[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [Patch] Introduction of turns

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Ross W. Wetmore wrote:
> Unless the computation is incredibly arcane, or there are update issues

That's pretty much it.  In order to compute the turn from the year,
you need to know if and WHEN certain advances took place.  If I say
it's year 1950, you can't tell me the absolute turn number with that
information.  

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to add the turn number to packets that
contain the year.  The new_year and game_info packets are the only ones that
need it.  The year and turn number could even be changed to 16-bit, so the
bandwidth stays the same.

> But maybe I am missing something that makes the network solution "easier" or
> more efficient?  Or how this helps to control network traffic and load?

It's not like the client needs to query the server for the turn number.  You
just stick that data in a packet that contains the year and only gets sent
once per turn.