Hosting Hot-Seat (Single Computer) Games

Other Game Set Up Topics

Before you begin setup, have your players design their races and give you the race files for loading into the game. Alternately, you can customize a for any player who wishes it.

To set up a multi-player "hot seat" game:

Click on New Game on the opening screen or on File (New) from the Stars! main menu. The New Game dialog appears.
Click on Advanced Options, then specify options such as the universe size, difficulty level, relative starting positions, accelerated play for BBS games, number and type of players (real or AI), and the victory conditions. Be sure to load any custom race files provided by the players. Create <tooltip text="player positions for latecomers">Adding Expansion Players
If you think there'll be other players joining later in the game, add an Expansion Player for each missing person. Stars! will assign a "housekeeper" AI to run things for those players until they actually join the action. This AI will keep planets and fleets active, making sure the production queues are busy, etc. It does not develop any strategy.

When the player joins, right click on the diamond next to their name in the host dialog and change the type to Human Controlled. Then, give the latecomer a break by asking the other players to leave them alone for N years.</tooltip> if you think it's necessary.

The order of players listed in Step 2 of the Advanced New Game dialog becomes part of the turn filename for each player. The turn file for Player 1 will be gamename.m1, for Player 2 it will be gamename.m2, and so on.
Tell each player their number. They'll need it when they start to play.
You'll be prompted for a game name. Enter any name up to eight characters long (don't worry about typing an extension). Stars! creates a set of files containing data for that game and each player in the game. You can save the game wherever you wish. By default, Stars! will save the game files in the Stars! install directory.
The Stars! Host Mode dialog appears. Create a password, if you want to prevent other players from opening the game file. Click on Auto Generate to start the game.
Help the players understand what they need to do using the instructions in What Each Player Needs to Do. If you're playing as well as hosting, you'll probably find it easier to start a second instance of Stars!, playing from one and using the other to handle host duties.

⇒ To quit the game, click on Close in the Host dialog.

⇒ To restart the host, start Stars!, click on Open Game, and choose the <tooltip text="gamename.hst">Host file -- gamename.hst
gamename.hst -- This is the file containing the information the host program needs for a specific game. This file should be available only to the person playing the host. If the file is password-protected, you will be asked for a password.</tooltip> file.