[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Patch: Unique city names

[Teemu Kurppa <tkurppa@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg Wooledge wrote:
> 
> Christian Knoke (ChrisK@xxxxxxxx) wrote:
> 
> > - renaming is only allowed when you found or conquer a city
> 
> I don't like that.

Me neither. I have had quite fun in some not so "serious" games, where
diplomacy plays bigger role, when we used city naming to add feeling and
strengthen "the plot of the game". 

> > - city names have at least 3 alpha chars, maximum 3 non alpha chars,
> >   and no numbers at all
> 
> Enforcing alpha chars is fine, but we need numbers too.  You can only
> type in a few names before you start to run out of ideas ("New Paris",
> "New New Paris").  When you run out of city names, at least *some* of
> the Civ games start giving you "Paris2", "Nice2", etc.

In the current CVS-code the last bit of the city_name_suggestion
function is

   for (i = 1; i <= num_tiles; i++ ) {
    my_snprintf(tempname, MAX_LEN_NAME, _("City no. %d"), i);
    if (!game_find_city_by_name(tempname)) 
      return tempname;
  }

that makes sure that it really can give an unique city name. 

> > Simply forbidding double use of a name prevents not from cyclic
> > renaming.
> 
> I'd keep it as simple as possible.  Just disallow having two cities with
> the same name in the same civilization.  That's all you really need.

I totally agree. 
There is the problem: one should be able to know capital of another
player, if he has embassy. My patch is one solution to the problem. It
probably can be fixed with many ways, but after looking of many
suggested solutions, I have become more convicted that the patch is
simple, easy way to fix the problem.  

Teemu Kurppa