[Freeciv-Dev] Re: new generalized calendars

[Raimar Falke <rf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 06:03:03PM -0500, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 11:43:00PM +0200, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > 
> > > o we probably need a "short_date" function, but that'll need alternate
> > >   formats. :(
> > 
> > You can also add DATE_SAVEFILENAME and DATE_NUMERIC.
> 
> I don't understand this. The problem here is the display in the client.
> I you have a date like:  "45 years after the death of King Foo in the Third
> Age" you start crowding out the screen. Having an alternate date format
> might help (or you could just add a '\n' to one of the unit formats)
> 
> My plan (if you would write a secfile_insert_int_vec() for me) would be
> to store the date in the savegame as:
> 
> game.date = 1941,12,7,0,0,0
> 
> for labeling savegames, which is what I suppose you want, I sould have
> to say:
> 
> "civgame-%d.%d.%d.%d.%d.%d.sav.gz", cal.cdate[0], cal.cdate[1], ...
> 
> alternately, we could add a "calendar_unit?.savelabel" boolean field
> that specifies if the unit is needed as part of the above. That way, the
> default calendar would save games as they do now.

You need a numeric/short version in the gamelog and the scorelog.

> > > Good news:
> > > 
> > > to operate: best way to do this is:
> > > 
> > > % cd freeciv; mkdir rdir; cp game.ruleset-foo rdir/game.ruleset;
> > > % ser
> > > > rulesetdir ../rdir
> > > 
> > > Just to annoy Raimar, who used this example, game.ruleset-foo starts the
> > > game with the date:
> > > 
> > > "45 years after the death of King Foo in the Third Age"
> > > 
> > > so we can be quite flexible.
> > > 
> > > in data/default/game.ruleset is the documentation for the calendar.
> > > Please try and break it. I'm sure there are bugs.
> > > 
> > > Unfortunately there is a cheat. Certain freeciv rules (like the
> > > spaceship parts) are hardcoded. It ain't _that_ flexible. You can read
> > > all about that in the "builtins" section. Note that this is still a far
> > > cry from Raimar's lets hardcode everything approach, so I don't feel too
> > > bad.
> > 
> > It is nice that we agree at some points:
> >  - game.year should die
> 
> absolutely.
> 
> >  - you can't exactly map from date to turn
> 
> I'm not so sure. Give an example where this is not the case.

The freeciv default calendar. You can't tell the turn of the year
without the knowledge about the spaceshipparts.

> >  - this makes loading games hard/inaccurate
> 
> not at all. see above.

And this knowledge isn't in old savegames.

> >  - some behavior can't be specified via ruleset
> 
> of course it can. It would just be dumb (and really hard) to.

Ok. I should have added "with reasonable effort".

> > But I also have to say that your patch is just an implementation of my
> > model. 
> 
> well, I guess in the same way a prince is a frog ;) If I want to play my
> game in lunar months, I edit "game.ruleset". I you want to play in lunar
> months, you have to mail freeciv-dev and beg us to implement it and get
> it in CVS.

You still don't got it. The difference between your and my model is
that I have another layer of indirection (game.calendar). This layer
is unnecessary if all (by modpack authors or similar) requested
calendars can be implemented with one (your) calendar. You cheated
because with the ability to extend the calendar (builtin) you can
model any calendar. You must agree that other calendars/whatever is
necessary if we remove this ability from your model.

> >        You just define one calendar which is medium customizeable via
> > rulesets. My model leaves it open if we have 3 or 4 (freeciv, AC, some
> > modpacks) very specific calendars or if we can create a common model
> > (like you have done) and use fewer calendars (one in the most extreme
> > case).
> 
> no comment.
> 
> > 
> > So if we agree that we include a simple counting calendar (like yours)
> > the discussion is now how general the this calendar should be. It
> > should be clear that we can't include everything (you agreed on this
> > when you added the "builtin" attribute).
> 
> of course.
> I didn't write the code to look nice.
> 
> > 
> > I would like to remove the two tech dependencies. Tech is just
> > arbitrary. Same way as our spaceshipparts. On the other side is your
> 
> not necessarily. tech can be an important milestone, just as a wonder
> can also be. Wouldn't you say that computers, for example, have
> dramatically "slowed" down history. "More" happened in the last century
> than in the previous millennium (could be slight hyberbole)
> 
> Not that I'm adamantly against this, but this is the kind of general
> thing that somebody might very well want. (It also didn't take more that
> a couple dozen lines of code.
> 
> I suspect that the major features of civ should be integrated:
> o the building of (the first of) a certain unitype.
> o the building of (the first of) a certain improvement.
> o discovery of a tech.

> o I suspect that Per might like something like the death of a certain
>   unittype (like a Sauron unit), but I think that might be going a bit
>   far...

And exactly this is the problem: where do you draw the line? You may
also want certain modifications like:
 - building of a unittype is possible
 - building of a unittype is possible for all players
 - first player builds the unittype
 - all players built the unittype
 - all players have an existing unit of this type
 - and so on

Where do you draw the line?

> > builtin feature useless in its current form. The leap year rule
> > changed in the past and the current one is only valid since
> > 24. Febr. 1582. So you would need multiple leap year rules and also
> 
> This is simply wrong. Yes, the calendar is simplistic. Yes, sometime in
> the 1570's or 80's most of september got skipped. you miss the point. We
> measure history using the Gregorian calendar. If I ask you when Trajan
> was emperor, you don't give me the answer in Julian units.

But the time in the game is measured in the current calendar of this
age. Or isn't it. Well this is a philosophical question.

> (besides, it would really suck, this for a little while there were a
> couple of leap year rules that contradicted each other).

> but calling the "builtin" feature (which may be misnamed) useless is a
> bit harsh. Something like it will be necessary to implement the idiotic
> rules that payciv dreamed up.

I agree that you have to prodive an "espace" mechanism.

        Raimar

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 email: rf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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