Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Famine Warnings

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Gastright wrote:

> Here is the cvs diff for better warnings on famine events.  Again,
> nothing complicated - just a little better warning before the famine
> actually happens.

Yep, reasonable enough, except:

> RCS file: /home/freeciv/CVS/freeciv/server/cityturn.c,v

> @@ -838,6 +838,17 @@
>  void city_populate(struct city *pcity)
>  {
>    pcity->food_stock+=pcity->food_surplus;
> +
> +  if ((pcity->food_surplus < 0) && (pcity->food_stock >= 0))
> +    if ((pcity->food_stock + pcity->food_surplus) < 0)
> +       notify_player_ex(city_owner(pcity), pcity->x, pcity->y, E_CITY_FAMINE,
> +                         "Game: Famine feared NEXT TURN in %s! (%d)",
> +                         pcity->name, pcity->food_surplus);
> +    else
> +       notify_player_ex(city_owner(pcity), pcity->x, pcity->y, E_CITY_FAMINE,
> +                         "Game: People in %s are hungry! (%d)",
> +                         pcity->name, pcity->food_surplus);

I'm not sure about the second warning above:

1. Its not entirely accurate: people are eating from the granary,
so they're not really hungry, just not living sustainably :-)
A rewording would fix this.

2. I'm a bit worried that there may be times this warning becomes
annoying (eg, one is deliberately eating from the granary in the
short term) but one can't just turn it off in "Message options"
because then important warnings about Famine happening or about 
to happen next turn could be missed.  I'm not sure what to do 
about this.  Maybe add a new message type, eg E_FOOD_DECREASE.

Regards,
-- David