Re: [Freeciv-Dev] More ideas, maybe some AI

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>  ?,* = I need someone to ask some questions, and I don't want to fill
>        this very good mailing list with stupid questions.

Why not?  I do :)
 
>  easier (for implementation) ones:
>  ? Is there any reason for having city names in the server file ? I think
>    no. The clients need the names to suggest the player new city's name.
>    So the data from city.c should be moved into client/ and only the
>    functions from city.c should remain in the common dir.

Except that AI players need to create cities, too.

>  ? the (power)graph from Retire ending of Civ1

Trent Piepho has a civscore program (Xforms-based) you can use to get this.

>  + comparation with some great leaders (as in Civ1)

>  ? genders - to distinguish between Queen/King, Mr./Mrs. President, and
>    also to make players know whom they are playing with :)

This has been discussed before.  Massimo Campostrini once did a patch to
extend the number of races, I think he is still our expert on races.
One problem with having race information at the client side: how can you
propagate it to other clients?  Textual data is easy, graphics are not.
The only races-dependent graphics, I seem to remember, are the flags.

Remove the flags?

>  *? my personal vision is that there will be a network (for beginning one)
>    of meta-civserver(s) that will get the information about running civservers
>    (and some information about them, like max. people limit, version, etc.)
>    and the clients will connect to this meta-civserver, find out the civserver
>    most suitable for their purposes (location, gamestyle, other people, etc.)
>    and connect to it.

There is a metaserver.  Try the 'metaserver' button in the initial
connect dialog.

This has been discussed before.  There are two ways to have multiple
metaservers:

  + let the client choose one
    a patch exists to this, but it isn't in CVS
  + let DNS choose one

In the second case, there must be metaserver-metaserver synchronisation.

>    The civservers will periodically send information
>    about them (users, running games, ...) to the metaserver. The people
>    connected to the same civserver will be able to start game(s), like on
>    irc, when people (clients) join the channel (game) and the operator
>    (someone) changes the mode for channel (start game).
>    However, this is probably highly unrealistic with the code written....
>    just a vision. But... if it would be possible ... I'd like to help to do 
> it.

At present, the metaserver is not itself a civserver.
A game server like you describe is rather easy to implement.
See the mailing list archive ...

I really like your ideas about race characteristics.
Do you think you can implement some of this in the AI code?

>   6) maybe the list of technical goals, but I think they can be generated
>      by AI on-the-fly according to his/her psychic characteristics (ie,
>      aggressive one will try to invent better weapons, expansionist will
>      try to find sail.

Yes, the code would have to assess the qualities of techs at runtime,
because they are affected by rulesets.
 
> WHAT HAVE I DONE (I can post it if anoyone would be interested):

Yes. can you post your patches here?

> If you agree with some of my IDEAS, I'll try to (help to) code them faster.

I agree with all of them.  Hurry :)

-- 
Reinier Post