Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Suggested improvement to the game...

[Greg Wooledge <wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vince (vinceit@xxxxxxx) wrote:

> Anyhow, my idea was to add a unit implemented in Civilization:CTP called the 
> Ecoterrorist.  This unit would spring up in a partisan-like manner to respond 
> to pollution in one of 2 ways:

While your idea may have merit, this does not describe the CTP
Ecoterrorist unit.  The latter is built explicitly under the Ecotopia
government form -- it never appears spontaneously.

> 1) To disrupt shield production and/or pillage terrain

> 2) To be a limited use settler that could only clean up pollution, then 
> disappear. (more akin to an Environmentalist).  This would only happen in a 
> Democracy.

These powers are not part of the Ecoterrorist's arsenal.  Also note that
CTP handles pollution rather differently than Civ1/Civ2/Freeciv.

(For the benefit of everyone else: the Ecoterrorist in CTP is a 'terror'
unit, which means it's invisible except to other 'terror' units (including
the Spy).  It has slightly better attack and defense values compared to a
Musketeer, but cannot attack by itself.  It has two special powers: nanite
attack, and conduct hit.  The nanite attack has only a small chance of
success, and requires a lot of gold --  but if it works, it destroys ALL
city improvements AND WONDERS in the target city.  Conducting a hit always
succeeds -- it causes the target city to suffer a -5 happiness penalty for
a small number of turns.  Overall, it's not that great of a unit, IMHO.)

(On the pollution: Civ1 & friends overlay a special icon over a
"polluted" tile.  Settlers (and Engineers) can clean the pollution.
Until it's cleaned up, the pollution adds to a global warming counter.
In CTP, however, tiles that suffer from the effects of environmental
disaster become "dead" tiles -- they're utterly transformed, and lose
all tile improvements.  "Dead" tiles may be terraformed back into
other tile types when the player has discovered Conservation (which
also enables the Recycling Center city improvement); until they're
terraformed they cannot have tile improvements.  As far as I know,
"dead" tiles don't contribute to global warming -- rather, they're more
likely to be *caused by* global warming, which is directly increased
by the pollutants generated in cities, or by rail launchers, or nukes.
(Note also that nukes create "dead" tiles directly as well....))

There's nothing wrong with your ideas per se -- but they're the kind of
thing which more properly belongs in a "mod" or "scenario".  There has
been some steady progress in generalizing Freeciv and moving the details
to external data files -- which enhances the ability of players to create
"mods".  You can't create your "Environmentalist" units within Freeciv
as it stands today (the supporting code isn't there), but perhaps soon
you may be able to do so.

-- 
Greg Wooledge                    | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx             | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |