Can anyone help me on LAN multiplayer?

[cerebrave]

LAN? Yes LAN multiplayer. The simplest form of all multiplayer... ok here is my problem,

I bought 3 copies, for me and my 2 boys (thx to the humblebundles! yay!), we would like to play together, our setup is 1 Win 7 PC, 1 Win 7 Laptop and 1 Win 10 Laptop. We usually played old games just fine - through LAN - for example the Battlefront II, or.. battlefront 2 .. nah that is the only game we played through LAN mode... nowadays all used DRM which I think its simpler...

Back to the LAN problem, we just can't find each other PC hosting. We are behind a router (2PCs with direct cable and onePC with a wifi), and the host would say its IP address like 192.168.0.x. The other PC is unable to see the host created game, it even failed when I tried to directly type in the TCP/IP address.

I tried many things, including portforwarding, etc... even patching using widescreen, etc (well previously the Win10 version had problem opening the game, but it solved already) the only thing works is if I directly connect LAN cables between 2 PCs, we can see, join and play... all PC can play in combination, the Win10, Win7 any combination... but only 2 PC playing, we would like to have 3 of us playing together.

My analysis is the game confused with the multiple network drivers of these laptops, though I had the hardware switch off to turn the Wifi off, it does seems the game still get confused of the two IPs (internal and external), hence cannot negotiate a handshake. Only if a direct cable plug, the communication is close and we can play.

My last ditch of efforts that I haven't tried:
1. turn-off the router DHCP server
2. take down my router and bring back my old HUB/switch to play this special game. but its just to cumbersome with all those cables lurking around...
3. To try Voobly
4. Tried gameranger - but hey.. the ranger said my executable is not valid... how come?

Any help ? I'm not a tech savvy Thanks Guys!

[|)in-d1n]

Try GameRanger again. They fixed "not valid" issue.

[cerebrave]

Update; got it run in Gameranger, 3 of us playing. It was my bad that I came looking the game name as "galactic battleground" while gameranger state it as "clone campaigns". I couldn't tell until visiting GR site.

Problem still persist, out of sync when we play with AI, too much traffic? But we are playing in the same room! LAN would have been much stable but still had problem with it. Ah.. Too bad.

[anto_capone]

Maybe Hamachi? Idk

[Lucas]

i doubt you check this but id recomend tungle me and my friend use it and it works fine perfectly i wont get into detail cause it probably violates the tos for steam

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

I know this topic's old but...

Originally posted by anto_capone:

Maybe Hamachi? Idk

Originally posted by Emporer Pickle Rick:

i doubt you check this but id recomend tungle me and my friend use it and it works fine perfectly i wont get into detail cause it probably violates the tos for steam

lelelelelelelelelel

he's on a LAN in the first place



I've had mixed bags with SWGB LAN multiplayer on modern OSes. First of all, if you use Steam Offline Mode to run SWGB on two computers at once the game will promptly crash and delete its executable. So it's good you have separate copies.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Our family has a mess of router infrastructure (about six of the things?) and on one occasion plugging both machines into the same router meant that we were able to play a LAN game. The next day, it didn't.

I can suggest:
-> going into router settings and fiddling with UPnP (Universal Plug 'n' Play - that solved AOE2, which runs on an almost identical engine)
-> admin and compat mode for XP SP2

The Win7 PC should be able to see the Win7 laptop. Usually the Win10 computer is at fault - but that said, I've managed to host on Win10 and have a Win7 laptop connect to it via lan.


Seems to be mostly hit and miss.

[CherkanRiuom]

Sorry to bring up something on a 2 year old question but I at least wanted to mention my solution. All it takes for us to get it working is to make sure that windows defender firewall is completely turned off for each of the computers playing. It still works for me even on Windows 10. I would just turn firewall back on when you're done.

[schwartz]

Nothing like digging up the dead. This is one of my favorite games. I have lan parties where some friends and I play it. it's always wired connection through a hub, static IP, i have to allow it through the windows firewall and i even have to go so far as to open the Network and when it says "Network discovery and file sharing are turned off....click to change" i do that. the computers all see the game being hosted no problem. the swgb-all-in-one patch is useful too. So far i have not gotten it to work on Wi-Fi.

[Cheerio]

Is there anyone who would want to play Multiplayer with me? Please add me if u want to play some games

[Crazyc]

follow this and you are able to play lan or online
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2135219177
might also work with game ranger

[SirYodaJedi]

Bump again, as I had same issue trying to play with my brother.
Using Expanding Fronts (which fixes weird Steam-related issues, and removes deprecated MSN junk), I had to use the Internet option instead of the LAN option, despite being a LAN game. I then clicked "show games" and entered in the local IPv4 address, and it showed up (no port forwarding or UPnP finagling necessary, just standard firewall set-up).
IDK why the LAN option doesn't work, but using the Internet option in Expanding Fronts was able to connect my brother's Steam copy to my own GOG copy. IDK what further issues LAN might have in vanilla, but EF feels enough like an official expansion IMO (and adds proper widescreen), so I recommend using EF regardless of if you're playing multiplayer.