[Freeciv-Dev] Suggestion/Idea for FreeCiv

[Matthew Ryall <ryall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Idea/suggestion

More frequent, and a wider variety of disasters, possibly including:
Floods, droughts, famine, earthquake, meteorites, tornado, hurricane,
terrorist activity.

Description

Currently, the disaster system only applies if the player does something
wrong, like not building a Granary or Barracks in a city. This could
realistically be expanded, so that disasters occur at random points in
the game, to areas and cities across the world, as in real life.

This could have the varied effect, or changing terrain (eg. earthquake,
flood), destroying terrain improvements (eg. an earthquake destroying a
mine, or floods washing away farmland or irrigation), destroying units,
both within and outside cities (eg. tornado), and reduce the population
of, or damage the improvements within, a city.

Realistic aspect

Natural disasters occur all the time, check your local newspaper.

How to do it

Every turn, generate a random number, between 1 and 100. If the number
is less than a percentage constant (set before the game starts) of the
probability of a disaster occuring, a random disaster (chosen between
those listed above) occurs within a 3x3 square range on the map. This
area should only be chosen between, say, the Tropics of Capricorn and
Cancer, so that the polar regions remain unaffected, and the strongest
cyclones are near the equator.

There are two possible scenarios for announcing disasters. Firstly, a
disaster occuring within an area explored by the player (or in later
versions, the area within the fog of war) would be announced to the
player. Alternatively, it could be given as a travellers report,
announcing to all players the disaster.

PS. If needed I would be happy to draft a copy of the possible
disasters, their effects and announcements. I might be able to code some
of the functions, but my C coding isn't that great.

Always ready to help,

Matt Ryall

ryall@xxxxxxxxxx