[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [Freeciv] rfc: autoattack

[Jason Dorje Short <vze49r5w@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Raahul Kumar wrote:

> And sea units can very easily avoid being attacked by just staying away from
> city squares and anywhere else CCAH units can be found. They also become immune
> if stacked with aircraft!
The underlying controversy is that this change, if implemented, will 
dramatically change the game.  How exactly things will change can only 
be guessed at.
For instance, exploiting the bug whereby air units can guard ground 
units against other ground units will probably become a prime strategy. 
 IMO this is a very bad thing (good thing we were discussing how to fix 
that just the other day).
The problem, as Tony has pointed out, is that civ is inherently a 
turn-based game.  Doing movement asynchronously (simultaneously) is a 
compromise that makes multiplayer (more) playable.  This compromise has 
many drawbacks.
This feature aims to address one of the drawbacks.  But it doesn't 
address the compromise itself.  That's OK, as far as it goes - although 
whether it will make the game better or worse has yet to be seen 
(everybody seems to have a strong opinion, but there is no _evidence_). 
 However, blindly implementing this will also change gameplay even when 
the compromise is addressed.  For instance, it doesn't make much sense 
to have autoattack in single-player games (when moves are nearly 
synchronous anyway, i.e., each nation moves in turn), nor does it make 
sense to have it in a multi-player game that uses turn-based movement.
Nor would it make sense to have it in long-term asynchronous-movement 
games.  For instance, players have set up servers with 24-hour timeouts, 
so that one turn takes place a day.  Here the effect is nearly that of 
alternating movement turns, but things are still asynchronous.  The 
correct 'fix' here to avoid client-side autoattack is to give 
'initiative' to the player that is currently moving.  But this is 
complicated (Per told me 'no sane mind should go there').
And we should remember that multi-player games make up only a small 
fraction of all games played.  However, the players on freeciv-dev 
represent a disproportionate number of multi-player gamers - as a whole, 
we are not representative.
I, too, have an opinion: I don't like the idea of this change.  But 
until it is playtested, in all variety of games, the opinion has no real 
basis.
jason