Noob Multiplayer Question

[Thad Enouf]

Forgive my ignorance. I finally set up a LAN in my home, something I've wanted to do for years.

My son wants to do some multiplayer but I'm afraid that we might need two copies of the games we want to play, which is not the most economical situation for us.

My question: Am I wrong about that? Do I really need two copies of games in order to play over the LAN?

We're interested in playing Empire Earth, Neverwinter Nights, the Baldur's Gate Saga, Civ III, Civ IV, and Gal Civ, mainly. Can this be done or do I need to hit ebay for cheap copies?

 

[Joker]

Forgive my ignorance. I finally set up a LAN in my home, something I've wanted to do for years.

My son wants to do some multiplayer but I'm afraid that we might need two copies of the games we want to play, which is not the most economical situation for us.

My question: Am I wrong about that? Do I really need two copies of games in order to play over the LAN?

We're interested in playing Empire Earth, Neverwinter Nights, the Baldur's Gate Saga, Civ III, Civ IV, and Gal Civ, mainly. Can this be done or do I need to hit ebay for cheap copies?

As far as I know, and this is based solely on my own experiences, it depends on the game. Some games allow you to spawn multiple copies but most require unique cd-key's.

 

[Thad Enouf]

As far as I know, and this is based solely on my own experiences, it depends on the game. Some games allow you to spawn multiple copies but most require unique cd-key's.

Why does this not surprise me? Thankfully, most of the games we want to play have gone gold long ago and are relatively inexpensive.

But still...

 

[DMFTodd]

Civ 3 and 4 will let you play with just 1 disc. Haven't tried the others.

 

[IcyCool]

My college roomate and I had a 5 machine LAN set up in hour apartment at one point, and a selection of several game CD's were imaged on one machine. Any machine on the LAN could use the image (multiple machines at once). In the event of a game that required unique CD keys, well, that solution didn't work.

 

[Thad Enouf]

My college roomate and I had a 5 machine LAN set up in hour apartment at one point, and a selection of several game CD's were imaged on one machine. Any machine on the LAN could use the image (multiple machines at once). In the event of a game that required unique CD keys, well, that solution didn't work.

Hmm...I must look into this image-fu...