Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Feature suggestion

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@xxxxxxxxx>]

  Hi, I just joined the freeciv-dev list and was browsing the archives when I
came across this message:

On Mon, Jan 18, 1999 at 11:56:25AM -0500, Jeff Mallatt was heard to say:

  [snip]

> >Perhaps this could be conditioned to some tech? Perhaps
> >different techs for channels and landfills? Perhaps specific
> >"Channel building" and "Landfilling" techs? I don't know much
> >about the real-life requirements, but I think landfill depends
> >on construction (maybe bride building?) and channels depend on
> >explosives.
> 
> I think they could, however, cause some problems if not properly constrained.
> 
> Looking around the real world, I see *lots* of channels -- even very
> large/long ones -- but I see very few trans-oceanic causeways (like, *none*).
> 
> I think channel building (at typical Freeciv map scales) should be limited
> to Engineers, and I would add that the Railroad should certainly be a
> requirement (or, possibly, upping the requirement all the way to Steel).
> It should also take lots of time: this could be implemented by not allowing
> channels to be built on Hills or Mountains -- you'd have to first use
> Engineer Transformation to convert from Mountains to Hills to Plains, then
> you could dig a channel.

  [chunnels snipped]

  A lot of these sound like neat ideas..I'm going to comment on the
channel here.  A while ago (I went *way* back in your archives :-) ) there
was a short discussion on letting ships move on rivers that fizzled out.
One idea that was brought up though was possibly having "river depth" as an
attribute of rivers.  I think that the following additions would nicely handle
both the channel proposal and ships-on-rivers, plus adding a few other new
twists. :-)

  Add a new tile type, "Big River" (for lack of a better name).  This tile
type will be navigable by boats but not by land units.  Once a player
gets Bridge Building, though, he/she can build bridges across it that act
like normal roads, except that (of course) units can only move across them
in a straight line (i.e. only from one side to the side directly opposite)
Perhaps it could require that road exist on both sides already, or be
constructed faster in that case?  Probably road should exist on at least one
side so that the settler knows where to build.

  Another possibility would be to make bridged Big River tiles be
non-navigable by ships (and yet another one would be to allow a Drawbridge
tech/terrain improvement to negate this problem)

  In terms of channeling: when asked to create channels, engineers would create
Big Rivers.  This is (IMO) better than changing land into ocean, since it's
not really doing that; they're just building a channel through the land.

-- 
  Daniel Burrows

  Nothing is hopeless.

  PROOF:
(a) Assume the opposite.
(b) If something _is_ hopeless, then its condition can only improve.
(c) If its condition can only improve, then there must be hope for it.
(d) Therefore, nothing is hopeless.  QED.

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