How long to wait for a game Pantheon game?

You have to click on the connection info window.  Then watch to see if people are joining succesfully.   I say don't wait more than 5 minutes. 

If I click CANCEL, do I loose Favor Points?

You need to wait a LOT longer than 5 minutes lots of time. Once it gets to that blank window with Cancel in the middle, you'll see Connection Info... down in the bottom right. Click that and you can see how many people are connected to each other. I don't know if the info is updated correctly as I've seen some strange stuff there, but mainly if you see a lot of connections happening, that's a good thing. If you only see a few or none at all, then I wouldn't give it more than a few minutes. Otherwise wait a bit... I've had some matches take up to 10-15m to connect.

I have absolutely no luck in connecting to custom games.

Do make sure you've go the appropriate ports open and forwarded to your computer though. Check the sticky above. That way you'll get more connections to work.

Usually though, once a match starts, it goes very well. I've had very problems once I've got matches going. I've probably played about 10 multiplayer matches over all.

It takes about 5 minujtes for a "connection info" diaglo to pop up. Once it does, its about a 50% chance it will work. Best thing to do is click that dialog and see if there is an "even" number of people "connected" to eachother. If not, you most likely will never get a game in my experience.

If connection dialog doesnt connect to people within 10 minutes, i cancel and retry.

It usually takes 3 times to get a game going. So ~15 mins in my case (with computer directly connected to cable modem). This game appears to be REALLY finicky with who it connects to. Unlike starcraft/warcraft/halo/whatever it doesnt appear to intelligently retry connections.

Heres hoping their network guys get their act together. Great ****ing game, horrible ****ing backend. If they can figure these quirks out i have no need for anthing new in a long time. This is like an FPS RTS RPG all rolled into one

Yow.  More game feedback (status) is needed then.  But, it is good info!  Thanks!

The p2p system is a good approach in terms of lag and latency, but obviously it doesnt work correctly.

It takes a really long time (5-10 minutes) for the "Connection Info" Window to appear.

And then the fun just starts; If u take a close look you will see some weird stuff going on.

The thing ive seen in like 70% of the cases:

In the connection info window, you see like 7 people. only 4 of them (including urself) will participate in the game, which u can see at the connection status thing. So far the remaining 3 people are just confusing and dont have any effect.

The main part: me and the other players (#1,#2,#3) start the connection process, but one of them, lets say #2, doesnt try to connect to anyone. Or my game just doesnt get the notification that he does, i cant find out.

So now im stuck with #1 and #3 being connected but #2 doesnt even try to connect to anyone.

Only thing i can do is rejoin another game.

I'd rather have a single host and bigger latency than having to try 5times (with at least 10minutes of waiting) until i can finally play.

It can vary widely based on the connectivity of the people joining. I played pantheon this weekend and got into a game on the first try, and it only took a minute or two to get everyone hooked up.

We're looking at setting up proxy servers so people with bonded connections or P2P connectivity issues can connect much more easily.

Personnaly I couldnt make it to work at first!

Then I followed The Monk's guide to DEMIGOD networking and since then I start a pantheon game in less then 2 minutes !

YOUPI!

That depends on what you mean.

1) waiting for the "connection info" dialog to come up (i.e. a game has been found but connections are not complete.)  or

2) the "connection info" dialog is up, and you're waiting for all the connectins to complete.

#1 can take up to ten minutes. Nothing you can do.

#2 if it doesn't complete with 2 minutes, it never will 9 times out of 10. 

Cues that you should give up on #2:

• you see the word "failed"
• the text below the names stops changing for more than 1 minute.
• any player is dropped (i.e. you see an odd number of players)  I've never seen the system actually aquire a replacement player successfully and ultimately start the game.