PlayYourTurn – Easy on the Eyes
By Joe | July 2, 2010
As mentioned several times, I’m a programmer and not a designer. This site is basically what I hacked together from a free Wordpress theme, and fumbling through CSS files.
Rob Isakson, however, is a designer. He’s got a much better eye than me for things like this. He’s created a UserScript which removes all of the images, widens the tables, and generally makes things easier to read. You can download it here.
For those note in the know, UserScripts are small bits of JavaScript code that run in your web browser for pages you specify. After the page is downloaded, and before it’s presented to you, the script runs, and can modify the page however you want. I’ve used this in the past to do things like add links to pages for BugIDs that appear on JIRA pages at work, but I’ve never used them to change around the design of a site.
If you’re one of the few people that do not like the look of the site, or want something more “work safe”, that doesn’t involve Gandhi shaking his finger at you, give the script a shot.
If you’re running Chrome, you can just install the script, and it will become an extension. If you’re on Firefox, you’ll need to install the GreaseMonkey addon, which manages UserScripts.
I am currently working on a rewrite and redesign of the site for this fall, in hopes that there will still be a use for it when Civilization V is released, and I’m taking all feedback that anyone has on the design or functionality of the site. Let me know what works, what doesn’t, and how horrible of a designer I really am. As with everything so far, I’ll try my best to accommodate anyone.
Topics: News | 1 Comment »
Uploader Tool Version 1.05 Released
By Joe | June 16, 2010
Yeah, I jumped from 1.03 to 1.05. Sue me.
1.04m was a test build for multiple Pitboss support. Since it worked, I’m collapsing it back into the main build, and jumping up to 1.05.
Multiple Pitboss servers are now fully supported. Please see my previous post regarding how to set this up.
There are also some fixes for issues found by users, and a request from Astrologix added in.
Remember, sending me emails with requests will eventually get the tool changed 
Changes in 1.05
- Multiple Pitboss Server Support! Select any of the running games from the drop-down list.
- The “Refresh” button will gray out when the Uploader Tool is enabled, ot prevent the game name from getting switched.
- The Tray Icon for the Uploader Tool will now show the name of the game being run. Hover over it to see.
Topics: Development | 14 Comments »
MOD PlayerName Explained
By Joe | May 24, 2010
I’ve gotten a few emails / comments about people seeing “MOD PlayerName” in the player lists on my page, and asking what it means.
This comes directly from Pitboss itself. PlayYourTurn doesn’t add or remove anything from the player name in any way.
Basically, this means that the player is logging in with different game files from the Pitboss server. For example, they may have edited some of their LUA code to change the interface, or they might have edited some Python scripts somewhere, or they might be using an unsupported language translation they hacked together themselves.
This can be completely innocent, or intentionally malicious / exploitive. It’s up to the players to know who they’re playing with, and trust them.
I will not be hiding or otherwise doing anything with this information. It’s on the Pitboss screen, so it’s on the website. Players have a right to know.
Topics: News | 1 Comment »
Running Multiple Instances of Pitboss
By Joe | May 2, 2010
Grawl asked how one could do this in a comment to a previous post, and I ended up writing a rather lengthy response. I decided to make it a full-on post, rather than just a response to his comment. Anyone interested in a consolidated list of steps can thank him as much as me.
To run multiple copies of Pitboss, here’s what I did:
First, I followed the instructions on Scott Parker’s blog to make a “stripped down” copy of Pitboss for my server. The article is old, and only talks about Vanilla and Warlords, but the same steps can be applied for Beyond the Sword. The gist of it is removing all the art / sounds / scenario files you don’t need, so that the entire directory to run Pitboss is significantly smaller than the entire Civ 4 directory. If you are running Pitboss on a server that already has Civilization 4 installed on it, you can skip this step.
Next, create shortcuts that launch Pitboss with the ALTROOT argument. This tells the Pitboss program that you want to run it with an alternate directory, which means that all of the configuration files, saves, and whatnot will go to the specified folder. Create a shortcut, and have the target be the following:
“C:\pitboss\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword_PitBoss.exe” /ALTROOT=c:\pitboss\1
Where “C:\pitboss\Beyond The Sword\” is the directory you installed Pitboss to, and “C:\pitboss\1″ is an empty directory you have created to store the configuration files / saves.
To be completely clear, YOU ONLY NEED ONE COPY OF PITBOSS. The ALTROOT directories are very small (~3 megs), and do not contain any executables or anything like that.
You will use this shortcut to launch this instance of Pitboss. Double click it to open, and let the GUI come up. Close the GUI whenever it finishes loading.
Now go to C:\pitboss\1, find the “CivilizationIV.ini” file, and open it up. This file contains various configuration options for Civilization 4, and Pitboss.
Search for the word “Port”. It’s at the bottom of the file for me. You should see the following:
; NetComm Port Port = 2056
2056 is the default port that Pitboss hosts games on. Change this port to something else (2057, for example), and then reload Pitboss, using the same shortcut. Now when it starts up, it will listen for connections on the new port.
You can repeat this process as many times as you want, and have many Pitboss servers running on one machine, using only one install of Pitboss itself. Remember that each shortcut needs it’s own ALTROOT directory, and need to have a different port number. Be sure to keep it straight!
To connect to a game running on a non-default port, all you have to do is add the port after a colon to the IP address in Civilization 4.
For example, if the game you play at is normally at IP 10.20.30.40, you would type “10.20.30.40:2057″ into the IP / Hostname box in Civilization 4 to connect to the new instance you created.
After you have multiple servers running, you should install the PlayYourTurn.com Uploader Tool in to each directory you created for the ALTROOT stuff. Each instance of Pitboss should have it’s own Uploader executable / log / ini file, so everything is kept neat. Be sure to use the right Uploader Tools with the right Game Names, and you should be up and running multiple instances of Pitboss, and sending events to our servers here, to be logged.
Feel free to ask more questions in the comments here. If needed, I can add images to this post to better clarify.
Topics: News | 10 Comments »
Development Twitter
By Joe | April 21, 2010
I’m still not a Twitter fan, but I decided to create one for this site after the 1and1 debacle. My news posts weren’t visible half the time, so a lot of people weren’t sure what was going on.
On top of that, I often make rather small changes to the site that do not warrant a full-on news post. With a twitter page, I can go on about the smallest of features, without bothering the majority of users.
So roll your eyes if you want to, but if you’re interested in the smaller issues on the site, feel free to check out the PlayYourTurn Twitter page.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »