Setting up everything for multiplayer isn't that easy when the games played are those made by Paradox Interactive. There are few things you need to keep in mind. Sometimes you need to dwell little more into configuration of your router than you'd like and it often needs lot of patience, but it's doable. Let's take a look at it closer.
One of biggest problems Europa Universalis 2, Hearts of Iron or Victoria has with multiplayer is difficulty of setup you need to do before you launch the game and play over the Internet. It discourags many people from trying these games in multiplayer, which is real shame because the more humans play them, the more fun it is. In my case it meant end of singleplayer. Let's take a look at what has to be done.
- Figure out what is the device connecting you with your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If it's router we need to configure it.
- Figure out local IP address of the computer you want to use for mutliplayer.
- Check user's manual of your router (or search for one on the web) and look how to set up port forwarding.
- Test it all with your buddy over the net.
- In case it doesn't work after all this effort - there is one more hope - hamachi.
Indentifying Router
First step is fairly simple. You need to physically identify your router device. Router is usually "black box" that connect your PC or LAN to the Internet. If you use wire to connect your PC to the Internet, then finding your router should be as simple as following wire from your PC to the router. The wire could be either metallic cable plug into your network interface card (like the one on pictures 1, 2 and 3) or USB cable. On the other end should be router. If you have Wi-Fi (wireless) router, there is no physical connection between your PC and router, but you can still identify router according to the splitter described below.
Router is then usually connected to the splitter that splits telephone and data signal from your telephone line. You telephone line goes to the splitter and two cables come out of it - one is connected to the router, another to the phone. This way you should safely identify your router.
If your router is connected to your PC by USB cable, there should be no port forwarding needed. If you have no router yourself and your PC is connected to some wall outlet and you don't know where that ends, then you should contact person/company, that you pay for Internet services. You are reliant on them and there is little I can advise you here apart from bugging them with your questions and requests.
What is My Local IP Address?
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Configure Router
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Testing It All
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Conclusion
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