2 player network game?

Once a week me and my mate meet up to play FM, we both lead busy lives with work and keeping the wifes happy etc. But we were wondering the other day if we could play over the internet to squeeze a few extra hours in a week.

So my question is, is it possible to play a two player over a network?? If so how do we go about organising this?.........

I did a quick search on google and on here but couldnt find any good information, any help would be great!!

If you and your mate are so busy, i would suggest you use those precious precious hours away from your wives to go to the pub, discuss cars, football and boobs! Although is a bloody good alternative;).

Back on topic, im interested in this too so am awaiting peoples suggestions! Perhaps we could get a network game going weller? lol

Basically put two computers onto the same network together. On the best machine on fm goto prefences and tell it to run as server. Then create a new game and add yourself (person on server) team then save it. Tell your friend to load up FM goto to network play and it should automatically appear. Click on game and yourself as manager and voila your now verbally abusing each other whilst playing fm

If you meant over the internet its similar but you need ports unblocked and I cant remember them off the top of my head.

It's fairly easy, but it depends if you want to play over a LAN (i.e.: you both get together at the same place, connect to the same router (wifi, cable, whatever), and play there; or if you plan to play over the internet, each one at his own home.

If you want to play over lan, it couldn't be easier:

1. Just make sure both PCs are connected to the router. Then, as you've been said, create/load the game you want to play on the most powerful computer of the two (ram and processor being the most important things). Keep in mind that it doesn't need to be a new game: you can load up your usual savegame, and your friend can then add himself as a new manager, no matter if you're already in 2014. Which I believe is so cool

2. If it wasn't done, in the "host" computer go to preferences -> network and make sure you tick the option "run as server". You can set a funny name for the server if you want, and even a password (although it's not necessary at all).

3. Then, in the other PC, just start FM and click on "network" in the MAIN MENU (NOT in the preferences). There should be two lists (favourites and LAN), and I believe LAN games appear listed in the lower part of the screen. There should be a LAN game with the same name that you set in the preferences. Just click on that game and join. Then create the new manager and play.

If you want to play over the internet:

The process is the same, but you need to know the IP address of the PC which is going to host the game. It's as simple as going here: http://www.whatismyip.com.

Once you know the IP of the host, you do steps 1 and 2 as usual. In step 3, however, the game will not appear automatically listed in the 'local servers', as... it's not a local server So you need to click the button "Join other server" and enter the IP address you where given at the address below. Now the server should appear listed, and you should be able to join as usual. It also gets stored in the favourites list, so that you don't need to manually enter the IP address again (unless it changes, which happens from time to time).

Possible problem: if the server doesn't appear listed when you enter the IP address (and if you're sure that the IP address is correct), chances are that you need to open the FM ports in the host machine, which are ports 10093 and 10094. You need to go into your router setup and look for an option like "port forwarding", or "port rules", or something like that, and then tell it to follow both 10093 and 10094 (both TCP and UDP) from the router to the host machine. This only applies if you try to play over the Internet. LAN games don't suffer this problem.

IMPORTANT TIP: I highly recommend that BOTH of you set up a password when you create your managers. This doesn't have anything to do with security, but rather to avoid a stupid bug that the game has had ever since I started playing CM03/04, and it affects both LAN and internet games:

Imagine that you're playing the game online, each one from his own PC, everything's fine, you save the game, etc. Then, another day, you both get together again, but you only have your host PC available (your friend forgot his laptop), so you decide to go on and play as a "hot seat" game in the same computer. You both click on your names, and start playing, and save the game after a while. Well... the next time you want to play online from different computers, you CAN'T unless you have set a password for both managers.

Why you ask? Well, once you have "clicked" the name of the manager to start playing from a particular computer (you actually click the "Not connected" word, which changes to "Playing"), the game assumes that the computer you've just connected from belongs to the manager that you played with, meaning that all future times that you try and load the game from the host computer, BOTH managers will appear as "Playing" right from the time you load the game in the host computer. As there's no option to "disconnect" a manager, you probably won't be able to carry on playing online, as you'll need to keep playing the game as "hot-seat" forever then (only solution would be to retire a manager and create it again). Don't ask why it has never been fixed...

So the best advice to avoid this potential bug is to always set a password for all the managers you create in the game. This way, no matter if you played with both managers from the same PC the last time, all managers that need to enter a password always appear as "Not connected" until you enter it. This way, you avoid the bug, and you can both play from any PC, online or hot seat, snow or rain, any time of the day Given that the password only needs to be entered once each time you have an "FM session" (which will be once a week if I read you correctly), I don't think it will bother you much. You can even set the same password for both managers, it doesn't matter. It's just that you need to set something.

Hope it helps

Thank you very much for your help!!

If you and your mate are so busy, i would suggest you use those precious precious hours away from your wives to go to the pub, discuss cars, football and boobs! Although is a bloody good alternative;).

Back on topic, im interested in this too so am awaiting peoples suggestions! Perhaps we could get a network game going weller? lol

haha, don’t worry we still find time for a few beers..... this is where we discuss tactics, oh and of course boobs, real football and cars!!

if you have any issues with the port forwarding go to www.portforward.com and select your router from the list.

instead of going thro all the effort of the port fowarding just download this hamachi. type it into google and follow the instructions. easiest way i have found then just enter the ip into the network game bit like explained above and everything will be set

When I click on it to 'run as server' it comes up with an error bar and says 'Unable to start server'

sorry, I meant to add a question to that, but forgot....

what do I do about that? What's wrong with it / how do I fix it?

go to the pub, discuss cars, football and boobs! Although is a bloody good alternative;).

This is all great advice...

Does anyone know if there are any known issues if my friend uses PC and I use mac?

This question applies to an internet game. (i.e. him in his house me in my house)

Should be fine.