I've played Civil War II by e-mail several times and never had a problem. But playing EAW via email has been a continuous problem. We are trying to play one of the simpler scenarios, the Tannenberg 1914 scenario. I know we are following the instructions in the game manual. Has something changed? Does it matter if the host makes and saves his turn before sending the HST file to the opponent? Or should his turn be made after receiving back the opponents ORD file. Naturally the end turn is not played until after both ORD files are saved by the host.
What both players have experienced are units that are eligible to move being unable to do so turn after turn. For example both sides have had units refuse to move when their movement trace shows one day remaining to complete a move. Several Russian units sat unmoved for three turns in this status. Others had the time to arrival increased from one day to as much as 17 with no movement or status change from turn to turn. More confusing, several units changed their move orders from Wiadislavov -> Gumbinnen to Wiadilavov->Rossieny->Dorbiany->Memel and went from one day to arrival at the old destination to 27 days at the new destination. It all seems very random. As if the game is making moves for us. At the time we quit, before resolving turn 6, the Hindenburg icon was appearing at two places for the German player and several German units were also apparently frozen in place. By the way the Hoffman card was not played until turn 6. Most of the problems occurred before that turn in any case.
I've played this scenario several times solitaire as both sides and never saw these kinds of things happen. Never in any other scenario for that matter. It's been very frustrating as my opponent is a new EAW and AGEOD player who was enthusiastic about learning how to play these games. I hope this hasn't discouraged him to a point where he thinks the game system is too broken to play. It would be a shame to lose someone who teaches military history at one of the Army schools just because of a file transfer problem. If that's what this is.
Col Ret