[Freeciv-Dev] Re: population cost patch

[michael.kiermaier@xxxxxx]

Arien Malec wrote:

> --- Michael Kiermaier <michael.kiermaier@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > ok, i merged arien´s and my patch
> 
> Looks really good! Your changes get a lot of stuff that I missed.

thanks. it really would be nice if someone else commented on it.
 
> > * the meaning of add_to_size_limit changed. it was the largest size
> > for
> > adding settlers to a city. now it is the maximum size a city can be
> > grown
> > to.
> 
> I assume you mean "grown to by means of settlers or other population
> units" -- you can always grow "organically"

yes, of cause it should be "grown to by means of AddToCity-units".
 
> > these notes are for arien:
> > 
> > * in cityturn.c the functions city_reduced_by_famine and
> > city_auto_remove_workers were only used once, so i moved the code to
> > the
> > locations of these function calls.
> 
> I tend to want to subdivide large functions into atomic units, but it
> doesn't bother me at all this way

i did it this way because the rest of cityturn.c was written in this style.
 
> > besides city_built_woker_cost was not necessay.
> 
> That was a relic of the existing code, but your approach is much
> cleaner. IMHO, city_build_stuff is in drastic need of a thorough
> refactoring...

agreed.
 
[next mail]

> OK -- here's something actually helpful
> 
> --- Michael Kiermaier <michael.kiermaier@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > * pressing the "b"-key does not add units with AddToCity, but without
> > Cities
> > and Settlers flag to a city. up to now i did not look for the reason
> > again,
> > but this should be fixed.
> 
> Seems to work fine for me... I defined a Refugee unit, with only the
> AddToCity flag, and a pop_cost of 1, and "b", menus, etc. work well.
> You might want to try it again on a clean build?

i recompiled several times and nothing changed. i will try again, but
 for the next three weeks i am in another city and do not have  internet
 at home (yet), so it is a bit difficult at the moment...
 
> > * for a AddToCity-only unit the menu item shows "build city" instead
> > of "add
> > to city"
> 
> "b" is overloaded to mean "build city" "add to city" "build wonder" so
> this shouldn't be so bothersome

when a caravan is on a city square, the text is changed to "help build
wonder" (or something similar), so for the AddToCity - units this text
should change as well.
  
> > * a new ruleset should be created. i suggest the following changes:
> > -settlers, engineers: pop_cost = 2, build_cost=60
> > -terraforming-only versions of settlers and engineers: build_cost=30,
> > pop_cost=uk_food=0. they must be placed after settlers and engineers
> > in
> > unit.ruleset to make the ai use them.
> 
> Alternatively, Settlers could be reserved for city settling, and
> Engineers could just be the super-terraforming unit. I can't think of a
> good name for the lower version (workers is the most obvious, but that
> doesn't work because that's what city workers are called).

there is a problem to have city-founding-only settlers at the moment: it
is forbidden do have a "Cities" unit without the "Settlers" flag. I tried
to remove this and noticed the reason: the ai cannot build cities with
city-founding-only settlers: they are set to (ai) auto-mode and don't do
anything.

but i think that the ai handles the actual changes of this patch very
well. i noticed that the ai very rarely builds aqueducts and sewer system,
but this is not a matter of this patch (see my recent mail).

maybe it would be interesting to have only the week settler unit that
can build cities,

a also looked for a name for the low-level terraforming unit and did not
succeed. i remember that this topic was discussed some time before on the
freeciv or freeciv-data mailing list. im not sure and i did not look it up
yet, but i think there was a good name.

later in the game there could be a military version: the pioneer unit,
witch has some attack and defense abilities and the explorer / alpine-
troops ability (cannot remember the exact flag name). this unit could
be used for fortresses and supply-roads/railroads in battle-regions.
but that are future thoughts...
 
> > -a refugee unit: pop_cost = 1, build_cost=10,
> > attack=defense=uk_food=0,
> > move_rate=1. maybe it would be interesting to have them arise like
> > partisans
> > after a city is conquered.
> 
> This leads to interesting game play, like cheaply depopulating an enemy
> city that you've conquered.

yes, and bribing them would not be very expensive.
 
> I agree that this patch should get applied, but I wonder if there are
> some subtle bugs, and clean-up to do? I might vote for releasing a new
> stable Freeciv, and applying this patch early in the next devel cycle.
> 
> Perhaps there should be a 1.11.5pre branch and a 1.11.6 devel?

again, please, please some comments.


i fear that despite the fact that some people discussed the changes
 of this patch in the recent how-to-overcome-ics discussions now noone
except arien and me is going to try it.

some people also mentioned that playing with the new anti-ics ideas
would be necessary to discuss them. so please feel free do it.

~michael

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