[Freeciv-Dev] Re: rfc: autoattack

[Mike Kaufman <kaufman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 05:49:36PM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
> > But yes, even this autoattack is deadly. Too deadly...  It obsoletes
> > defenders, really.
> 
> That is what I was asking myself, too. But I suppose this is what good
> players do anyway, only they do it by an amazing feat of micromanagement
> instead of server code ;) Right, pille?
> 
> Also, defenders are not obsoleted. To the contrary, now even the most
> experienced micromanagement wizard has to use defenders - to bodyguard his
> attack units.

I do not like this at all. Here we are attempting to put more crap in the
server, attack code, no less. This is the _wrong_ direction to be going in
people. If people are able to micromanage from the client-side, then more
power to them. The "slow-connection" argument is ok, but in no way
outweighs the harm we would be doing in making this available. I have no
problem at all with putting automated attack code in the client. That's
what it's for. But don't screw with the server. (the server's going to be
taking a performance hit anyway real soon now, let's not bog it down even
more.)

In my opinion, the server needs only to make a few intelligent decisions:
where to place or remove a citizen by default when city size changes...and
perhaps which improvement to sell if you run out of cash, but there's damn
few other decisions it should be making, and doing attack routines is not
one of them.

> 
> > Especially if Raahul's sea bombardment is added.
> 
> I don't like it much anyway... it gives too much power to CCA&H (Catapult,
> Cannon, Artillery and Howitzer), and combined with autoattack it becomes
> unbalancing as you can defend against both ground and sea with one
> relatively cheap unit. (Bomber and stealth bomber can do this now, but
> they are much more expensive.)

good point.

-mike