Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Improvement/unit/wonder background info

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Per Mathisen wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Martin Christensen wrote:
> > Well, what about it? Should we incorporate more background information
> > on city upgrades, units and wonders?

> I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, but I wanted
> to put it into the rulesets, so I've been having it on hold until I
> understood rulesets better. Essentially, what I think should be done
> is to add this information at the end of the current rulesets files,
> perhaps in the registry format (see server/registry.c for info).
> That way, when rulesets change the units, buildings etc, the extended
> information stays valid.

Good idea.  When I did rulesets I wasn't really happy with 
the interaction with the rulesets and the help system, but 
something like the above would make sense.  It would probably 
be easiest to first extend the registry format somewhat to 
accomodate this approach.  (Eg, allow multi-line string values.)

> I've also been wanting to add a sentence or two to every city, 
> describing how they are in the real world, like "Trondheim is the 
> third largest city of Norway, and is home of Nidarosdomen, the
> largest nordic cathedral ever built." This would add some flavour
> and educating value to the game, I think, 

Yeah, could be good, although cities which happen to turn out
very different in a freeciv game compared to the real world 
could seem a bit strange.

> but it would also be helluva lot of work...

Hmm, yes...  But even if one made a framework where initially
most of the entries were empty, people could then gradually fill 
them in.

>  This information can be done entirely in
> the client, without touching rulesets, though.

But if races get extracted into files read by the server,
then it might make sense to have the descriptions there 
(that is, where the city names are defined).  Would be quite 
similar to rulesets case, hopefully.

Regards,
-- David