[Freeciv-Dev] Re: killstack patch for February 8th CVS

["Per I. Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1 Sep 2002, Davide Pagnin wrote:
> Yes, but I hope that also the opinion of the whole base of users/developers,
> has its value...

Of course.

> Well, this seems to me a good reason (that anyway has not prevented
> other features to be introduced in the code), thus my opinion is to
> delay the introduction of this patch until the AI code has been
> cleaned (the coreai set of patches) and after the code is somewhat
> stable and clean, who is interested in this feature can try to code it
> and to let the AI understand how to work with this feature.
>
> Again, I don't like that feature, but it has been introduced in civ3,
> and many of the civ3 players consider it an improvement.
> Delaying it when the AI is more mature is *VERY* different in respect of
> saying 'it will not go in'.

I don't think you understand how big this change really is. The war
tactics become totally different. Maintaining two different branches of
war logic inside the AI will make the AI slower and dumber. I also
seriously doubt someone will put much effort into making the AI really
understand non-killstack warfare.

Finally, I don't like the "if it is an option, it must go in" attitude. My
goal is to make a good game, not a game engine. Having lots of options is
a good thing, but having too many is a drag. We already have lots of
options that are poorly tested, given little or no testing when new code
is added, and that the AI doesn't really understand.

I think that when we have an option in the game, it should be supported
just as well as the default settings, so that when a player tries it out,
he should encounter no more problems getting the game working than if he
used the defaults. This is more user friendly and in the long run better
for modpacks than just adding options at whim.

Yours
Per

"I don't see why people are so upset about cloning sheep. American
television networks have been doing that to their audiences for years."
-- Jello Biafra