[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Is the city names patch good?

[Raimar Falke <hawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 02:38:57PM -0500, Jason Short wrote:
> Jason Short wrote:
> 
> > Mike Jing wrote:
> > 
> >> Takacs Gabor <tg330@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> I write about a patch added to Freeciv on Dec 6.
> >>>
> >>> The description of the patch (from changes.txt):
> >>>
> >>> > Add the ability to structure the city names of nations based
> >>> > on the (surrounding) terrain. For this city_name_suggestion now
> >>> > take the position of the city.
> >>>
> >>> I think this patch has more disadvantages than advantages:
> >>> (I apologize to the author :-)
> 
> > It is certainly true that the system doesn't degrade well.  Here's a 
> > more complicated system that would:
> > 
> > cities = "Washington" (capital, river, coastal), "New York" (river, 
> > coastal), "Boston" (river, coastal), "Philadelphia" (river), "Los 
> > Angeles" (coastal), etc...
> > 
> > Note here I've made "capital" a description.  It is also possible for 
> > more than one description to apply.
> > 
> > When you want to name a new city, you go through all cities and give 
> > them a value - say, exponentially decreasing based on how low down they 
> > are in the list.  Then you multiply that value by whatever terrain 
> > features match - and possibly divide if they don't match.  So if America 
> > founds a coastal river city first, washington will always become their 
> > capital - but if they found a river city first it might be philadelphia 
> > (if you work the numbers right).  A mountain capital would be given a 
> > third name.
> > 
> > This is just rambling, though.  I don't have a problem with the current 
> > system; only time will tell if it needs to be improved.
> 
> Upon further thought, I have come to the conclusion that the natural 
> city names sytem _is_ fatally flawed, and should be replaced (preferably 
> by a better natural city name system, perhaps one like I describe above).
> 
> The flaw is this: it discards the city order from the ruleset.  This 
> will mean that it is impossible to convert the ruleset back to on 
> ordered system.  (By "impossible", I mean it would be just as much work 
> as building the ruleset from scratch.  It would still be possible to 
> revert to a previous CVS version, but all additions to the ruleset would 
> be lost.)
> 
> If the 64-nation limit is relaxed before the next release, then after 
> the release we're going to see an influx of many more nations.  And all 
> (or most) of these nations will use natural city naming.  It will then 
> become infeasible to change systems at a later date.
> 
> All I'm really arguing for is a change in the ruleset syntax (perhaps as 
> I describe above).  If somebody (preferably the original author, maybe 
> me) provides a patch to do this, would it be accepted?

I see the problem. However the other problem (putting more info on a
name) is the more important reason (at least for me now). So I will
accept such patches.

        Raimar

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