[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#6159) Colonization: Professions

["John Wheeler" <jdwheeler42@xxxxxxxxx>]

[ilkleht@xxxxxxxxxxx - Tue Sep 16 10:03:32 2003]:
> But how workers get their profession? In Colonization you got
> colonists with profession from docks in Europe.

Excellent question.  Slaves would simply come from capturing (as opposed
to bribing) workers from other nations.  After the first one, I would
use the same model as in Colonization: put them in a school / college /
university to teach others.  The first one would be a bit trickier. 
What I envision is that if a worker was left long enough at his job
(i.e., not assigned to a different city square), he would spontaneously
become a specialist.  (Of course, this add more data that would need to
be collected for each worker.)  I'm imagining the probablity each turn
would be something like log10(turns worked/10)/100.  So, for the first
10 turns, the probablity would be 0; at 20 turns, the probablity would
be 0.30% (i.e., a random number between 0 and 1 would have to be less
than 0.003); at 100 turns, 1%; at 1000 turns, 2%.  Of course, the exact
formula would require extensive testing.  (I would start with some Monte
Carlo modeling before play testing.)

> Not to mention game concept is different.

I think there are more similiarities between freeciv and Colonization
than differences, and the differences are no more so than between
freeciv and Civ3 or SMAC.  Getting a Colonization clone out of a freeciv
engine may well be impossible, but that doesn't mean that features can't
be borrowed to good effect.  In particular, I think using a more
Colonization-like model of civil wars would address the concern Kecskés
Csaba expressed in PR#4539:

>- some European powers and Turkey have colonized the larger
>  part of the Earth in the 16-18th centuries
>- in spite of it now there are many independent countries
>  instead of a few great empires

I think that discussion deserves a ticket of its own (PR#6173).  Please
followup any comments about Colonization-style civil wars there.

-- 

++JohnWheeler