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

[Steven Burnap <sburnap@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:32 AM 2/16/00 +0100, you wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 11:21:11AM -0500, Daniel Burrows 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.
>
> This discusion was not about realism but about consistency,
> which is good thing for every game.
Better to be fun than consistent.  Telling people that "You can't play the 
Germans because
Germany didn't become a nation state in time" may be consistent, but it is 
no fun at all.
Personally, I think there just ought to be some text file somewhere that 
lists the possible
nations.  Then let people edit to their hearts content.  This is pretty 
much what the real
Civ2 did, though it wasn't well documented.

Steve