[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Materials in Freeciv

[Martin Olveyra <bj0v@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> 
> Martin Olveyra (bj0v@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> 
> > 1- Four kind of materials were added --oil, iron, stone, coal-- which
> > can represent abstractly a bigger amount of real materials. For example,
> > oil can be extracted from seals, whales or mineral oil. Coal material is
> > the production of forests tiles (wood) and coal specials tiles, etc. The 
> > code
> > can easily be modified to add or remove materials.
> >                                         (This part is actually done)
> 
> This is good, but for "mods" it would be best if you could specify the
> number and type of the resources, and which tiles/specials produce them.

Yes, this is the way I'm implementing it. Sorry if I was not clear.

> > 2- The term "shield" is conserved and reserved for the combination of this 
> > four
> > kind of materials: 1 oil + 1 iron + 1 stone + 1coal = 4 shields. 1 oil + 1 
> > iron
> > + 1 coal = 0 shields. So there must be available at least 'n' surplus of 
> > each
> > kind of materials to produce 4*n shields, needed to build units,buildings, 
> > etc.
> > This reflects astractly the reality that, for example, if you want to melt
> > iron, you must burn coal.
> 
> If a city has no oil, does this mean it can't build anything at all?
>(.....................)
> On the other hand, if rule #2 is relaxed, then it becomes a bit more
> playable.  The less-common resources shouldn't be required for the
> basic city improvements.  (Civ2/Freeciv already has a tech requirement
> for city improvements.  A rare-resource requirement on top of that could
> make city improvements too hard to build.  You shouldn't need "plutonium"
> to build a Marketplace. ;-) )

Yes, you are right. Different productions must have different material cost for
different material types. Now I'm working in that part, so I can easily improve
the code. Thank you.   

> Another HOMM3 feature for resource management is the Marketplace city 
> improvement.  It allows you to trade one type of resource for another, 
> at a considerable loss of value.  But if you desperately need just 
> one more crystal to build that Mage Guild Level 4, and you have a few 
> hundred wood stockpiled.

I prefer CPU make this work instead of the player (transparently for the
player, as I said before); other way, the game will be very heavy for the
player.