[Freeciv-Dev] recent paratroopers patch

[Jeff Mallatt <jjm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I tried to search the mail archives for mention of this, but didn't find
anything.  Sorry if I'm repeating a prior discussion.

I noticed that in Civ2, Paratroops:
  1. Can depart from ANY friendly city, not just those with Airports.
  2. Arrive with movement intact, not zero.  (The Civ2 manual says "1".)

Were these differences motivated by concern for game balance?

Also, I noticed in can_unit_paradropped() that the test of moves_left is
against 0 (zero).  The Civ2 manual says "have not moved this turn", which
means that moves_left should be compared to the unit type's move_rate (in
case someone changes to units.ruleset such that Paratroopers have a
move_rate grater than 1).

Of course, since Paratroopers in Civ2 have a movement rate of only 1, it
could be argued that "have not moved this turn" is synonomous with "has at
least 1 remaining movement point".  If this is the case, and we wish to
allow Paratropers with move_rate > 1 to move-drop-move, then the test
should be against 3.  Actually, I guess this would be my preference!

By the way, I checked: "have not moved this turn" does mean "have full
movement left" -- I could travel via railroad to a different city and
*still* paradrop.

jjm