[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Suggestion: Growning cities

[Jules Bean <jules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2000 at 06:19:53PM +0200, Ashley Penney wrote:
> 
> Hmm, I'm not good at putting this into words, but I worry that FreeCiv will
> turn into Emacs, filled with absolutely everything anyone could think of.

And indeed, I edit this reply with emacs, as I do all my emails ;-)

As long as the new features are 'encapsulated' in a way that the
rulesets can get at then what we will see is a proliferation of
different games using the same engine.  I see that as a great thing.

> Rather than having a city spread over more squares, it would be a hell of a
> lot more interesting to totally remove the concept of tiles, and simply
> assign the units a "scouting distance", so a explorer could only see 50 foot,
> while a catapult could see much further (being much taller).

Agreed. (Well, I don't agree with that specific idea, but I agree with
the concept).  Not that long ago, someone pointed out that doing away
with tiles completely was the only totally elegant solution to the
'map freeciv onto a sphere' problem.  I think a tileless freeciv would
be a nice thing to have.

> Anyway, I'm just throwing out some random ideas as I've seen mumblings about
> redesigns, total changing of tech structure and so forth.  Is FreeCiv always
> going to trail behind the "offical" games, or will you go for it and lead the
> field? :)

Well, as always, that's up to the developers.  Which is not a closed
club -- it's up to anyone with the time on their hands to be a
developer.  If I had as much time to program as I waste writing emails
;-) then personally, yes, I'd be pushing freeciv away from its
roots. But it ain't up to me!

Jules

-- 
Jules Bean                          |        Any sufficiently advanced 
jules@xxxxxxxxxx                    |  technology is indistinguishable
jules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx               |               from a perl script