One step closer to 'Hotseat' functionality in Rome 2:

**SenseiJT92** · October 19, 2014, 09:05 AM

Hi all;

I've been experimenting with various setups of Rome II over the past few days, with and without 3rd party applications, in order to achieve the ability to run two copies of the game on a single-PC; with multi-player functionality in-tact.

I've been successful in allowing two copies of Steam & Rome 2 to run; with the ability to play a multi-player campaign together. Upon testing this with a friend I noticed, with great surprise, that there was no noticeable performance drop as to playing a single instance of Rome 2. We were able to play a lengthy campaign (simply alt-tabbing between turns), and able to fight all battles, whether they were together or against the AI.

Currently, you can achieve this as long as you have 'two' copies of Rome II - meaning, two different licenses via Steam. This does not mean that you need to install the game twice (a single installation is sufficient). As such, this is recommended for those players who like to have a friend round to play Rome II who also has the game themselves.

I am aiming to achieve this level of functionality for only 'one' copy of Rome 2 (meaning a single Steam user). Currently I am able to load two copies of the game under the same user (offline mode). The only setback here is that I am unable to make the separate instances recognise one another in the LAN mode (this is due to a real LAN not existing on a single-PC). I hope that someone out there who has far more computing knowledge is able to provide advice on how force a separate instance of Rome 2 to use a different local IP address.

I will post a tutorial once I have a green-light from the moderators that this is not illegal. I would like to stress that no .exe files are changed/tampered with in any way.

Future FAQ's:

Do I need to have two copies of Rome II?
At the moment, yes. However I hope to resolve this issue in the future once I work out how to run a virtual LAN on a single-PC.

Do I need more than one installation of Rome II?
No; I've ran both instances from a single installation.

Modification-friendly?
Yes. I've been using DEI and various other sub-mods and experienced no issues - the game launcher will run twice enabling you to select the appropriate mods.

I imagine you must need a hell-of-a-rig for this to be achievable?
Whilst my rig is pretty solid, I do not see a performance difference between running two instances and running one (both running with extreme settings and GEM). As such this should be fine for all users regardless of PC specifications.

Is this legal?
As far as I am concerned, running two legal instances of Rome II with different licenses is not breaching the EULA. However running two copies of the same license may be (to be confirmed).

**Tyso3** · October 19, 2014, 04:13 PM

I suppose ill bite first.

What possible advantage could there been in this, considering we already have H2H and Coop Campaign for 2 people?

I mean if you were aiming to get 10 people into 1 campaign i can understand, but otherwise this seems like one the most pointless suggestions ever, your trying to 'fix' something that already exists.....

Oh and for the record, Steam will add your Rome 2 into the registry on install, 2 copies WILL be detected. The only other way around this would be using illegal copies and i severely doubt the moderators will 'give you the green light'

**SenseiJT92** · October 20, 2014, 01:45 AM

Originally Posted by Tyso3

I suppose ill bite first.

What possible advantage could there been in this, considering we already have H2H and Coop Campaign for 2 people?

I mean if you were aiming to get 10 people into 1 campaign i can understand, but otherwise this seems like one the most pointless suggestions ever, your trying to 'fix' something that already exists.....

Oh and for the record, Steam will add your Rome 2 into the registry on install, 2 copies WILL be detected. The only other way around this would be using illegal copies and i severely doubt the moderators will 'give you the green light'

I'm sorry, you seem to have misunderstood the reason for this.

This is for people with 'one' PC. I don't know about you, but I don't know many people who have more than one gaming rig. This is a solution for that.

Also, Steam is not affected by this. I have already played many times. As long as you have legitimate copies you are good to go. As to playing more than one instance of the 'same license', Steam cannot detect this due to being 'offline' on both instances. Once I have LAN functionality this will be entirely possible.

**Tyso3** · October 20, 2014, 04:27 PM

Your license is for one version of the game for one PC. Not for two versions on the same PC.

Much like you cannont buy a DVD of LOTR, then copy that version onto your computer legally even though you own the DVD

**Fanest** · October 20, 2014, 04:45 PM

i still dont see any connection to the typical MTW2 hotseat with this feature

**Tyso3** · October 20, 2014, 04:50 PM

I belive fanest, he just wants to play the same campaign with this freind on one computer, assuming that one of them doesnt have a good enough/doesnt have a pc for playing rome 2.

**SPARTAN VI** · October 20, 2014, 06:25 PM

I believe this is something you can get going with the help of Sandboxie. Here's a reddit post on a very similar topic: http://www.reddit.com/comments/hewhy...s_with_one_pc/

The R2TW EULA only states that you cannot use a single license on more than one computer. I imagine this is a 1-to-many relationship, e.g. one PC may have many R2TW licenses. OP has 1 PC with 2 licenses; this seems kosher to me.

**SPARTAN VI** · October 20, 2014, 06:32 PM

One suggestion, if you have another device, even a weak non-gaming laptop/notebook/PC/Mac, you can load Steam onto it and use Steam's in-home streaming technology to stream a single instance of the game (i.e. 1 license) to that device. I've found by using in-home streaming that the game still accepts inputs from both devices (host and client). Maybe you can leverage this somehow to setup a hot-seat session?

In-home streaming allows inputs from both the host PC and the client (e.g. even non-gaming laptop) where all the rendering takes place at the host machine. The stream is slightly compressed on the client machine, but it still looks amazing with R2TW. Only problem is I'm not sure how this deals with the EULA. At that point it's only really using the display and inputs from the client, but the installation and everything is still on 1 PC.

**Teek-a-Leeks** · October 20, 2014, 08:56 PM

This sounds fantastic! I can't tell you how much fun I've had over the past year playing a Medieval 2 hotseat with my nephew. He doesn't have a gaming rig and probably won't for a long while so this is the only way we can play. Playing in hotseat mode is incredibly fun. I always tell him all the time that I only wish we could find a way to do HS on Rome 2. Hopefully this works out and to me it sounds pretty great.

I appreciate the time you spent looking into this and I'm sure many other people are interested in this as well, but like me they kinda gave up on the idea of this ever becoming a reality. So please keep up the good work.

Btw when will you be sharing your secret on how to get this working? I don't have 2 copies of Rome 2 but if this is really possible then I'd pick up another copy next time it's on sale.

**DeliCiousTZM** · October 21, 2014, 04:37 AM

Good luck fighting battles against or with each other, which is like half the reason you even play campaigns with people.

**Aenima** · October 21, 2014, 07:44 AM

Originally Posted by DeliCiousTZM

Good luck fighting battles against or with each other, which is like half the reason you even play campaigns with people.

Speak for yourself. This is a pretty awesome development OP, hopefully something good comes of it. Can't say I understand why hotseat wasn't included in R2, seeing as it was pretty popular in Kingdoms.

**Fanest** · October 21, 2014, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by Aenima

Speak for yourself. This is a pretty awesome development OP, hopefully something good comes of it. Can't say I understand why hotseat wasn't included in R2, seeing as it was pretty popular in Kingdoms.

This feature has very little to do with traditional MTW2 hotseat. As it was mentioned before this is useful only for ppl who want to play MPC on one PC.

**Raining Red** · October 21, 2014, 04:35 PM

You are taking the term hotseat out of context to mean something different. The term 'hotseat' is specific to being able to play a turn based game with multiple people on a single PC. 'Hotseat' refers to the person sitting at the PC as having their turn on the 'hot seat' and then getting up and allowing another person to take their spot on the 'hot seat'. What people did with M2TW in terms of emailing the savegame around is a workaround multiplayer campaign using the hotseat mode, not actually playing a 'hotseat' campaign. Therefore this is useful for people who want to play...a hotseat campaign as opposed to a standard MPC which already exists. (like me!

)

**Teek-a-Leeks** · October 28, 2014, 07:21 AM

Is there any update on this Sensei? Any plans to post the tutorial? I'm very interested to see how this works out.

**C.Maximus** · October 31, 2014, 10:13 PM

Say What? You are telling me I can actually play Rome 2 with my girl and not have to have 2 gaming rigs? (seeing as how our incomes are pretty much combined, and her interest in gaming is slim compared to mine, we only have one rig capable of handeling rome 2)... I am incredibly intrested in this and will get a 2nd copy (perhaps wait for a sale) if you can show me a certain way to make this work... would hate to waste it... Anyways... keep me posted... this is gold..

**SenseiJT92** · November 01, 2014, 07:38 AM

Sorry fellas - been working all week.. you know how it is!

As I said previously, I was waiting to see whether a moderator would close this thread as 'illegal' first, but as this as not been done I suppose I'll go ahead and upload the tutorial at some point today

**revan.be** · November 02, 2014, 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by SenseiTJ2

Sorry fellas - been working all week.. you know how it is!

As I said previously, I was waiting to see whether a moderator would close this thread as 'illegal' first, but as this as not been done I suppose I'll go ahead and upload the tutorial at some point today

Please do , it is very interesting , both for people who want to invite a friend over for some rome2 fun who also happen to have bought a 2d copy of rome2....
aand also for those of us who have friends that did not take advantage of the uncharacteristic niceness of SEGA in November of last year with the Empire Multiplar Campaign Key...
(for those of you not in the loop of this rather obscure and eldritch fact of CA lore,
after the disaster of the Rome2 release , CA anounced briefly on their forums that they had an intern of some sort
who had been put in charge of re-issueing Empire Multiplayer campaign Beta Keys,
which were previously only available for one year thereabouts after the EMPIRE: total war release.
These allowed players take part in 2-player versus campaigns like in Napoleon : Total War,
with the option to control the AI in your opponents battles...
Soon after the interns brave action , around december 2013 SEGA 's website , which hosted the only way to get access to these keys,
shut down the support for Empire : total war , therefore once again dissapointing players of Empire over broken promises ,
promises of a working MPC which were even literally on the boxed versions features list..)