[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#576) Re: Play By E-Mail - PBEM

["ChrisK@xxxxxxxx" <ChrisK@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 11:17:12AM -0700, Raimar Falke wrote:
> On Mon, May 26, 2003 at 03:43:55PM -0700, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > > > > it is obvious that it is still unfair.
> > > >
> > > > Why?
> > >
> > > Player 1 can always choose to attack or retreat. Player 2 doesn't have
> > > this choice.
> > 
> > I don't understand why player 2 doesn't have this choice.
> 
> Suppose we have two units from two players with full moves which see
> each other. Than the player which moves first has an advantage: he can
> decide if attack or retreat. The other player doesn't have this choice
> because either the unit attacked or is gone.

Yes, but why do you think that player 1 is always the player who moves
first? In other words, if this happens after player 2 has finished his
unit's move, he has an advantage because he can issue a goto command for the
unit. Player 1 wouldn't have this chance.

Vice versa, player 1 can move his unit in an attack position with goto, and
perform an surprise attack the next turn.

So it's unbalanced, but not necessarily unfair. Usually you play with more
than two players. Then the turn order has an - interesting - influence on
game tactics or even dipomatic strategy. I'd call it a feature ;-)

> > > > > Really fair (at least for 2 players) is the following:
> > > > >
> > > > >1) new turn for player 1
> > > > >2) player 1 moves
> > > > >3) new turn for player 2
> > > > >4) player 2 moves
> > > >
> > > > This wouldn't be much harder to implement. It is a slight paradigm shift
> > > > from the way things are now, but I like the idea. It is more consistent.
> > >
> > > I think it is quite hard. Just think about a consistent save
> > > game.
> > 
> > Be patient with me. I am not following you here. Why is getting a
> > consistent save difficult?
> 
> Difficult may be the wrong word. You have to add at least a sub-turn
> variable. You may also call it current_player or similar.

What advantage will this give?

> So this means that there is no full seperation but only the unit
> movement is seperated and that the players can change all the other
> settings all the time?

Are you saying the server variables need to be frozen? 

Why do you want this seperation?

Christian

-- 
Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
* * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.