[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#6080) Civ3: Privateer

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

On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
> In civ3 privateers carry no nationality markings. They can attack
> anybody without starting war. Anybody can attack them.
...
> I'm just wondering if this can be implemented without making some
> common code unnecessary messy (hiding nationality info from client,
> fluently attacking while in peace, attacking without starting war).

It can be implemented as a unit flag that makes everyone but the player
that owns it believe it to be a barbarian owned unit. However, barbarians
are not always alive and often die, so we'd need to ressurect a barbarian
whenever someone builds a privateer type unit and no barbarian is alive.

It should be trivial to do, actually. Could be great fun too - harass your
friends with sudden incursions of barbarians that have suspiciously more
intelligence than the standard AI barbarians... and they can't tell who
did it.

  - Per