[Freeciv-Dev] New tribes and Fog of War

[aliaga <aliaga@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!
        As a long-time "civver", I'm interested in Freeciv but cannot play it 
(I'm
Unix-less). I've been reading the list for a time.

        I've noticed there's no spanish "tribe", correct me if I'm wrong. They
wheren't on Civ1, but they are on civ2. I think it's a fairly interesting
tribe from a historical point of view, but then maybe I'm biased :-)

        So I'd like Spain added to the game. I can provide a bunch of city 
names,
leader names, etc... What data is exactly needed? Where do I send it?

        On a related point, I can help with spanish translations if needed, and
comparing freeciv's behavior with Civ/Civ2.


        Note on Fog of War: Civ1 did keep track of tiles_known in a weird way: 
It
stored known tiles for everybody in a bitmap, and everybody's improvements
on another bitmap. AND the human player map (known tiles and improvements)
on another bitmap. The whole initial map was stored on a fourth bitmap. I
don't know how civ2 stores them. As I remember, in civ1 you could always SEE
the TERRAIN CHANGES: forest to plains, swamp to grassland, pollution, etc,
resulting from settler action, but no roads, irrigations, mines, etc. A few
times I was able to spot a new enemy city by noticing these. I believe Civ2
does the same. Warcraft2 certainly works that way, too.

        What I'm aiming at is this: for terrain changes, fog of war doesn't 
apply.
But improvements (roads, etc.), as well as units, are only seen by units
nearby. When a player SEES an improvement or a city, it gets added to its
own "improvements map". An enemy unit gets added to the same kind of map.
These maps (or map) only refresh when the own units wander by, but the
"terrain map" is always up-to-date (this seems logical to me: WoWs, wars and
disasters are also globally known).

        Fact: in civ1, there was the nice feature of enemy cities "converting" 
to
your side. Once I received one of those and, guess what? It had no units! I
couldn't see it, only dark tiles in its supossed location! I had to build a
defender and then whoa! Map refreshed! Same happens when you "buy" a city:
until you "visit" them, border tiles aren't wholly updated: you will see
roads/railroads as unconnected beyond your seeing range until you ride to
them and discover ... a nice sidelong forgotten unguarded railroad line to
enemy's capitol (hehehe).

        As for what unit is displayed when you see a enemy stack, it certainly
isn't the strongest defender. May be one gets to see only the first enemy
unit who got to the spot.

        Finally: empty cities can see enemies approaching, but only on close 
range,
I believe.

        I could check these things on Civ2 if needed.

        Hope this helps, I think it makes sense :)


        I have a question, too: Is there any way to "import" games from Civ/Civ2
into freeciv? Is that on the "to do" list? Maybe even Civ2 scenarios could
be retrieved... (well, that was just an idea)

        And another thing: what happened with the "endgame replay", civ1 style? 
Any
hope of enjoying it on freeciv? (wild curiosity here, I have no time to look
at the code)

        Oh, and GREAT WORK, guys! Keep doing!