[Freeciv-Dev] Re: River sailing: patch

[Erik Sigra <freeciv@xxxxxxx>]

Jerzy Klek wrote:
> 
> > > Sailing through mountain disabled (though opinions vary)
> >
> > I will register my vote that it should be allowed; if the river wasn't big
> > enough for it it shouldn't be on the map! Besides, it is simpler if it is 
> > allowed.
> 
> That will be changed.

Sure. I was planning (read: far future) to add the concept of waterfalls
anyway. This would then control river passability. And maybe a tech
floodgates that allows the terrain improvement floodgate. And lakes. And
replace the Hoover Dam with a corresponding terrain improvement that can
be built at any place with the right topology and hydrology. And a
disaster event for the case that such a dam is destroyed by military
action or terrorist style sabotation. And the concepts of wind,
precipitaion and evaporation (needed for SMAC style map generation). And
... (I guess I should stop here and don't talk too much before I
actually submit anything. :-)

> > > a terrain.ruleset field is added to control the extra cost of
> > > sailing on rivers, as a default set to 1/3 (so sailing on rivers
> > > costs 1 and 1/3 movement point). This makes Trireme to be able
> > > to make 2 moves on river, while 3 on the sea.
> >
> > It would be more flexible to just list the total move cost of moving on a 
> > river
> > in this field.

My opinion too.

> Hmm, that would allow units sail on rivers faster that on seas...
> well, why not?
> 
> > (but I haven't really looked at the code yet)
> 
> And you better not :-) Well, I have to admit that the code in my last
> patch was hopeless when it comes to goto and has been changed a lot
> during the weekend. I hoped I could do it quickly without trying to
> understand this much... and I had to understand it first.
> I am still sitting on autoexplore...

Exploring by sailing up in rivers is an effective way of uncovering
tiles. But it could also be dangerous. The trireme could get trapped by
enemy land units blocking the river downstreams.

Could it be made so that triremes on autoexplore always give the control
back to the user whenever they detect any sign that the island they are
currently exploring is inhabited by a (potential) enemy? I mean not just
units and cities, but also irrigations and pieces of road. Then the user
could decide if he wants to [take the risk and continue exploring
upstreams] or [flee back downstreams to the ocean].

I don't know about the AI, but maybe it would be best for it to flee in
this situation, and maybe even skip all remaining rivers on the current
island after marking it as hostile on its maps. At least now that it
can't do diplomacy at all (however, with AI diplomacy implemented at
some future date, it could be advantageous for it to continue upstreams
and try to make contact). But don't worry about the AI yet. It might be
so that it cheats so much that it doesn't even have to explore anyway.

BTW,  how is [land unit] <=> [riversailing unit] combat calculated?

> ... I will send a new patch that will be hopefully more mature.

I look forward to testing it!

> /Jerzy

/Erik