I am playing World in Flames using vassal, which I have to say is awesome.
I have tried in the past to direct connect to someone when the server goes down, but have not been able to succeed in this. I have disabled windows firewall, but that doesn’t fix the problem. Do I have to do something to my router as well in order for me to be able to host? Can anyone provide semi-detailed instructions on how to set up my computer to host? I am quasi-computer literate so you can use big words if you have to.
You most likely will need to do something to your router in order to
connect.
o Usually, for a standard home setup, your ISP issues you a single IP
address.
o Your router will use NAT to share that one internet connection among
your local machines, by giving your local machine a local network
address. This will typically look like 192.168.2.x where “x” is a
varying number.
o The local address is visible only on your side of the router, so it
can’t be used to connect to anyone outside of your local network.
o The externally visible address will be the one that you will need to
use. You can find it using your router control software or by using
one of several web services like whatismyip.com/
o Anyone connecting from outside will need the external IP address.
But that’s not all.
o The external address will get them to your router. But you aren’t
playing Vassal there. So you will need to configure your router to
forward the IP address to your computer. You can limit this to just
the port that Vassal uses, namely 5050. Exactly how to do this, or
even exactly what this is known as varies from router to router.