[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Forking code.

[Lobo Gris <molv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Per I. Mathisen wrote:

 >> Also, in freeciv you can build units by buying them with gold. Both
 >> features can't be part of a game based in materials, because other way
 >> you can cheat the game, producing units or buildings that normally you
 >> can't produce because you has not available a specific material to need
 >> them.
 >
 >I don't see why. If you can't produce it, then it should not be an option
 >neither for next production item nor for buying.

In the case of materials, you can't complete a unit/building if you don't have 
enough material to complete it. But you can have it in a partial degree of 
completion. It is the actual production of the city. For example, if you want 
to build a legion, you choose it from the list of available units, and each 
unity of completion (shield_stock) is incremented if and only if each time you 
have available 2 Shield (easy to be self productor), 1 Wood (easy to be self 
productor) and 2 Iron (hard to be self productor). This materials can be 
obtained from the self production of the city, or from trading with other 
cities. But with actual rules, you can cheat this condition in two ways:

- build a unit or a wonder that doesn't need iron, and, at certain moment, 
change the production to legion, so the shield_stock is transferred to the 
legion, even if we never had availability of iron.

- if you buy the legion. Yes, Ok, may be you are thinking that, in order to buy 
this unit, you must have available the total materials needed ([2S, 2W, 2I] * 
build_cost). In that case, the sense of buying it is to accelerate the 
production, as in the actual game. But also, in this case, you CANNOT make 
freeciv a special case of a game with materials, because with freeciv you can 
buy an item preciselly when you has not enough shield production, something 
that is completelly undesirable with materials.

Also, there is an objection from the point of view of the extended trading 
system: Gold (money) is not transformed in a unit by magic. Instead, money is 
an instrument to facilitate the interchange of commodities. So, when you buy 
something, this something has been produced before by another one. You give 
gold to someone, you obtain a unit from someone. The extended trading system 
that I'm thinking points to something like this, including the possibility of 
interchanging products and materials without the intermediation of money (money 
would appear with the discovery of currency). I'm designing this trading system 
with no cost in playability (or with minimal cost). And is easy to see that the 
freeciv trading system neither is a special case of the extended trading system.

 >
 >Sounds like the Civ3 trade model. I do not see why this cannot be
 >implemented in Freeciv.
 >

In fact, this COULD be implemented in freeciv. Although freeciv can't be a 
special case of a game with multiple materials, the solution is to add new 
modifiers in the game.rulesets, each associated with a completelly different 
behavior. I will try that, but it's obvious that this implies a forking code 
(an internal forking code, but a forking anyway)

LG.