[Freeciv-Dev] Re: feature request: savegame compatibility with 1.9.x and earlier (PR#1818)

[Miguel Farah <miguel@xxxxx>]

 Reinier Post [07/08/2002 12:53] dijo/said:
>On Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 02:12:50PM -0700, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Aug 2002, Mike Kaufman wrote:
>> > of a certainty, but I think it was good to waste compatibility with
>> > pre-1.9.0 savegames; however, we (you) probably should put up a modified
>> > savegame.c that loads old games, but saves them as new ones. That way
>> > people who have ancient games (who almost certainly know what they're
>> > doing) can recusitate them.
>> 
>> First I want to know if there _actually_ are anyone out there with that
>> old savegames that they wish to keep.
>
>At FUADEC we discussed the issue of Civ II compatibility:
>are developers allowed to make changes that take Freeciv further away
>from Civ II compatibility?  The example given was hitpoints/firepower.
>
>I think we should turn Freeciv compatibility into an issue as well.
>Freeciv sometimes breaks backward compatibility without really
>documenting this in a single place.  It would be nice to have
>a webpage or something else with a list of modifications that
>break tilesets, savegames, etc., or change the gameplay.

If you ask me, what *I* think is this:

Freeciv should have three modes of play: 

1) Civ I compatibility mode (and should strive to reach 100% compatibility)

2) Civ II compatibility mode (ditto)

3) Freeciv mode, which should have the rules changed as we consider
   them best (HP/FP modification, cost of new settlers to avoid ICS,
   etcetera).

   This mode could also include new technologies to make the game more
   interesting. Things like a fishing factory (the one I talked about a
   couple weeks ago), ekranoplans (a new kind of unit I'm designing for
   my Mare Infinitus modpack), farcasters, and more stuff like that.


So far, there's the civ1,civ2,default directories, but I -AFAIK- never
seen this distinction made explicit.