Re: [Freeciv-Dev] freeciv suggestions

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don <don@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Let me say that I am really impressed with the quality of freeciv, and I 
> like the configurability that was added to 1.7.2. 

Thanks!

> I have a few suggestions
> that might help. First, perhaps a button which centers the window on the
> current piece. 

There already is: "c" for center.  Or were you thinking of something
else?    

> Second, I noticed that the messages log allows going to a
> city or popup that city. But popup doesn't center on the city. That's not
> bad, but I think it's not consistent with behavior elsewhere.           

Yes, I actually did this deliberately, though I was a bit uncertain 
because you're right that its not consistent.  (My reasoning was 
that if you want to, you can easiy press "Goto location" before 
pressing "Popup city".)  But if people prefer "popup" to also do 
center, that is trivial to change.  (Alternatively we could fix 
the inconsistency elsewhere: if I recall, it is in the city report 
that "popup" _does_ do center.)

> Third, it makes the game slow when my cities always want to build temples
> when I prefer colleseum or cathedral. Or when the city decides it wants
> something silly. Any ability to prohibit a certain product, or select next
> one would help. Sometimes I change immediately and lose production, sometimes
> I fail to notice and build something like riflemen when I need tanks, but 
> always makes the game slow.

I think its generally agreed that something along these lines would
be a good thing, but no-one has yet implemented it.  (It should 
perhaps be said that the client-server nature of things could
contribute to making the implementation tricky -- not impossible, 
but non-trivial.)

> Last, sometimes a city decides to disband a unit because of food or something
> but picks the one I wanted to keep. If the food really has run out (it claims
> famine when losing food, not when out of food) it would be nice to pick which
> unit is disbanded.

Hmm, I don't see how this could be done, due to freeciv's multiplayer
nature:  when the food runs out (or you don't have enough production:
settlers/engineers die if the city runs out of food, while military
units are disbanded if the city doesn't have enough shield production
to cover the upkeep) then some unit has to die, and the server can't 
stop everything to wait for you to decide which one.

What you can do is detect these problems beforehand, and manually 
disband the unit(s) you choose (or fix the food/production problem, 
if possible).  Perhaps freeciv could be improved to better anticipate 
these problems before they happen, and give the player better 
warning messages.

Regards,
-- David