[Freeciv-Dev] Re: hobby as process?

[Mark Metson <markm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> From: Mark Metson [mailto:markm@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> >
> > For me any/all free open-source code is a good result,
> > because I tend to a
> > unix-style approach of building-blocks. It has always been a major
> > annoyance to me that so many potential components /
> > building-blocks are
> > commercial as to prevent their assembly into larger structures.
> 
> Ok.  In theory, those are laudable goals.
> 
> In practice, are you meeting those goals with Freeciv?  No, you are not.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Obvious big stinker #1: you are using C in 2003.  Get with the program:
> the mainstream computer industry moved on to object oriented methods and
> higher level languages a long time ago.  Nobody is going to waste their
> time reusing your C code.

I haven't done any Civ coding since the old Athena-widgets-based open 
source Civ which was supplanted by FreeCiv. FreeCiv was noticably better 
so we stopped working on the other one.

It is not the code I'd re-suse, it is the whole game as a running
component regardless of its coding-language. Where I see it as having
potential use is in a much larger game in which there are planets, where
it might be nice to be able to generate a planet complete with history. I
was thinking something along the lines of "Traveller" where you generate
some basic stats about a planet - government type, techlevel, population,
starport size, stuff like that. In "Traveller" you dont get much info
about each planet, yet you have individual played characters that can
potentially go planet-crawling, actually wandering around on the planet
having individualised adventures.

A tool for generating planets in more detail would be handy. I actually
put together a universe once known as "Cluster" which was 1.0E11 x 1.0E11
x 1.0E11 parsecs containing billions upon billions of galaxies, generated
in a way somewhat similar to Traveller but using the co-ordinates of each
cubic parsec as the randomising seed for that parsec so as to always
generate the same universe. I called it "The Largest Database in the Known
Universe". It was a universe larger (I think?) than can actually be
observed from Earth due to the fact that in our universe the galaxies seem
to be receding so the galaxies at the edges of a 1.0E11 parsec cube
cenered upon Sol would be receding faster than the speed of light.

One of the modules for Cluster was an "OnPlanet Module" used for 
generating encounters based upon generated species-tables (again somewhat 
based on Traveller's method of categorising species). But what was missing 
was something for dealing with sentient species and/or human colonists, 
something that would do stuff based on the government type and provide a 
sociopolitical milieu and the potential for fiefs and on-planet warfare 
and such. One of the games I considered trying to use was Broderbund's 
"The Art of War" but, maybe largely because it was commercial, it did not 
seem well suited to being able to pipe in an existing situation, play it 
out, and pipe out the results. So it did not seem to have much potential 
for uswe as a component in larger games.

FreeCiv still looks like it could eventually maybe be able to be used as a 
component in larger situations. So it is still of interest.

Eventually it would be nice to have lots and lots of games that have means 
of input of a situation azznd output of a resulting situation after play, 
along with umpteen filters for converting the situations described in one 
game's input/output format into the input/output formats of other games. A 
long way off yet but seeming more plausible to attempt with free open 
source games and simulations than with commercial ones, if only because 
open source projects usually seem more amenable to co-operating than 
commercial projects seem to be.

-MarkM-


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