[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Keepig Xconq and Freeciv syncronized.

[Tony Stuckey <stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 11:29:34PM -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
> Could Xconq and Freeciv actually converge in the future?  I suppose
> it's possible.  Xconq has had 14 years of wandering down the generality
> road, and indeed it serves as a cautionary tale of what kind of morass
> you can end up if you try to generalize everything - it can do all sorts
> of games, but no single game particularly well, and the code scares off
> most would-be contributors.  Freeciv has a more limited goal, is much
> closer to achieving it, and that's a really good thing.

        Nobody agrees on what that is, though! :)
        Opinions range from "A clone of Civ1/Civ2" to "A moderately
general engine bringing together the best of ideas from every game that has
fallen under the Civ trademark" to "A completely general empire building
game that should encompass everything Xconq has done as well as games like
MOM, MOO, and Empire, and provide significant new development"

> I think there's also a bit of attitude difference.  I notice that
> Freeciv developers who've commented on Xconq's interface and coding
> style generally seem to dislike how Xconq does things, and conversely,
> if I were to work on Freeciv, I would be consumed with the urge to
> "fix" :-) lots of things that seem wrong to me.

        I used to try to play Xconq, years ago.  This would have been about
1994, or so.  I remember massively grainy graphics, an interesting hex map
(I love hex maps! :) ), and very confusing controls.  Basically it never
hooked me, even though I like the genre.

> So for now I think the best thing is simply to learn from each
> other's successes and mistakes, and to borrow designs and code
> whenever it makes sense.  That's the real strength of open source,
> that whether we work on the same program or different programs,
> we're all able to share the results, and thus become a single
> community of programmers.

        Good points.
-- 
Anthony J. Stuckey                              stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"And they said work hard, and die suddenly, because it's fun."
        -Robyn Hitchcock.