Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Transitivity of Obsolescence (PR#40)

[Chris Buchanan <csbuchan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Pfitzner said:
> 
> Chris Buchanan <csbuchan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Reinier Post said:
> 
> > > This is known.  Stealing/conquering technology would become more fruitful
> > > if transitivity was implemented.  It may or may not be considered a bug.
> > 
> > I can't see how. In this situation, I can build Musketeers; how I came
> > out possessing Gunpowder is irrelevant. The question is why should I
> > need Feudalism to make Phalanx units obsolete. Once I can build Musketeers,
> > Phalanx units *are* obsolete in all ways, if only not in theory; nobody's
> > going to build them. The only reason that they haven't disappeared from 
> > the buildlist (and added to the upgrade list) is that Pikemen haven't
> > been invented yet. Remember, this isn't the same issue as allowing
> > someone from the Stone Ages to steal Mobile Warfare and building Armour;
> 
> Yet, if someone from the Stone Ages steals Mobile Warfare, then
> under the current rules they _can_ then build Armor.  This does
> seem strange, but I'm not sure what to do about it.  Perhaps
> limits techs obtained from stealing/trading to only techs which 
> are not too far ahead of what you already know.
> 
> What the Stone Age thieves currently _cannot_ do in this situation
> is to upgrade their Chariots direct to Armor, which would be the 
> equivalent (just more extreme) to what you are suggesting for 
> Phalanx -> Musketeers.  (And Chariots _don't_ become obsolete
> in this situation, which makes sense to me.)

Then it seems to me that the solution is to not allow a player to
benefit from a technology unless he would be able to research it
normally.

I seem to recall this being discussed on the list not that long ago. (:

> (Another minor point is that Leonardo's Workshop currently
> upgrades units "incrementally", so you would have to do
> something special there.)

Except that in this case once I researched Feudalism, Leonardo's
upgraded my Phalanx units to Musketeers; it skipped over Pikemen
altogether. This seems to be the correct behaviour; if I can't
develop a unit, I shouldn't be able to upgrade to it (although
one could argue that the upgrades should have taken two turns per
unit.

-- 
Chris Buchanan, BMath
http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~csbuchan