[Freeciv-Dev] Re: freeciv feedback (was: Nice article about Freeciv in O'Reilly Network)

[Kenn Munro <kenn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been playing Freeciv for a year, and never knew that the middle
mouse button did anything.  Quite useful.  Suppose I should take a look
through the Help and see what else I'm missing. :o

I think the area of biggest need for improvement is the AI. 
Specifically, it should be smarter and able to do diplomacy.  When I
first started playing Freeciv, after coming from Civ1/2, that was the
only disappointment: that I had to always be at war with the AI.  Now
that I'm a better player, I'd also like the AI to be more challenging.

I've recently started looking through the AI code, and hopefully will be
able to offer some specific recommendations for improvements sometime in
the future.

Questions: Now that Civ3 is out, when/how will Freeciv start to adopt
the new rules?  Will it be gradually, or most-at-once?  Perhaps it would
be better to start the Civ3 rules before drastic changes were made to
the current Freeciv AI.  I see on the roadmap that better Civ2
compatibility comes before Civ3, but a lot of the work required for Civ2
compatibility would have to be re-done once the change to Civ3 rules was
made.

Kenn


On Fri, 2001-11-23 at 09:07, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> Jason Short (vze2zq63@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> 
> > I think, and I believe most developers agree with me, that FreeCiv has a
> > much better user interface than old Civ games (certainly CivI/CivII and
> > arguably SMAC).
> 
> The 3-button mouse interface probably confuses Windows users.  They're
> used to edge-scrolling the screen instead of clicking a different mouse
> button to "jump" to a different part of it.
> 
> > The gameplay is, AFAICT, identical.
> 
> There are a few differences, some of which are quite important.
> The biggest is that Freeciv is not turn-based; the AI moves at the same
> time you do (which often leads to the "double AI move" phenomenon).
> The second biggest is probably the lack of AI diplomacy.  Others include
> the lack of Elephants, Fundamentalism, etc.
> 
> > And FreeCiv's AI
> > isn't that bad - it can certainly frustrate beginners.
> 
> Freeciv's AI is *amazing* in the early game.  But it lacks diplomacy, so
> you get the impression you're just fighting a mindless computer (which,
> of course, you are) instead of a rival civilization.
> 
> -- 
> Greg Wooledge                  |   "Truth belongs to everybody."
> greg@xxxxxxxxxxxx              |    - The Red Hot Chili Peppers
> http://wooledge.org/~greg/     |