[Freeciv-Dev] Trading/Resources in FreeCiv

[Morgan Jones <morgan.jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's been a lot of discussion about resources and trading in
FreeCiv over the last few days.  I thought I'd jump in with my idea of
it could work, requiring no code changes other than gen impr (and
maybe AI tweaks).

Take for instance the oil terrain special.  Obviously oil is an
important resource throughout history, but it takes on an entirely new
level of significance in the era of the combustion engine.  The
default setting for oil is 4 production.

Perhaps this could be changed to, for example, 2 production.  Then
when a player has researched an appropriate tech (Refining would be a
good candidate) this allows them to build say,  an Oil Refinery.  This can
only be built in a city that is adjacent to an oil tile (using
spec_gate) and when built provides the city with 2 further production
shields, bringing the total to 4.

Perhaps an Oil Refinery could also create trade from an oil square,  to
represent the revenue the city would rake in from nations and cities
without nearby oil.

I'm sure there would be similar possibilities for the other terrain
specials.  Maybe extra production/trade could be got from forests with
a lumber mill.  This improvement could perhaps later become obsolete
(maybe by Steel?) to represent the decline in importance of this
material in later periods. 

It's not as in depth as some of the other suggestions, and it's
certainly not perfect, but it could at least attach more importance to
resources/commodities using the rules that we (almost) have already.

   -Morgan.