Ping.
I'm sure you know by now what Ping is. I won't take the time to explain it. If you are setting up the game in Kchat, rather then just playing pick up games, take the time to ping the people that will be in the game. You should try to play with people ping 500 and below with no packet lost. Personally, I try to stick with people 400 and below. But you have to remember that people are in multi-tasking (well pseudo Mult-tasking) Win95. People are often downloading, ftping, and doing all sorts of other stuff mp3s, that make your ping huge. Makes sure you question those high ping people before ruling them out. Make sure they have shut down all that stuff before you get a good ping.

 Watching Ping/Packetloss is a great way to reduce, prevent lag. Now sometimes you get people with low pings, and low - no packet loss lag, but this is less likely to happen.

 Host private/regulated games.
There is a new feature in kali that allows you to host a game and set some options such as maximum ping, registered versions only and so on. This is a great way to insure people with crappy pings won't crash your game. This is also a good way to prevent those smurfs. You will know exactly who is going to be in your game. People outside this private chatroom you set up, for the game, cannot join your War2 game when you serve it. Unfortunately, everyone must have this new kali. And, this doesn't seem to be catching on too quickly.

 Servers.
Some servers are better then others for low pings and loss. One of the reasons St Louis 1&2 are so popular are their high quality speed (T3s) and low loss. In fact this is the same connection my War 2 page is on. The Kali St Louis people are serving this page. You best bet for finding a good server is going to various servers and checking your ping/loss. Sometimes the best server for you, isn't the best server for other people. Generally if you look hard enough, you can find a good server :)

 War2kali.exe or War2.exe pkt:?
First of all. War2kali.exe is just the same as typing War2.exe pkt:7 at the prompt. All war2kali.exe is, is a batch file to do that for you.

 What does Warkali.exe or pkt:? do?

 All computers on a War2 network execute the game simultaneously. When a player issues a command, all players must execute it at the same time or the game will become desynchronized. However, this is tough to do over the Internet because the command might take a half second or so to reach all of the other computers.

 What WAR2KALI does is make it so that commands aren't executed until a half second after they are ordered. If a player issues a command at exactly one minute into the game, it will be executed on all computers in the game (including his) at 1:00.5. If, by 1:00.5, a computer doesn't have the commands (or "no-command" tags) for each other computer from 1:00.0, it delays the game until it gets them.

 
-- Mike O., Blizzard

 So what Warkali does is put some delay in between the time you click and the object reacts. So it gives the game more time to catch up with the lagged modem users :) This is the reason why you don't want to use warkali when you are playing local ipx games or games vs the computer. You only want to use the pkt settings or war2kali.exe when playing over the internet or modem. There is no reason to delay your moves for no reason :)

 Which do I choose?

 In most games, 4 players or less, pick War2.exe pkt:7 or war2kali.exe

 In games with about 6+ people, pick war2kali.exe pkt:6

 If you ever get a chance to play an ethernet or an ethernet/ISDN only game, you can even just go war2.exe only.

 Those are the only 3 I use. Some fools like to use war2.exe pkt:4. However, what happens is, the lower you go, pkt wise, the choopier the movements of the units are. So your units jump all over the screen and you find difficulty controlling them. Generally, you don't gain anything either. Just take my word for it, say away from pkt lower then 6.

 Here is a former Tech Support for Blizzard's advice:

 War2kali does WAR2 PKT:7...I think it's really a matter of personal choice, as long as the players are using the same thing...War2kali seems to work better for 28.8 and above, war2 pkt:8 helps 28.8 and below, 28.8 is kind of a middle ground for both.

 Tym

 Tym seems to make it seem that you should always go pkt:8. If you look in your default options for War 2 setup in your kali game config menu, you will find that pkt:8 is the default. I think Jay Cotton chose that because he figured that there might be a few 14.4s that play. So, I would immediately change that to pkt:7. Then if you do go for some big games and you know ahead of time, pop it down to pkt:6.

 Lowest pkt overides.
Just so you know, the lowest pkt wins. So if everyone goes pt:7 and one person goes pt:6, the pkt:6 wins. That explains why if everyone plays a game and one person forgets the pkt or war2kali.exe and just loads up war2.exe, the whole game is slow/choppy.

 How do I know if someone forgot war2kali.exe or pkt:*?
Oh you will know. It will be the slowest, choppiest thing you ever seen in your life. But if you havn't seen it before. Do your self a favor, get some friends, and go serve a game with just war2.exe, put the cheats on and watch how deathly slow your guys move around. If you can't find any friends to do that, join some game, and do it to someone. This is something you need to be able to recognize. In the beginning, every fools answer to a lagged game (Which has nothing to do with this problem) was to say someone forgot war2kali.exe. Don't be one of those morons blaims every lagged game on that. It's very very very rare you find a game with someone who forgot war2kali.exe anymore because it's built into Kali95. It's only the people that load it from dos that you find pulling that stuff.

 Chatroom.
The War 2 chatroom is the next place to discover lag, or smoke out Laggers. We learned a trick to test lag. This only works when you have 2 computers in the same game, and the ability to talk to each other aloud, such as Gotcha and I, or Warp and I. What we do is start typing 123456789101213... in the chatroom. We then watch on each other's screens to see how long it takes the words to appear. This is ALWAYS an indication of the lag in the game. If it takes forever to see the numbers the game will ALWAYS be lagged. The same works with normal messages.

 You don't need another person in the same room to do this. You can watch the conversation and notice the time it takes to respond to questions and so on.You could even work out your own standardized test that everyone knows about. Such as you type 1, they type 2, you type 3, or something like that to check the lag.

 An Indication that a Lagger has joined the game is seeing the chat talk suddenly start lagging. When a laggers the game, or a slower connection person enters, the chat slows down and laggs. You can use this to see who is causing the lag. I ask people to leave and rejoin and take not of the chat lagg. This usually smokes out the laggers.

 One thing you can't assume is that if a person is having a hard time entering the game, THAT person isn't necessarily lagged. I have a hard time getting in games all the time. The reason is, the people who are already in the game are lagged. The quickest way to help people in that are trying to join is boot the laggers that are already in the chatroom. If you're not sure who it is exactly, reserve the game and hope the lagger is the last one in. That often works. If not, I re-serve until it does.

The first thing everyone generally does is complain how lagged the game is. It doesn't matter if it's the most fast and lag free game you ever seen, they almost always complain "it's sloooooowww."

 The reason for this is the beginning of the game is almost always slow because:

 Town Halls take a long time to build.
All you have to do at this time is wait while a 1200 hit point building builds. It takes a LONG time for Town halls to build. This time is amplified by the fact that all you got to watch is the town hall build. And, the time the hall takes to build is the longest for all the buildings. You are usually used to the time it takes a farm to build or barracks. And that's the time you expect the hall to build in. Also, you never really see that hall build in that long time again in the game. Usually when you build your 2nd hall, you have 1 or more peons repairing it. So that is one reason why the hall building appears to make the game really slow.

 User induced Lag.
Another reason why the beginning of the game appears lagged is because normally people are bored during the time their hall builds so they click on the buildings over and over. I know I sit there and click on the mine, hall and farm over and over again. This creates a bunch of lag which slows the game down.In extremely lagged games, it can make some other interesting stuff happen.

 Game Initialization.
The game takes a while to initialize and balance out. The info has to go between all the computers so they can figure out what's going on.

 Speed battle induced lag.
Whenever you change the speed, the game practically stops and it lags down. Watch for the hour glass when you change the speed. That's what I'm talking about. If there isn't a lot of lag, the game just slows down for a second, while the new speed is sent out to all the computers and they reinitialize. BUT if there is a lot of lag in the game, messing with the speed slows the game down even more. You can actually lag people out of the game by messing with the speed. You play with it too much and people drop. At the beginning of the game, often there is a speed battle. The Newbies/Mouse clickers want it high. The people who know about strategy want it one notch down. I have a speed battle just about every game. This creates lag and early on makes the game look slow.

These all contribute to make the game slow at the start. 

Usually, games are worst at the beginning and the get better. So let the game play a while before you make any judgement. I've watched plenty of games be ruined because people weren't willing to give the game a chance or were not able to properly recognize lag and a slow game. 

 You SHOULD turn the speed down a notch or 2.
In delayed games you have to set the speed slower than normal. You have to set the speed one or two notches down. This is how you combat delayed games. You slow the game down, you don't speed it up. If you speed it up it just gets worse. Your guys will move in very fast bursts. You will have like 2 seconds to control them in between speed bursts and they will really become very uncontrollable. When the game is slowed down, you will have more time between delays to control your guys. So it becomes better by slowing a game down not worse. So don't listen to any idiot that says the game is slow(delayed), turn up the speed.

Quit.
Sometimes if the lag is really bad, or you don't really want to play with the lag, you just should say, the game is too lagged then leave. I usually say this game is too lagged then I leave. Sometimes, I don't say anything and just leave :)

People dropping is just a fact of life. It has always happened and it will probably always happen. The great thing is usually you can predict the drop and who it is.

 Some reason why people drop are: crappy connection, using the Warcraft 2 Crack, call waiting, some idiot picking up the phone while they are playing, and 15 minute Kali shareware users. Usually you can find the crappy connection people by pinging them or seeing their name on the drop screen.

 The only other one that is sort of easy to find is the shareware kali users. If the game is going alone fine and suddenly they drop early in the game usually before anyone attacks, then there is a good chance they were shareware Kali.

 Predicting Drops.

 If you see that hour glass on the screen during warcraft 2 you are almost guaranteed that someone will drop! I have only played 3-4 games that the hour glass was on the screen and no one dropped. And that is out of 1000+ games!

 If you see that drop screen the second the game starts then wait about 10 seconds then drop them. They are gone for sure. If you see that drop screen when the game starts don't go back to get that player. I have only had a few games where that has worked. If it is your friend that dropped or the game is unplayable without that player then try again, and good luck, you will need it!

 If you see that hour glass you know one or more people are slowing the game down for you.

 Usually it is one player slowing the game down for everybody! A good way to find out who the player is that is slowing the game is to wait till you see that drop screen. Sometimes the drop screen only flashes for a second but it shows the name. The name on the drop list is almost ALWAYS the person slowing the game down. Want proof? Drop them if you get a chance. Usually the game speeds right up, unless there is another person slowing the game down. If the game is playable with out that player then drop them if you get a chance. I don't think twice about it. I ditch those people if I ever get a chance. Why should I keep them in the game if they are responsible for slowing the game down? Your game should not be ruined because someone has a bad connection.

 When I say slow connection I mean bad connection. I don't mean all 28.8s or 14.4s. I am talking about people that may have a 28.8 and have a really bad connection. So bad that the game slows down to a stand still. What you find, is that once they are dropped, the game speeds up.

 If you ever see that drop screen with more than one name on it, then it is most likely YOU slowing the game down. Do everyone a favor and leave. If the game is still playable then stay but if it gets really bad then leave.

 A cool trick I try in large games is to eliminate the people with the bad connections first. That way once they are gone the game speeds up. What I mean by bad connections, is people that keep coming up on the drop screen. That has worked for me a couple of times.

 If that drop screen comes up really late in the game when you have not seen it before that player is most likely gone. Wait about 20 seconds to a minute but they almost never come back. That really sucks huh?

 Believe people when they say it's you slowing the game down. I can almost always tell you who is slowing the game down based on my experience and the process of elimination. The person slowing the game down usually drops. The second I see the drop screen with their name on it, I tell them they are about drop. They always and I mean ALWAYS say "It's not me. I always have fast games." Thats when I say, watch me drop your ass next chance and see who is right. It always happens too. Their name comes up and I drop them. Hahaha. Too bad I never see them again to rub it in their face :)

 Just because you have usually have fast games doesn't mean you always have fast games. ISPs and your connections sometimes give out. They just start getting really bad for no reason. The game will be going fine and all of a sudden the delay will get huge and the game will become unplayable. Dropping people. I see no reason not to drop someone if: They are not my friend or if the game can still be played fine without them, and if they are slowing the game down to nothing. Why should one person be allowed to make the game unplayable for everyone one else. They shouldn't. So I drop them.

 I do not drop people if they are someone's teammates, if the game really isn't slow, if they are my friend, if the game cannot be played with out them.

 I and many others have discovered that if you type while the game is launching, you may drop. So avoid typing when the game launches.