[Freeciv-Dev] Re: It's a game already!

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> There's a misconception (at least, I think it's a misconception,
> someone correct me if I'm wrong) that I've seen cropping up from
> time to time on this list; in the last week or so it's gotten
> totally out of hand.  This is the idea that Freeciv is in some
> significant way a model of reality or of historical developments
> of civilizations; that it has any more to do with national
> politics than chess has to do with battlefield tactics.  Not only
> is this idea false and generative of a huge amount of needless
> discussion, but it's actually dangerous in the long run to the
> *GAME* of Freeciv.
[Eloquent argument against needless realism snipped]

> Now, this would be much more realistic.  But it wouldn't be
> nearly as much fun.  If I want reality, I can go outside (well, I
> guess I can't have the reality of commanding conquering hordes,
> but you get the idea.. :) ); if I'm playing Freeciv, I want to
> play a GAME.
While I whole-heartedly agree that too much realism is not only
unnecessary, but also harmful, I do wish to point out that some
general resemblance to the "real world" is a desirable feature of
the game.  I am only stressing this point because I am against
deliberately introducing unrealistic features that do not
actually improve gameplay.  In fact, no features should be
introduced if it doesn't make the game more fun to play, be it
realistic or otherwise.  Gameplay is always number one.  But I
just want point out that although this is just a game, realism is
not totally irrelevant.  A certain degree of realism in the game
is actually what makes it more attractive, at least to me.  For
people who prefer a different setting, there will be mod packs,
where you can go nuts. ;-)

> To bring this around to a somewhat more current point, there is
> nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, wrong with having the same city in
> two civilizations, or having two civilizations from different
> time periods in there, as long as the city is named differently
> enough so as not to horribly confuse the players (spelling it
> noticeably differently -- eg, Gdansk vs Danzig -- should
> suffice).  If the ancient Romans want to compete with the United
> States in a nuclear arms race, I'm not going to stop them. ;-)  Heck, let's 
> underscore the point in the game. While we're
> proposing changes to the nationset, here are my suggestions:
[List of real and imaginary nations snipped]

Again I totally agree with Daniel on this one.  I do respect
other people's feelings and their national pride, but there is no
simple way to resolve this issue.  In short, you can't make
everyone happy.  Besides, all the effort to eliminate duplicate
city names is pretty pointless because players can name their
cities whatever they please anyway.  Same goes for leader names.
Also, the game itself spans thousands of years, so the mixing of
different historical periods is pretty much unavoidable.  I say
leave the matter of history to the historians, and let the
players have their own choice of nations, be it ancient, modern,
or imaginary (I hereby threaten to implement customizable city
lists. ;-)~ Customized flags are somewhat problematic).  My only
concerns are practical ones, like we will need submenus when
selecting the multitude of different nations available.

Meanwhile, there are so many worthwhile additions to the game
that still need to be implemented.  Let's focus on the real
issues.  Senate anyone?

Mike


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