[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Cheating

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

On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Rafal Bursig wrote:
> > There is no point in allowing such configurability if the client
> > doesn't support it. Going to the effort of making the necessary GUI
> > changes on all clients for this if it isn't going to be the default (
> > == nobody will use it )... simply won't happen.
>
> No this should be server options, let me explain ...
> Client should show all units in stack that server send but what server
> send depend of this flag.

<rant>
I understood that. If this server option defaults to 'off' then client
maintainers won't bother adding support for the option. And if they do,
they and other maintainers won't bother checking it for bugs whenever
other things change, and because of this nobody will use it, and since
nobody uses it, client maintainers will not implement it, will not know it
is broken, and so on ad infinitum.

We've seen this time and time again with other server and ruleset options
where people thought "gee, this is nice, but let's make it OPTIONAL", and
it turns out when someone actually try to use this never-used optional
feature, it doesn't work properly. In addition, it makes the code base
more bloated and makes it harder to change since people will scream up
'but what will happen to XYZ?'.

So we need to ask: Are anyone actually going to USE this option? Who will
keep testing that it works?

This is that kind of feature. I can live with either solution to this
problem, but I do not want both. The core rules should be simple and
well-defined.
</rant>

> > friendly
> > units in the stack? The client won't know, and will mistakenly think
> > the stack can be attacked.
> >
> No becouse server always should sent all stack info about ally units.
> and only one info about enemy/neutral unit.

He isn't _your_ ally. You are player A. Player B and C are allied. You are
neutral to B and at war with C.

1) You see a stack, on top is a unit by player B. Underneath that unit is
a unit by player C.

2) You see a stack, on top is a unit by player C. Underneath is a unit by
player B.

In both these cases you get problems.

> but what happend current when you attack such stack ?
> Do you destroy only enemy units ?

Yes.

> we start speak about combat rules (which IMHO need some changes but
> this is other story)
> but ... yes you have right sending first unit in stack is wrong, we
> must send first air unit( if exist ) or sea unit (if exit ) or land
> unit (if exist), But with this sequence air,sea,land and only one or we
> send best defender of all three type.

This will be really confusing for most players. You'd almost have to read
the source code to know when to expect there to be additional units and
what kind and how many. Too complicated.

> > attack. However, this becomes a big deal with client AIs. They will
> > need some
> > kind of report-back system that they can understand, and such a system
> > would make it much harder to build a client-AI that maintains little
> > state
> > information.
> >
> This will be next AI cheat, it will know what units are on know tiles.

The client AI is not supposed to be cheating.

> > So I think showing the (non-transported, non-stealthed) contents of a
> > stack is the way to go.
> That all depend what do you like
> I like Civ2 rules :)

Well, the changes you suggest above are also different from civ2 rules, so
that is not an argument.

  - Per