[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Land Reclamation (was: Chunnel)

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> However, from:
> 
[...]
>
> we can see that large-scale reclamation was not "feasible" until the 20th
> century.  I think that sea reclamation should be a Terrain Transformation,
> not an Irrigation.  This, of course, should only affect the terrain ruleset
> -- any of irrigation/mining/transform should be allowed on ocean tiles by
> the code.

Both the area of the reclaimed land and the fact that it was open sea
were a factor.  It is both more realistic and more playable to implement
the Zuiderzee works in Freeciv as two different capabilities: ocean-to-
swamp transformation, which could work on connected sets of ocean tiles
at once, but otherwise would be a regular transformation; and dam building,
the capability to build a special kind of road into water that prevents
vessels from crossing and cuts up the ocean for the purpose of ocean-to-
swamp transformation.  Dam building (of this kind) is a modern technology,
water-to-swamp transformation is not.

> >zuider.diff sets it up so if the terrain.ruleset allows irrigation of
> >ocean, if three adjacent squares are not ocean and the player has bridge
> >building. TODO: make it work with the goto command, figure out what to do
> >about harbours/platforms and trapped ships.

In this solution the element of dam building is missing; and I think
bridge building is much too early in the tech tree, at least from the
viewpoint of historical accuracy.  It isn't clear to me, either, why this
activity should be Irrigation rather than Transformation - settlers
shouldn't be able to do this.

> trapped ships:  The player should have to do some things for himself.  If
> he traps a ship, tough.

They could turn into special resources :)

-- 
Reinier