Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Nations ruleset patch - many nations.

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jerzy Klek <qpkjeek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Nations ruleset patch is updated and now it is possible
> to have up to 63 nations to choose from.

Ok, I have checked in a patch based on a recent version
of this.  Though it could do with some more testing, and 
fixes, and some code cleanups (eg, I think there should
be a separate common/nation module).  Also, the newer flags
are not yet in (it sort of works, you just see units/cities 
without any flags for some nations...)

> There is a problem now with scenario maps: there must
> be at least as much starting positions in a map as there
> are nations. I know it may be discussable but I think that
> scenario maps are provided for a concrete situation, so
> if some nations do not have starting positions while other
> have, it's not OK. I think that we have to decide how
> many nations are in the default ruleset and just have the same
> thing in the maps.

Well, I don't like this, because I think it is likely that
people will often want to add new nations to the default
nations.ruleset, and I don't think its good for the "default"
scenarios (earth, europe) to fail in this situation.

I'm not sure what the best want to handle this is.
I was going to have the nation count restricted (that is
ignore/discard extra races) if playing a game with too few 
starts, but even that is not clear/simple because it probably
makes sense to use those extra races when civil wars happen.

For now I've changed it so that scenarios must have at 
least 14 starts (MAX_NUM_PLAYERS) and nations with indices
greater than the specified number of start positions get 
assigned random unused positions.  This at least allows
the basic scenarios to be playable when adding more nations.
Of course it would be good to add more/correct start
positions too.

> A known bug I have: Xaw client does not
> work if there is only one nation (GTK is OK).

Hmm, does the game work at all if there are few nations?
Eg, what happens if there are fewer nations than players??

> I have noticed some suggestions, some people wanted more
> leaders,

If we don't have generalized leaders, I think it would
be at least good to have a male and female option for
each nation.  (Doesn't civ2 have this?)

-- David