[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Corecleanup patch updates

[Gaute B Strokkenes <gs234@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, mkaufman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 02:56:40AM +0200, Gaute B Strokkenes wrote:
>>  You're also assuming that you can normalize x and y coordinates
>> separately.  That's fine for rectangles, cylinders and tori but
>> fails for Möbius strips and Klein bottles.  The last two are
>> perfectly possibly, if a bit odd, choices of topology and it would
>> be kind of fun to support them.
> 
> The last two are not perfectly possible. Both those surfaces are
> non-orientable.

And your point is?  The only problem I can think of is that going a
single step in one direction and then one step in the opposite
direction does not necessarily result in getting back to the original
tile, but that is not an unsurmountable problem.

> I can dream up all kinds of orientable surfaces that would be fun or
> at least interesting to try out, but it would be nuts to code or
> maintain the code.

I can't.  We are restricted by the need to be able to present the
world as a grid, which pretty much prevents us from having arbitrary
2-manifolds, such as a sphere.  At least I can't think of any.

> An interesting problem might be how to handle a flat playing surface
> in the shape of a triangle of circle, or better, a map with holes,

I think the best way to do this would be to add a new tile type,
T_BLACKHOLE or somesuch, which is unpassable, unusable etc. etc.  Then
you could sculpt whatever you wanted out of the shapes available.

> or a map that wraps to the west but not to the east ;)

-- 
Big Gaute                               http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~gs234/
I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT!  Am I doing it correctly??