Cities no syncing/Region not syncing in multiplayer

[GodlyGully]

Wife and I are on North America West 1 server. She joined last night, played for a couple hours. Here is the problem, I have sent her city simolean gifts both last night and today and she has received nothing. She has built her city budget up to 250K plus with working town hall, 8K+ population, but when I visit her city and look at it on region view, she has 7K simoleans, 200 population and only a few roads and buildings laid. When she first joined the server and started laying down roads, I was seeing everything in real time and thought wow that's cool. And I'm already used to it taking an eternity to receive a simolean gift from one city to another, although we shouldn't really have to deal with that. But I'm concerned now that the server doesn't seem to be syncing up the progress of her city and if we can't gift each other or meaningfully interact in the region on this server, what's the point? I realize this game is dated and you all probably have limited servers but we paid money for a working game to play together and I'd like some help/answers.

[BlackjackWidow · Accepted solution]

Hi @GodlyGully - The synchronization can be a little wonky, and if your city is way ahead in time, it can sometimes takes a while. Make sure that the action completed on the gifting city -  in regional view you should see an arrow from your city to hers, showing that the gift is sending. The receiving city has to be running in order to synch - if you have it on pause it will never complete.

If it seems to be taking a long time (more than 4 game-hours) in the receiving city, you can sometimes force a synch by both players exiting the game and reloading. Any time you exit the game, it should force a synch.

Since you'll be playing the region together, I want to alert you to be careful when you choose to build a Great Works. Sometimes slow server synch will cause the GW to appear as if it's not being built in the cities that didn't initiate it. If that happens, again, try logging out and back in to force a synch. 

For the Great Works, as long as the other city is connected to it, it takes about the same amount of in-game time to show up as the gifting. The most important thing about synching Great Works is to NEVER press "Build" or interact with the Great Works in the other city!! If you do this before the game synchs the two cities, it will irreparably corrupt the region and your GW will never build properly. 

Once the GW is completed, the game will go through all the prompts about building in both cities - it will say it started the construction, advisors ask you to send workers & power, but then check all of those as if you did something. After a couple of minutes of this, the "Cut the Ribbon" button will pop up. This is the only button you should press in the second city - once you Cut the Ribbon, you'll get the graphic showing the GW & fireworks celebration and then the final steps of it being powered up and running. All cities connected to the GW will get the benefits. 

I hope this helps - here's to Happy Building!

[BlackjackWidow · Accepted solution]

Hi @GodlyGully - The synchronization can be a little wonky, and if your city is way ahead in time, it can sometimes takes a while. Make sure that the action completed on the gifting city -  in regional view you should see an arrow from your city to hers, showing that the gift is sending. The receiving city has to be running in order to synch - if you have it on pause it will never complete.

If it seems to be taking a long time (more than 4 game-hours) in the receiving city, you can sometimes force a synch by both players exiting the game and reloading. Any time you exit the game, it should force a synch.

Since you'll be playing the region together, I want to alert you to be careful when you choose to build a Great Works. Sometimes slow server synch will cause the GW to appear as if it's not being built in the cities that didn't initiate it. If that happens, again, try logging out and back in to force a synch. 

For the Great Works, as long as the other city is connected to it, it takes about the same amount of in-game time to show up as the gifting. The most important thing about synching Great Works is to NEVER press "Build" or interact with the Great Works in the other city!! If you do this before the game synchs the two cities, it will irreparably corrupt the region and your GW will never build properly. 

Once the GW is completed, the game will go through all the prompts about building in both cities - it will say it started the construction, advisors ask you to send workers & power, but then check all of those as if you did something. After a couple of minutes of this, the "Cut the Ribbon" button will pop up. This is the only button you should press in the second city - once you Cut the Ribbon, you'll get the graphic showing the GW & fireworks celebration and then the final steps of it being powered up and running. All cities connected to the GW will get the benefits. 

I hope this helps - here's to Happy Building!

[GodlyGully]

Really appreciate that. Just like you said, every time she logs in, her city updates, and yea she finally got the gift. And your input on the great works will inevitably save us a lot of frustration - cheers!