[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#4800) Wishlist: Know technology on contact

["Gregory Berkolaiko" <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2003, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> When you have diplomatic meetings without embassy, you do not know the
> technologies of the player you meet with. This leads to three problems:
>   - If you give him techs, next turn you apparently have the option of
> giving him the same techs again. Particularily annoying for allies who
> want to tech share.
>   - You try to give the other player techs in exchange for something else,
> but he already has these techs. Confusion ensues as the other party
> refuses to agree to a deal that on the face of it seems perfectly
> equitable.
>   - Conversely, he does not know your techs, and may try to give you lots
> of crap techs you don't need.
> 
> I see two solutions to this. The first is to give all players who can meet
> knowledge of the other player's techs. This is drastic but clean. The
> second is to record (in the server) which techs you have already given the
> other player, so that you will have knowledge of his possession of these
> techs in the future. The second solution only solves the first (but most
> important) of the problems above, however, and there is no good saying
> where to stop this feature (should we also "know" it has techs required
> for units of his that we can observe? etc).

The second solution smells of the problems we are having with phantom 
units: where maintained memory could diverge from reality.  I would prefer 
the first solution.  This makes embassy a rather poor investment.  So we 
have to make it better, like display the other players' list of cities, 
research speed, diplomatic states etc

G.