Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Before release of 1.8.0

[Rizos Sakellariou <rizos@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> Dear Freeciv team,
> 
>       here what i think is important to do before release of 1.8.0 : 

<snipped>

> BUGS
>  - The explain for generator 2 doesn't match what generator 2
> actually does. It looks like, in the new version of mapgen,
>   generator 2 doesn't generate only one island per player.
>    if (map.landpercent > 85) {                                          
>       map.generator = 1;                                             
>      return;                                                           
>    } may explain this.

No, it's not this - the whole philosophy of mapgen has changed. 
In fact, it seems there is no longer a generator 2 that does exactly 
what the old one used to do.


> Just one question: what should the default map generator be?
> I think the present default is too hard on newsbies, the chance
> of starting on the same island with an enemy is too high.
> What about making generator = 3 the default?
> 
> I think it's a good idea !

The main problem with the current version of mapgen/2/3/4 
is that it does not generate any rivers at all. I had some
email exchange with Peter Schaefer on this and I guess that
he is looking into it. My feeling is that this should 
be fixed before 1.8.0 is released.



> - ship accidentially attack enemy cities while doing goto 
>    somewhere. I have a patch to fix this but I'm not sure it's
>    complete.
>  - Apollo program bug displays cities that no longer exist
>    (conclusion: Apollo should make all squares be seen?)

I am not sure about this! I checked and seemed to me that only
tiles where a city existed when the wonder was built were made
visible. I subscribe to the view that its effect could be full
visibility of the map (although I quite like the visual effect
of only the cities being displayed!). 
Some suggestions: What about step-based visibility (ie, first 
turn cities only, second turn tiles around a city too, and
third turn full map)? Or perhaps full visibility only if all 
technologies required to build a spaceship are known?


>  - submarine visibility bug

I've been looking into this but haven't come up with anything concrete.
There are several improvements that can be made on the client side, but
the goal should not be this; rather that the client has information only 
on the submarines it should know. As someone else said, this is not trivial...


> I was playing a game with 1.8.0pre1 this weekend.  when I was done, I
> quit the server before I quit the client.  The client noticed that the
> server was dead and went back to that login screen.  However, it did  
> not close one of the city windows I had open.  Curious about this, I  
> clicked on the city window icon on my task bar.  This caused the
> client to quickly dump core.
>  
> Is this a known problem?  When the client senses that the server is
> gone, it should close all child windows so that this can't happen. 
> 
> And the last one about the bribe cost.
> 
> Any reaction is welcome,

Two more suggestions:

* What about a spacerace 2 option where the game does not end with
  the arrival of the spaceship? I don't think this is hard to implement.

* Has anyone refined the Xaw calls of the patch I submitted re: a <ctrl>g grid?
  This has been a short-term goal for a while (if I'm reading the list 
correctly)
  and, especially with the new set of tiles, this would be very useful to have 
  in 1.8.0.


Regards,
--rizos