[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Fixes and additions for nation files

[Jason Short <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 05:10, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Added a complete list of American presidents, some pharaohs, 
> Dag Hammarskjold, some barbarians, some Vikings, a famous Filipino,
> a complete list of Zulu kings, a couple of kings and one queen of Gondor,
> two warrior-leaders of Ireland, an English warlord, and a Greek
> lawgiver.

There are minor gameplay issues here.  Personally, I like all the
variety I can get.  On the other hand, some players may prefer name
recognition and when they get "Martin Van Buren" as their American
leader will not be happy.  On the gripping hand, perhaps this will help
people to learn a tiny amount of history (much like the "historical"
ruleset).

> Yes, I'm a Civ II fan.  Yes, I'm a history buff.  Any questions? :-)

Cool

> So, do I have to do anything to create a nation other than compose
> one of these files from scratch?  I have a few ideas...

Also add the nation file to the ruleset - e.g., default/nations.ruleset.

I don't know what (if anything) is the official policy on what nations
will be included in the official distribution.  Until a little while
ago, there was a hard-coded limit on the number of nations.  Now we have
the possibility for very many nations...but the problem is with the
selection dialog, since they are not categorized in any way.

Personally, I feel that anyone who provides a nation file for their home
nation should have it included.  But I'm against arbitrarily adding new
nations (especially fake ones).  But if we categorized nations and had a
"fantasy" category then this would be fine.

A side question: with the longer list of nation leaders, it seems
inefficient to have separate lists for leader_name and leader_gender. 
Would it be worth it to re-index these so there is just one list of
(name, gender) pairs?  This might mean a hack like having "John Adams
(Male)" as the leader name.

> Linus Torvalds as the immortal ruler of Finland.  Heh...

Indeed.

Also - you should send patches to the bug tracker at rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx. 
And if possible include the patch as an attachment.

jason