How to observe blitzes and duels
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.
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