[Freeciv-Dev] Cooperative gameplay

[Waye-Ian CHIEW <chiew@xxxxxxx>]

Hello!

I've just had a cooperative game with two other human players against 
AI opponents. 

Trying to send help and reinforcements to each other was both very funny and
frustrating.

"Get that stupid settler out of the way!"
"It was _your_ idea to put that city there!"

It's nigh on impossible sometimes to weave a unit through a fellow player's web
of cities and zones of control and get to the war-front.  And it's possible to
clobber each other by accident.  

And of course, friendly fire isn't.  So, what are friends for, really?

To better cater for team games, there really ought to be four levels of coupling
between two civilizations:

1.  Hostile.  This is the default in Freeciv.  Units hostile to each other are
not allowed to move freely within each other's zones of controls, and moving
into hostile units or cities is an attack.

2.  Neutral.  This has the same effect as a peace agreement in Microprose
Civilization:  units neutral to each other are warned before entering 
a zones of control, or attacking.  

3.  Friendly.  Civilization friendly to each other are allowed to stack units
together, or enter each others' cities.  Friendly players can also make gifts of
units and cities to each other.

4.  Annex.  Two players command the same civilization.  Openciv, an earlier and 
much inferior Civilization clone, allowed this.

Implementing this would probably be a huge amount of work, but then, that's my
two bits worth.  :-)

-- Ian!!
Save fuel.  Get cremated with a friend.