[Freeciv-Dev] Initial techs requirements

[Arien Malec <arien_malec@xxxxxxxxx>]

The discussion on the settler_tech_patch has been fruitful, and has
changed my ideas about what would be needed to preserve backwards
compatibility:

I had thought that what was needed would be an initial_tech_flags
variable that would allow you to configure the capabilities you start
out with (Bridge Building is "really" a flag that you can attach to any
technology, but it happens to be attached to the tech "Bridge
Building). I'm now more inclined to do a initial_techs variable that
would allow you to set the initial technologies; if you wanted to
precreate initial technical capabilities, you'd want to make sure those
techs had the required tech flags...

But how would such a flag would, and how would it interact with the
current techlevel server parameter?

I can imagine the following:

1) initial_techs provides the baseline technical capability of
civilizations, and techlevel gives techs above and beyond those techs:
e.g., if initial_techs = "Roadbuilding", "Irrigation", "Mining" and
techlevel = 3, you might also get "Horseback Riding", etc...
OR
2) initial_techs provide the baseline "pool" from which techlevel techs
are pulled (and if you run out of initial_techs, you get random techs
like it currently works). So in the above example, if techlevel = 3,
you'd only get Roadbuilding, Irrigation, Mining. If techlevel = 2,
you'd get a random set of 2 techs out of the initial_techs (OR the
first two...), if techlevel = 4, you'd get the three initial_techs and
one random tech.

I'd vote for #1

Also, just for my sanity, can someone who knows the code confirm the
following:

The server variable techlevel is stored in game.tech which takes its
default value from GAME_INITIAL_TECHLEVEL

The server variable researchspeed is stored in game.techlevel which
takes its default value from GAME_INITIAL_RESEARCHLEVEL

(Perhaps I should send a patch to clean that up first...)

Arien

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