Interesting New Idea

[BRoska]

I know they have the feature in Yahoo Games, at least for checkers. But in MP, is there a way to add a spectator option? For new players or people holdeing tournaments (officials that could oversee a game for the ladder) it could be a way of watching a game.

For new players, it could be a way of learning new tactics, and for experienced players or TD's (if you've seen the MP, you notice TD's and such), it could be a way to coach a team or officiate a game. To avoid lag, it could be done on seperate server as to not slow the game, but if there is a way to add a drop down menu and add options-Join Game, Spectate. In teamers, you could have a "coach", where he can only chat with certain people, or just simply allow spectators to chat.

Just a thought to help the game a bit, even though not too many would find watching all the time interesting, it could be a new dimension to the game.

 

[Psyringe]

In Civ4 (unlike checkers) much of the information about the state of the game is hidden, or only accessible to some players. Allowing people to "spectate" would be extremely exploitable, because spectators could then act as spies for a player they like, and give him information he couldn't attain legally in-game. The only way to prevent this is to limit spectators to watch one player only, and only if that player specifically allows this spectator to watch. This, however, would limit the usefulness of the feature so much that implementing it is probably too much hassle for too little gain.

Which is a bit sd because I'd *love* to log in to gamespy and just watch a couple of games from time to time. But I don't see a way to do this that's not easily exploitable.

 

[Lord_Zath]

I'd probably be bored after 30 min of spectating

 

[azzaman333]

Too easy to cheat.

 

[Freedom]

Don't allow observers to talk, this is a feature in many games..

 

[azzaman333]

Don't allow observers to talk, this is a feature in many games..

X-Fire or Teamspeak. Use them to tell the person you want to win what his neighbours are doing. Blatant cheating which couldn't be stopped.

Spectator mode for Civ doesnt work.

 

[Lightwave]

I think it is an interesting idea if it is only allowed by explicit permission of the person being observed and is revocable at any time. In game methods of communication should be excluded, but obviously that would not exclude other methods of communication such as instant messaging.

I can also imagine the accusations of cheating when a player has a great spy going around gathering information. The player could easily think the observer is cheating since he has little way of knowing about the great spy.