with you. Many others have also criticised the MP experience but, so far, I believe the Devs have not yet come forth with an estimate of when they wish to have MP fixed... I trust them to be on top of it, however.

I'm sure they'll do... but ask yourself what your priority should be as a dev. A widely dysfunctional MP is not a little bug, it's a major game feature! I appreciate all the work that they've spent on all the things that make this game so nice. But, really guys, weeks are okay for fixing the MP, but 4 months??? That's fit to get some negative reactions...

izohaz wrote:
I have to say that it pisses me off too - I have payed my money for the game and I want it to work. I can understand that bugs exist (I write software myself, I know that there are bugs sometimes that are hard to fix) but basic stuff such as starting a game should definitely work. Well let's hope and pray that the bug gets fixed.

Please bear with us, I know that's no excuse for some of the more frustrating bugs etc but I'm sure the Devs are onto it. There's so much yet for them to do, but I'm sure they will address it!

I have to say that it pisses me off too - I have payed my money for the game and I want it to work. I can understand that bugs exist (I write software myself, I know that there are bugs sometimes that are hard to fix) but basic stuff such as starting a game should definitely work. Well let's hope and pray that the bug gets fixed.

Welcome to the club.



These problems exist for more than 4 months now and really pissed off a lot of people. Devs are responding from time to time, saying it has something to do with Steam. But as you may have read, nothing has happened so far.



So, next week there will be an update and there might be a chance that it fixes the %updating error.

Let us pray.