[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [patch] river h-elp text

[Jeff Mallatt <jjm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 1999/10/23 17:18 , Greg Wooledge wrote:
>It appears to work fine.  But I have one question, and one comment:
>
>* Should the capability string be '+' or not?  I didn't test a
>  river_help_text server with a non-river_help_text client or vice versa;
>  but since the help text is at the tail end of the packet and I've got
>  NULL-checking everywhere (I hope!) I think it *might* work out OK even
>  without the '+'.  Someone should check on that.

If river_help_text server with a non-river_help_text client and vice versa
both work, then we don't need the '+'.  I think for this change, it would
be nice to maintain compatibility.  When I test the patch, I'll test that
everything works.

>* This is such a special-case hack!  With this patch, we have a single
>  help text segment (terrain/rivers) that's given special treatment.
>  Now, maybe this a bad thing, and maybe not; I don't want to make that
>  judgment.  But I can't write this and not point that out.

True, but aren't all the values in the [parameters] section of
terrain.ruleset special-case hacks?

A more general solution might be to create an "overlay.ruleset", which
would define the set of possible natural geographic features which could be
overlaid on terrain.  Currently, we have only River.  Other possibilities
come to mind:
  - Cliff (makes movement more difficult)
  - Fault (makes earthquakes more likely)
  - Spring (not a River -- just a single square of water source for
irrigation, but not suitable for Hoover Dam)
  - Aquifer (underground river; allows irrigation with sufficient technology)
Also, this ruleset could include the food/production/trade/defense bonuses
and the movement mode for the types of overlays -- so we would get rid of a
few more special-case hacks in terrain.ruleset -- as well as any needed
help text.

This is, however, a much bigger job :)

jjm