[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Middle Earth Modpack

[John-Marc Chandonia <jmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I took a brief look at the middle earth modpak.  I really like the
idea of partially separate tech trees.  However, won't the Mordor and
Dunedain civs start to exchange techs as they conquer each others' cities?
Maybe there should be an addition to the rulesets which intoduces
the concept of "non-stealable" tech.  Or else, an (optional, of course)
rule modification to not allow techs to be stolen that you are not
within N steps of gaining yourself.  If the base techs like "Mordor
tech" could never be researched, N would be infinite and these would
never be stolen.

Another idea we could use is the concept of "alignment".   Your alignment
starts out as neutral, but changes through your actions in the game,
such as breaking treaties or through ethical tests.  In Galactic Civ,
for example, sometimes a message pops up like "you encounter a race
of starving humanoids... you can enslave them and gain 10 credits/year for
the next 20 years, ignore them, or help them and lose 5 cr/y for 20 y."
Depending on your choice, your alignment changes and you can then
gain or lose access to techs.  Once you go too far in any direction
you can't go back.  OK, this concept needs to be shelved until we
at least achieve Civ2 compatibility, but it could be fleshed out in the
future.

JMC
-- 
John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)              We're everywhere...
Cohen Lab, University of California San Francisco       for your convenience.
http://yuri.harvard.edu/~jmc                                -- Psi Corps <*>