Re: [Freeciv-Dev] city plan patch

[Peter Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxx>]

John-Marc Chandonia wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>         This is a patch to create a "city plan" in freeciv.  This
> serves pretty much the same function as build lists (as implemented
> in an old patch by Reinier Post that I looked at), but with several
> differences.  Each city plan (there can be only 1 per player in
> the current implementation, but it would be very easy to allow several
> to be defined) is a list of improvements to build.  Every city has
> the option of following the plan, which means that when it finishes
> building an improvement, it builds the next possible thing off the
> list instead of whatever the AI would have chosen.  Unlike a "build list"
> you can't set up each city individually, and nothing except improvements
> are handled (i.e. no units, yet).  However, the advantage is that there
> is less micromanaging for the player to do.  Implementation is very similar
> to the "civilian government" feature of Galactic Civ.

Great !

A few more features would be nice; I don't think most of this is urgent:

a)      Give a weight, for example, how much is it worth 
        to build the improvement ? The weight would be compared against the ai 
weights.
        If this is added, the ai functions are needed in the client. A bit 
awkward.
        However, this will help improve the AI, and this way one doesn't 
        completely sidetrack developping a better city advisor by using city 
plans instead.
        (Important) The plan file format should support this.

b)      Should the improvement be bought when reaching 20/40 shields or more ?
        One needs a player gold reserve value(server!) that tells when not to 
buy.

c)      Multiple lists; not urgent, since one day, someone will just drop by and
        add that feature. 
        (Important) However, it might be good to foresee this, and use a list 
box
        instead of a checkbox.

d)      Ability to build units; for example build two after building Barracks 
II.

        This is tricky if Musketeers are not yet available or have become 
obsolete.

        All this is tricky because you need to know more about the city.
        For example the units present or what has been built.
        Not trivial to do at all. Maybe:
         Allow this only after a Barracks (II,iii) has been built.

e)      Ability to disband units, sell buildings, and to cancel build commands.
        
        Prolly too much like a scripting language, but partly easy to do.


> Details:
> 
> 1) It is client side only.  This has drawbacks in that the plan itself,
> and which cities are on the plan, are not saved between sessions.
> Users can save their plans to a file in their directory, though.  There
> is also a drawback in that (as mentioned earlier), the server's AI will
> go on with the normal stupid choices if you spend several turns offline
> (although this is already the situation now). 


It would work if cities had a build queue that was saved, so having your 
city plan patch is an inducement to have build queues :-)


> 2) Plans are set up through a dialog under the "kingdom" menu.  If
> plans are activated, a toggle box appears in each city view allowing
> that city follow or not follow the plan.  If plans are not active,
> there is no change to the city view, so the user doesn't need to
> worry about plans at all if they don't want to.

IMVHO, this should be in the options menu, and be saved in the 
client options file. The city plan should be loaded when the option 
has been turned on, and if a cityplan file is in ~/.freeciv or DATADIR.

- 
Peter Schäfer - mailto:schaefer@xxxxxx, schaefer@xxxxxx