How to observe blitzes and duels

[moderation]

Watching blitzes is one of my favorite things to in Dominions since it is a fun way to learn new things about the game and generally enjoy the game without the commitment of sitting down to a 3-4 hour session.

While it is possible to observe turns while you are directly connected to the server, I find this is a bit risky as it's possible to accidentally hit 'e' and submit the turn by mistake. There seems to be a bit of confusion on how to observe games without running this risk, so I thought I would post some tips on how to observe games safely.

1. When you're hanging out in the Dominions IRC channel, ask someone if they mind if you observe. It's polite to do this and people usually say yes.

2. After the game is set up, open up your first instance of Dominions and connect to the blitz server and select the nations you wish to observe. Let the turn files download into your save directory.

3. This is where is might be a little more complex. Rename the save directory to make sure that you don't accidentally upload a .2h file by mistake. For example, if the game's name is "Blitz", the game files will be saved in a directory called "Blitz". Be sure to rename this to something like "Blitz_" or "Blitz_1", "Blitz_2", Blitz_3". It doesn't matter what you rename it as long as it is not the original name that the server expects to find. This prevents the uploading of .2h files, which is very important.

3. Open up a second instance of Dominions and load the save directory you've created ("Blitz_", or "Blitz_1", etc.).

4. .trn files will be automatically downloaded to the save directory. Make sure to make a copy of the directory and load each turn from there instead of opening the original save. Using this method, there is no risk of screwing and also gives you the incidental benefit of being able to review previous turns.

While this seems kind of complicated it's not really that hard for anyone who is familiar with PBEM games or playing their TCP/IP games offline.

[Griefor]

Using this method, it also becomes possible to save an entire game as a sort of replay.

Did anyone ever do this? Are there any replays like this available for download? I saw some so-called after action reports, but being able to see everything that's going on firsthand seems so much more fun.

[moderation]

I have a couple of replays saved so far, though I should probably ask the players before I post a copy of them.

I think it's a rather fun way to watch the game and think about how which events were the turning point and what kind of strategies could have won the day. It sort of becomes like a sports game. Maybe we can get some threads going where people can talk about the famous duels between various veterans.

A few people have posted copies of their major battles so far, but not of entire games as far as I know

[kasnavada]

Wouldn't it be better to name the games whatever_001, whatever_002, whatever_003 and so on ?

The list is shown alphabetically I think. This way, you get all turns in order instead of having a list that looks like this : 1, 10, 100, 101, 102, 103, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 20 (...). So you could using this have an entire game in the right order.

Windows (?) trick :
Another idea would be, after every single submit you make to copy-paste the game folder. Windows uses for a game called 'Blitz' the name "copy of blitz (1)" and increments the number for every copy (the exact text will change according to your language and OS though). Once the game is finished you just need to rename the folders. Tip : Vista and XP allow the renames to be done in "group", if you select all "copied" folders, delete the "copy of" part, it will be removed from all selected folders.

An equivalent should be on mac and unix, but I don't know those systems that much.

[moderation]

Yes, there's a Mac equivalent. It creates a directory that could be called 'Blitz copy', then 'Blitz copy 1' and so on. The main problem with this system is that you have to archive each turn manually.

It would be ideal to have a script that knows when the turn files are updated and copies the save directory automatically, so that you would never miss a turn. And it could name each directory in a neater fashion like Blitz_01. I might be able to script something in Automator for Macs, but maybe a Java application or UNIX shell script would be better since it would work on more platforms.

[lch]

Griefor said:
Did anyone ever do this? Are there any replays like this available for download?

Yes, I made a couple of games played on my server available for download. I uploaded the first games on file hosting services where they have been deleted by now, but the mod nations games are on my server and still online:
http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/NeoXekinima.rar
http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/ModsOverEurope.rar

You will need to install the respective combined mods for the games. Those were for a specific Dom3 version, too, can't say if they are still working now.

[Griefor]

It seems mods aren't totally backwards compatible, a shame, really. I can't play ModsOverEurope because the mod doesn't work.

Thanks for posting the links though.

[Ironhawk]

Why go through all this trouble with the copying? Just look at the turns offline. People have been doing it since Dom2 and it doesnt require any of this extra work.

[lch]

Any duels played on my server are being backed up automatically, too. So if somebody wants to make one of these duels available to others, just tell me the name of the game.

[moderation]

Hmm, do you have any blitzs or other games that would be okay to post?