Couldn't See Hosted Game in MP Game Lobby

[Pavane]

My regular, twice weekly MP opponent came over to my house on Saturday afternoon for a change but we were unable to play. I hosted as usual, and he connected to my wireless Internet connection. In the MP Lobby we could both see three other games being played, but he could not see our game that I had loaded and was hosting. We re-booted several times, checked our network settings, and confirmed that we were both using the same SotS2 version. Is there a problem playing a MP game when both players are on the same wireless network?

[duckbird]

Very likely the server is seeing the both of you come through the same connection and assumes it's just one computer. I've had this happen with several older games in the past that just aren't equipped to handle multiple IP connections. Back like 5-6 years ago my friend and I got around the issue by buying a certain type of router, installing openWRT on it, and tweaking some numbers to spoof separate connections. It's been ages and I don't remember how to do any of that.

Open up your router settings and make sure you are both set for different ports. Sots2 uses 35000, 35001 for UDP. Make sure the router is forwarding one port to your comp, and the other to your friend's. Then set your comp to use each respective port for sots2 (should be doable somewhere in the registry settings). Ideally the multiplayer server would then be able to see you both as separate computers.

[Pavane]

Thanks for the confirmation of the problem. If I had been thinking clearly I would have just set my Android phone to be a hotspot and let the guest use that WiFi connection. We would then be on separate networks.

[Resok]

Does your android phone support UPnP? I've run into cases where tethered or hotspot connections on phones don't support UPnP and thus would cause the issue you described.

[Pavane]

I have used my phone before to connect to a MP SotS2 game that my friend was hosting, so I am pretty sure that it would have solved our problem. He is coming over again in a couple of weeks, so we will find out then.