Hosting Games on Stars! AutoHost
- This is more complicated to explain than it is to do.
- This is an expanded partial summary of the instructions at Stars! AutoHost
When hosting a game on Stars! Autohost, you have two choices:
- Create the game yourself or
- Create a game.def file (recommended for playing hosts).
Tip: Notice the <tooltip text="Accelerated BBS Play option">Accelerated BBS Play
When you check the option of Accelerated BBS (also known as ABBS or AccBBS), the following happens:
Players start out with a population 4 times larger than normal.
(Normal start in a non AccBBS game is 25,000 pop. Growth Rate makes a difference in this calculation. A rough approximation comes up with 5k pop for every 1% GR. For example - 10% GR will start with 75,000 pop, 20% GR will have 125,000 and 19% GR will have 120,000.)
All planets have 20% more minerals.
Planets with poor mineral densities are improved by a few percentage points.
This means you can build 5 to 10 ships your first turn, complete research up to 2 tech levels a year, and in general jump-start the game. You don't have to worry about running out of colonists if you want to send out a large number of colony ships early in the game.
In games started with this option you'll need to make many more decisions from turn 1 on. The first 10 turns accomplish what otherwise takes about 30 to 50 turns. These games usually have a winner emerging before turn 100. A disadvantage to this option is that some of the subtlety of Stars! is lost. You don't have to make as many of the early resource tradeoffs that have a large impact on your strategy later in the game. Most BBS gamers will find that this disadvantage is outweighed by the faster pace.</tooltip> in the Advanced Game setup. You may wish to check this option during setup to jump-start the game.
- make sure your players know which options will be selected.
Before you begin:
- Have your players design their races and give you the <tooltip text="race files">Race Description file -- name.rN
This file contains a race description created and saved using the Custom Race Wizard. N can be any number (you can actually use any extension, the default is r1.) You can specify a race file for each non-computer player in the game from step 2 of the New Advanced Game dialog. Once the universe has been created the race file is no longer needed. If you open this file from File (Open), the Custom Race Wizard opens.
The extension of .r1 is the default, and is not required.</tooltip> for loading into the game.- If your game has race restrictions and you are playing, ask for someone to check the race files for you.
- Have your players give you the email address they wish to use to receive notifications from AutoHost.
- Email Ron Miller at asking for a game slot.
To create the game yourself:
- 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. Load the custom race files provided by the players.
- 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). Please do not use 'GAME' as the filename. 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. DO NOT CREATE A PASSWORD. Quit the game by clicking on Close in the Host dialog.
To create a game.def file:
- Follow the instructions at Creating a Universe from the Command Line to build a game.def file
- On the last line of your game.def file, change the universe filename to something unique to your game. Please do not use game.xy as the filename.
To send the files and information to Stars! AutoHost:
- Create a text file that contains a list of player's first names, email addresses, and race names in <tooltip text="game play order">Game Play Order
This is the exact order of the players that you used when creating the game in Step 2 of the Advanced New Game dialog above</tooltip>. The text file must have the following format for each player where Player# matches player# in the game:- Player1=Ron,email@address.goes.here,The Swords
- Note that there are NO SPACES ALLOWED except in the player name and race name fields.
- Only AI players that come before human players are required to be listed. Any player lines that are omitted(eg trailing AI players) will not show up on the game page.
- If you created the game yourself, zip up the following files and email them to Ron at
- 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. - all the <tooltip text="gamename.mN">Turn file -- gamename.mN
These are the turn files. N is a number from 1 to 16, representing the player number. This is the individual file for each player, containing all the data about that player's race and state of the player's empire at the beginning of a turn.</tooltip> files - your player list file
- the <tooltip text="gamename.hst">Host file -- gamename.hst
- If you created a Game.def file, zip up the following files and email them to Ron at
- all the <tooltip text="race files">Race Description file -- name.rN
This file contains a race description created and saved using the Custom Race Wizard. N can be any number (you can actually use any extension, the default is r1.) You can specify a race file for each non-computer player in the game from step 2 of the New Advanced Game dialog. Once the universe has been created the race file is no longer needed. If you open this file from File (Open), the Custom Race Wizard opens.
The extension of .r1 is the default, and is not required.</tooltip> - the game.def file
- your player list file
- all the <tooltip text="race files">Race Description file -- name.rN
- Ask your players to read the instructions for using Stars! AutoHost
- Review the Host Responsibilities at Stars! AutoHost
- Wait patiently for Ron to set up the game.
After your game is setup:
- Ron will email you giving you the link to the game's page and a username/password for the Host Utility.
- Ron will email each player giving them the link to the game's page and a password to download/upload their turn/log files.
- Check the games page to find your game listed there after Ron has set it up.
- Log into the Host Utility and check over all player data to ensure it is correct.
- If players desire, you can use Host Utility to set it so that AutoHost will email them their turns automatically after new turn generation.
- E-mail your group from the active players e-mail link in the Host Utility and give them the web page address for your game page.
- Initially the game will be on hold.
- Wait until each player has uploaded their first turn before taking the game off hold.
Learn about:
Managing Games on Stars! AutoHost