[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Creating dead player after the game has started.

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Oct 12, 2002 at 05:40:22PM -0500, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 12, 2002 at 11:36:43PM +0200, Thomas Strub wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > some people want to observe games. Until now they join a game, choose a
> > nation and disband there units to see the hole game. With gen 2 there is
> > an empty island and with other generators there are free starting
> > positions. I don't like the empty islands, but i think that people
> > should have the possibility to look at games.
> > 
> > With my patch its possible to create dead players after the game has
> > started. 
> 
> this is really a kludge.

I think it's an excellent kludge: small, clean, fully functional,
an improvement in every way.  Worth including.

> The right way to do this is allow connections to
> the server that aren't players. My old client-auth patch does this and
> allows connections to attach to players either as a controller or an observer
> (so you can have multiple controllers as well).

For reference, this patch is under PR#1767.

I still have to try it (sorry).  What I find really confusing is
the term "observer".  This can be used to mean two things:

  - a player observer: someone who can see a player does, but cannot
    do anything; this is what dwp's multiple connections allow
  - a game observer: someone who can see (most of) what happens in the
    game, but is not a player and cannot do anything; this has always been
    the position of a dead player in Freeciv

> The auth part of the patch really isn't ready for the big time, but perhaps
> the other parts (which allow for observers etc) could be pulled out as a
> separate patch.

From your description under PR#1767, what your patch adds is an improved
interface to the muliple connections per player feature, and the possibility
for connections to not be associated with a particular player at all.
It does not appear to provide "game observer" status - the ability to see
the whole map.  It's probably best to allow this as an optional capability
of connections, and instead of allowing connections to dead players,
autoconvert connections to a dying players to non-associated connections
with this capability.  Your patch provides the groundwork for this.

> -mike

-- 
Reinier