Playing together
Setting up a match, hosting, reconnecting, and how the leaderboard is filled.
Aetas plays up to eight, humans and computer players mixed, over the internet or over the local network.
Finding a match#
The server list in the main menu pulls open matches from the official lobby server. On your own network the game finds matches by itself, with no server involved. You can also type in an IP address directly if somebody gives you one.
Hosting#
Whoever hosts also hosts the simulation. That means a reasonable connection is enough, because only commands go over the wire — no map, no positions. You do need port 7777 (the default) forwarded to your machine if you want to play outside your own network.
How it stays in sync#
Aetas uses deterministic lockstep: every machine computes the same match, and each round they only exchange the commands that were given. That is why matches are tiny in terms of traffic, why they can be replayed exactly, and why there is a checksum — if one machine starts computing something different, it shows up immediately.
The flip side: everyone waits for the slowest. Ping shows up as delay between your click and what happens.
Reconnecting and observing#
If your connection drops you can come back into the match; you arrive at the state it is in now. Anyone who would rather watch than play joins as an observer and sees the whole map.
Measuring how it runs#
F3 turns on the performance overlay: frame rate, how long the simulation takes per tick, ticks per frame, the buffer and your ping. If a match feels sticky, that is the first thing to look at — it tells you whether it is the computing or the drawing.The leaderboard#
Every finished match on the official server is counted when all players report the same result. If the reports disagree, the match does not count. Points come from the length of the match, the age you reached and the win, and a match against people counts for more than a match against the computer.
What comes out of that is on the leaderboard: points, wins, records and how the six civilizations are doing.