Two Players, One machine.

i tired getting my gf interested in the game, but no dice (:(

i cant help you with your question, but wouldnt it be neat to have a hotseat option with galciv?

My hubbies sorta interested in playing . But I can't see any work around the serial number thingo to let two people have a distinct identity. It's a pitty . . .

Yeah, they could ask SF for help on that, since they got it to work for DII and it's works beautifully.

Have her create an account at galciv.com and then at the end of the game use a different login account before you click submit. Give it a try, it might work.

B

Wait a minute, let me get this straight. There are people out there who have spouses with whom they can share the joys of this game and the metaverse. You people are incredibly blessed.

I would happily pay 10 times the price of GalCiv it meant that my wife would want to share with me the experience of GalCiv.

Pay for another copy of the game, and consider yourselves very, very fortunate.

Of course two people can use Galciv on the one machine!

Just use different submission accounts. Both have seperate ids and change the submission id depending on who played the game. YOu both need to use the same serial code and the same email address that it's registered to though. ONLY change the galciv metaverse id for the game score to be added to. Many people current do this.

Paul.

~SDC~

Well, I think if you have another computer then it's gonna be metaverse advantage for ya. Just copy your game into next computer then you and your wife can play together on each computer. Later on you and your wife can submit two different game into one couslee account. This way you can actually double your score in no time.

Then you can always join Illuminati. You are more than welcome. Hail the forever unseen leader Treylis!!

http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=413


LOL

That is exactly what I do not want.

Likewise Berserk, you could join the Viraxian Ascension.
http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=499

Can't submit the same game from 2 computers!

Each game has an individual id. You cannot distribute it to lots of players and have them all submit to the same id. Would be too easy to cheat!

Likewise each galciv id has a single registration number tied to it. If you use 2 computers you may get away with submitting to the same id (using the same copy of galciv on both computers), but I suspect Stardock would notice this if it was extreme or more than 2 computers. Use 2 computers (same copy of galciv) and submit to 2 seperate ids (your's and the wife's).

Paul.

~SDC~

That's one way to look at it. But if you both join the same empire, you can add more points to the empire by keeping your identities separate. Two scores submitted by the same person would be be divided by SQR(2). I they are two different people, both full scores would be added.

We could all sacrafice our individual glory in hopes of furthering our empires.

Hmmmm... I think some ppl are right here, and some that are wrong, but here are my theroies...

#1 -Shared Serial Number-

You could distribute as many copies of GalCiv on as many comps as you had, but all would have to use the same serial #.

All of the scores (as long as submitted name/e-mail stays same) would pour into one account.

#2 -Invalid-

I highly doubt that you could use the same copy of GalCiv on multipule computers, using same serial#, BUT under different names/e-mails. I'm pretty sure once established, its all together... serial #/submitted name/submitted e-mail address

#3 -The Obvious-

If you and say your wife wanted to play, and you wanted to have her own seperate account, then you would have to buy another game... because its pretty much buying another serial #. The serial #'s is what makes each account unique, and it also prevents piracy. If you didn't want another GalCiv CD, then buy the game for d/l online, where you get a new serial #, and then if you have the CD, install it on the other comp, with the new serial # you bought.


...it all seems simple...

Simple unless you live on a limited income and only have game money once or twice a year (which also has to get computer upgrades).

I can where piracy is a concern with something like this, but I was not suggesting an unlimited feature. For example, I will use STARS!. I bought that game a number of years ago, and it also was set up on a serial number. The box included two full CD copies, each with their own number. Granted, I thought that a bad way to do it as it cuts sales in half (but did promote an expanded player base. give-take). But again, this is not what I mean. (what the hell do I mean anyway)

The Metaverse is one of the great features in the game, but if your looking for a game for your family to enjoy and see the importance of the Metaverse in game replayability, having to buy several copies might make you look elsewhere. There are a lot of husband/wife, father/son, father/son/son, brother/brother, ect. gamer teams out there. And in-family competition is the most active one can find. So as it is now, they can all play the game, but everyone's scores are placed as one. Little brother having the oppertunity to trounce big brother is certainly going to have it's appeal, and just might bring in a few new young players (or wives) to the genre.

Unlimited accounts? I agree would be a bad idea. But I don't think asking for a 2 or 3 nic reg limit is too much to ask for. Besides, people that are involved in piracy are going to find ways to hack out a game if they want to. I don't see how two score registration nics would make it any easier for the assholes.

SD could even require that the second nic's registration information co-incided with the first one. IE, same address and/or same email would not be a problem. They could even gather demographics with it, IE: Second account is brother/sister/mother/father (or tend to be), age groups of multiple player houses, disparity between sexes (games perhaps should include a girly type empire leader option..."Fear those damn lavender battleships!".

I think it would be a good idea. Handeled with caution/tact, of course.

I think what we are really looking for is the Battle.net (Blizzard) way of doing things for warcraft III, starcraft, et al. You have one copy of the game, one serial number, and you can setup an unlimited number of accounts, each seperate from each other, each accumulating different scores and yet they can all belong to the same clan, etc.

I think that for Stardock to leave this feature out is a serious lack of foresight and it should be corrected immediately. Games are as it is licenced to one particular computer, but that doesn't preclude them from being legally used by anyone in the household so it's not a piracy issue.

Let me clarify,

yourself and your wife CAN use the same game on two computers into seperate metaverse accounts. FACT.

Brad has publically stated this. It is intentional that you can have the game installed on more than one computer. It is intentianal that multiple people can play the same copy of the game. There are limits though! Expect your serial number to be flagged as pirated if it starts being used from a few computers by a few people. Just be careful. Using it for yourself and your wife is perfectly ok.

Paul.

~SDC~

Thats good to hear. Only difference is that we only have one computer.

I have the same issue with my son. We both play and he would like to submit and track his own scores.

Two earlier comments, #4 and #14, seem to think this should work, here is a quote from the FAQ:

3) You can only have 1 player name registered at a time.

Let's say you have submitted 2 scores. The first score submitted using the player name of "The Mighty Drengin" and the second score was submitted under the player name of "Sneaky Sam". And on the Metaverse you have registered the player "The Mighty Drengin". When you view your scores that you have submitted you will only be able to see the scores for "The Mighty Drengin" as that is the current player you have registered. Sneaky Sam's scores will be ignored and will not be used in the calculation of your overall score.

Actually there would be a possibility. I don't know how feasible it would be for you but it seems that you could modify a portion of my setup to make it work. I have a full-fledged network at home and play GC on two different machines but I only have to update it on any one machine. The game files themselves are installed to a shared folder on the domain controller which is mapped to a drive (S:).

Here is the part that might work for you with some modifications: I use a public domain logon scripting language (Kix) to grab all the stardock entries and export them to a registry file on the server upon logout. When anyone logs in to any computer, it grabs the registry file and loads it. This ensures that both computers always reflect the same versions of updates and patches in the registry - otherwise the files and registry keys would be out of sync.

It seems to me that you could use a similar method of running a logon/logoff script (if you have XP or 2k) and extract the keys and contents of the following keys (if you have drengin.net or the appropriate keys if you have just GalCiv:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Drengin.net\Manager\Games\GC1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Drengin.net\Player

I am assuming that there is some cross-check and calculation built into game submission from these fields.

Then register your wife and extract her info to a separate file. Load the appropriate file upon login.

DISCLAIMER:
Now, not having tested this with multiple users and different serial numbers, I would strongly suggest that you: A) Back EVERYTHING up (including the full registry tree for StarDock); Get some input from StarDock support as there is a possiblity that some key information is encoded in the file tree itself.

There are some other parts to this but they shouldn't really matter to you (like locking the registry file on the server when doing an update, running a separate script to force a writeout of the registry file upon update, etc...).