[Freeciv-Dev] Re: A bunch of patches

[Ben Webb <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, andi payn wrote:

> I think I'm going to put off any further work on this until I see
> where the progress is on SMAC-style "partial unit types" in
> freeciv-ac, because that will obviously change everything
> radically.

        Don't hold your breath. I wrote the code for what I decided at 
the time to call (confusingly) "compound" units (and governments) quite 
some time ago, and it's a nasty hack. There are a lot of thorny issues 
(such as what to call the resultant unit/government, how to draw its 
graphic, how to combine the properties of the components, how to handle 
special cases, etc. etc.) which still need to be addressed. It's not 
likely that the code will be ready for CVS any time soon. Recent 
discussions have suggested an OO framework for Freeciv anyway, which may 
be a better way of tackling this kind of generalisation.

> As for whether they should be implemented, personally, I'd like to be
> able to use at least some SMAC functionality within FreeCiv, if it can
> be added without hurting Civ1/Civ2/Civ3/classic FreeCiv functionality.
> (OK, my changes add a few K to the binary, but they don't affect
> gameplay or even CPU usage if you never use them). So, while I realize
> there's a separate freeciv-ac project, I think this might belong in
> the main tree. (And ultimately, I'd like full SMAC functionality to be
> part of the main FreeCiv tree, so I could play Civ3, SMAC, or my own
> game just by using different tiles and rulesets.)

        I think you're misunderstanding the intentions of the FreecivAC 
project. We're not aiming to change Freeciv into SMAC; instead, we want to 
add some of the "cool features" of SMAC to the main Freeciv project, just 
as you state. We only set up a separate project so that other people could 
help out if they wanted to, without much messing with patches. This is why 
the main thrust of the work so far has been on generalisations of existing 
Freeciv code (e.g. the impr-gen stuff).

        Ben
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