Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Patch to improve persistence of games

[Billy Naylor <banjo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, Daniel Burrows wrote:

>  Hi.
>
>  I think that a bug--or at least a missing feature--in freeciv is the ability
>to play games that take a long time, and in which the participants are likely
>to not be connected often. 

  I think this is very important.
  
>* "Magic cookies"

 Yep

>* Server autosaving 

  have 2 files, this_turn and last_turn, for a server this is all we need.

>* Dealing with transient connections -
>                   The default behavior when a player drops connection is
>                to skip them each turn; with my patch, the game waits for them
>                to move.  This can be disabled by a server option.

  Will goto's etc be dealt with by the server, so that if you miss
  some turns, (Real Life etc) you're forces still act on default orders.

  I think the speed could be set as 1 turn per X hours (where X can be
  4 or 12 or whatever).

>  Displaying the moves could be handled by storing the info about the last
>move made on the server until each player has gotten it, including players
>who are temporarily disconnected. (is this done already?)

  couldn't moves that would have been sent to a player, be stored in a 
  file (buffer) until the player retrieves them ?
  Even several turns worth of data.

>  -- The ability for a client to keep multiple sets of authentication for
> games.

  Yep, both servers and clients need to be able to handle being involved
  in multiple games.

>  (the major barrier to my playing a game of freeciv against a human so far
>is that it's hard to coordinate matters so that you are both connected
>to the server at the same time for a prolonged period of time.

  yep, i'd prefer the option where you could have a turn every 4 hours.
  The diplomacy (email) of 14 players playing a low key game over a 
  couple of months, would suit me.

# banjo
  1;