Island Wars originally was an online map put out by Lionhead themselves as an addition to the three normal ones, so there shouldn't be a problem with that.
If you say 'the time passes', do you mean that you play this map online with a time limit? If so, the crash to the desktop after the set...
Well the issue with the B&W logo not showing up should be 'normal' I guess...or at least not harmful. Happens to me as well. The very first time after a reinstall of B&W the logo shows and then it's gone forever.
Same with the game refusing to start on random occasions.
I don't have the Cache...
I don't really think that's necessary with a maximum of two games per week but still...a foolproof way of determining who won the game would be to provide a screenshot of the whole island right before the end (game time is displayed at the corner). That way you can tell by the remaining...
In B&W, you don't have to choose 'Join online game' (or something similar..) but choose the LAN option in that menu.
If that option doesn't appear at all (because you don't have a real LAN set up perhaps?), you could try simulating one with Hamachi.
How that works is described here...
Hmm...does it happen with every patch? I.e. can you play with 1.1 but not with 1.2?
And just because I don't really know what is causing this, here is some general advice on installing B&W under XP: http://allboards.lionhead.com/showthread.php?t=167711
Helped me quite a lot when I had problems...
Hi,
is there going to be a game on saturday? Just wondering because normally it gets posted on here beforehand!
If there is one, I would like to participate and I'm bringing someone else along as well...
Just as far as the programs features go it doesn't really matter to me either.
Then again, I often had massive out of synch problems when playing B&W with Hamachi, so Phoenix would probably be a safer bet.
As Kratzean suggested, these problems might have been resolved in the new Hamachi release...