[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Freeciv Patch: Controls on access to specified techs.

[Andrew McGuinness <andrew_mcguinness@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 26, 2000 at 12:13:16PM -0800, David Pfitzner wrote:
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
> 
> > OK, here is the patch that modpack designers have been hoping for.
> > The attached .diff allows the rulesets to control players' access to
> > various portions of the tech tree, allowing a partition of the tree
> > between your various nations/races/species/whatevers.
> 
> > The basic ruleset design strategy is to create some "base" techs, 
> > mark them as non-researchable and non-transferable, grant them to
> > specific sets of nations at the start of the game using the 
> > mechanism in my "initial techs" patch, and then use those "base" 
> > techs as pre-reqs for units/improvements/wonders that should only
> > be built by nations with in the appropriate set.
> 
> While this patch looks like a good start, it seems to me there is
> still a limitation that _all_ the "partitioned" techs will need to
> be marked non-transferrable?  Else you could aquire (by conquering
> a city etc) derived techs even without having the base ones.
> 
> (And marking all techs non-transferrable means no sharing even
> between separate elven nations etc :-(
> 
> To improve this (and also as a stand-alone feature) it would be
> nice to have more control (via ruleset parameters) over general
> prerequisite requirement rules for gaining tech by research or
> otherwise.
> 

I would have thought it would be better if the modpack designer
could say exactly what he wanted in the rulesets.  In the past,
designers have had to try and fake "racial abilities" by 
partitioning the tech tree, which hasn't worked very well, hence
this patch.  But wouldn't it be easier if you could specify that,
say, only races with the attribute "Elvish" can build the
"Rings of Power" wonder (or whatever), and then give nations
attributes in the ruleset.

Of course, there may be cases where this patch is exactly what
is wanted - particularly for historical (rather than fantasy)
modpacks.

> For example, current rules are effectively:
> - Gaining tech by research: must know all _immediate_ prerequisite
>   techs.
> - Gaining tech otherwise: no restrictions.
> 
> Nice possibilities:
> - Gaining tech by research: must know all _recusive_ prerequisites
>   (so if you gain a "far-future" tech, you can use it but not
>   derive from it).
> - Gaining tech otherwise: need to know at least one (recursive)
>   prerequisite (would solve partitioning problem).
> - Gaining tech otherwise: need to know one/all? prereqs within 
>   X steps, some parameter X (cannot grasp "far-future" techs).
>   (If "one", and X large, provides previous option.)
> - Others?
> 
> -- David

-- 
Andrew McGuinness     Luton, UK        andrew_mcguinness@xxxxxxxxxxx