[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Cheating

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

On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Rafal Bursig wrote:
> about cheating... client has access to tile units stack.
> I don't know if this is correct functionality (IMHO not) but you can
> see all enemy units in this tile (client block this info).
> Server should check if units in tile belong to player or allied player
> and if true then send all "stack" info but if not then send only first
> units info.

Yes, this should be fixed, but the problem is, we don't have a rule about
what is the "first" unit in a stack. The server just sends the whole
stack, and then the client decides how to show it.

There are two ways to solve this: Either to give all clients the ability
to see what is in a stack, or to define rules for what is a "top unit" of
a stack, and only send that. Either way is a challenge.

A special problem for the latter solution is allied units. For some
purposes, the client wants to know if it can attack a stack. If a stack
contains one enemy unit and one allied unit, and the allied unit is on top
and the client is not told about the enemy unit below, the client would
not know it can attack the enemy unit.

  - Per