Self-Ghosting

[Tonioz]

Well, there is need in subs in many games. When there is no sub, people often invites someone for ghosting (zombie) - person joins and then quit, leaving ghost nation without movement. It is better than some stupid AI moves, which needs editing later.

There is easy way not to look for the ghost outside. Just run second EU2 and you`ll get self-ghosting
The best if host would run second EU2. When host loads the game as own, he should tab to let second copy to be loaded in normal conditions. Any player can make zombie, but host won`t have connection problem.
That can be unreliable solution - sometimes when you tab, the game doesn`t run and you see "gathering screen", while actually host launched the game.

But you can go following link: http://www.geocities.jp/soukan_n/f/index.html , while let to play EU2 in windows mode.

Running two EU2s make you rather slowly. But after you loaded the game and all are in, quit one EU2 and play other one.

 

[Joohoo]

Have you tested it or is it just a theory yet?
I could probably try it today at my You gotta die for the government game if we are not getting any subs.
I think my computer can handle two EU2s at the same time.
I will try and report back.

 

[PJL]

Nice solution, especially for those who haev fast computers and lots of memory (which cuts down on HD usage, and makes it more stable).

Edit - just tested this against myself, and it does work, provded you swtich over at certain points (ie when loading, you need to swtich to the other one to connect).

 

[unmerged(11287)]

is it possible to play with 2 countries? control your hosts or cheating will generalize as a common thing.

 

[PJL]

is it possible to play with 2 countries? control your hosts or cheating will generalize as a common thing.

In theory yes, but you would have to run slowly, since the time freezes on one when you switch over to the other, whch causes a lot of lag. Really, you would have to switch every month, which would be tedious for a campagin. But as to just getting a ghost to sub a player country, it's a great idea.

 

[Moredhel]

There's a patch which allows EU2 to run in background mode, so that is wont freeze when tabbing-out. In theory its possible to run 2 windowed copies of EU2 on different displays and with background patch, and just tab between them every few minutes. I can't believe i just said that o

 

[unmerged(18425)]

Okay, I guess it's now time to admit that I play both Venice and England in Defeat before Dismemberment

 

[Moredhel]

Nah, you're obviously playing Spain, besides England

 

[Joohoo]

Ok we tried to self-ghost in DFG and it worked good!

I just had to tabb between the two EU2 running programs and both connected to the game. I was the host btw.

When all were in I closed down Joo2 and we continued playing and Sweden was ghost.

Thanks for the idea Tonioz
EDIT:
Btw I didn't try to make EU2 in windows mode, it worked without it.

 

[Tonioz]

i tryed same testing in LAN without windows mode too

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I did it yesterday in TfG.

After an hour or so we rehosted because the perm for the ghosted nation arrived. I saved and went to the lobby. But before I rehosted I went into the ghost session to end that EU program from running. I had to quickly stretch for the pause button because nothing had happened since almost the start of the session. The date on the screen of the ghosted nation was many years back and when I entered the session the date started running like hell. I got perhaps 100 messages in 10 seconds. I just paused and clicked away the messages and then left and told the ghosted person what happened.

When I now look back I wonder if the host save have registered anything that happened for that ghost? All events were left on the screen so no event choices can have been registered by the host. The question is if anyting else had been? Like investments and income? Remember: the date of the ghosted session had not moved much at all, I had only visited it once after all were in and that was before I made the first unpause before we started the session.

Perhaps the ghoster needs to tab over to the ghosted session during game now and then. I was instructed to tab between the two sessions during loading and I did that but as I said I never did it during play.

--------

Just compared the saves. Income and investment have been registered during the ghosting. So far so well. Don't know about the events.

 

[Joohoo]

I did it yesterday in TfG.

After an hour or so we rehosted because the perm for the ghosted nation arrived. I saved and went to the lobby. But before I rehosted I went into the ghost session to end that EU program from running. I had to quickly stretch for the pause button because nothing had happened since almost the start of the session. The date on the screen of the ghosted nation was many years back and when I entered the session the date started running like hell. I got perhaps 100 messages in 10 seconds. I just paused and clicked away the messages and then left and told the ghosted person what happened.

When I now look back I wonder if the host save have registered anything that happened for that ghost? All events were left on the screen so no event choices can have been registered by the host. The question is if anyting else had been? Like investments and income? Remember: the date of the ghosted session had not moved much at all, I had only visited it once after all were in and that was before I made the first unpause before we started the session.

Perhaps the ghoster needs to tab over to the ghosted session during game now and then. I was instructed to tab between the two sessions during loading and I did that but as I said I never did it during play.

When I ghosted Swe in my game, I closed down the other program right after everyone had pressed "in".

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Thinking more about this the conclusion must be that anything that is done at the host is of course registered by the host (apparently income and investments are done at the host and then merely sent and displayed at the client) while things done at the client and which must be sent to the host has not been done.

But except event choices perhaps no other important things are done at the client? That is, "important" in this context when we know the ghost will not send any merchants, diplomats or do any diplomatic actions etc.

Is it only the event choices we lose?

 

[unmerged(6147)]

When I ghosted Swe in my game, I closed down the other program right after everyone had pressed "in".

Good for you Joohoo, then you did not need to click on the latency message I got every 10 minutes or so

 

[Joohoo]

Good for you Joohoo, then you did not need to click on the latency message I got every 10 minutes or so

Yeah that sounds annoying as hell

 

[DSYoungEsq]

Thinking more about this the conclusion must be that anything that is done at the host is of course registered by the host (apparently income and investments are done at the host and then merely sent and displayed at the client) while things done at the client and which must be sent to the host has not been done.

But except event choices perhaps no other important things are done at the client? That is, "important" in this context when we know the ghost will not send any merchants, diplomats or do any diplomatic actions etc.

Is it only the event choices we lose?

Well, event choices are always lost by someone who ghosts and does not exit (happened to me in BoP two weeks ago, thanks to my spousal-type unit's sudden demand for attention). The host knows the event "fired", so it won't fire again upon restart, but nothing happens because no choice is made. Other than that, everything goes along swimmingly, with the ghosted nation doing absolutely nothing.

 

[Tonioz]

only events are lost for ghost. They happen without any choice done. All investments are done like normal despite you run or quit ghost eu2. The host always controls all the things, even merchants sending is went through the host.

In fact why there is rule that "you should use host save". Only because clients doesn`t save anything outside their country, so if you use client save, events will start to repeat. Host is coordination for all processes. Sometimes (usually at bad connection problems) it can be desyncronization between host and clients. That means that after reload client tell "hey, what the fuck, i discovered this province, but it is hidden now", or "i got infra5, but after reload it became infra4". Or vice cersus. I saw things when host and client assigned even different owner of the province. More to know that all clients always see everything same, it only host differs.

 

[admiral drake]

you actually get lattency from your secund eu2game but it works

 

[unmerged(10927)]

use patch fror windowed mode + anti tab patch(backgound mode)
btw with anti tab you can even tab in connecting screen and nothing will happen