[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#7287) Extended Topologies

["rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >


Marcelo Burda wrote:

 > Le mar 24/02/2004 à 17:11, Ross Wetmore a écrit :
 >
 >> Marcelo Burda wrote:
 >>
 >>> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >
 >>>
 >>> Le mar 24/02/2004 à 04:15, Jason Short a écrit :
 >>>
 >>>
 >>>> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >

[...]

 >> I think we are probably zeroing in on the real source of the problem in
 >> all these complicated explanations of what distortions the singularities
 >> are introducing.

[...]

 >> In game play, one doesn't expect to make a 90 or 180 degree turn while
 >> still moving straight ahead, and neither is this builtin to the game
 >
 >
 > When playing i not expect to reach a wall going to the noth. but in
 > classic topo we reach a wall in N edge!!. this is more hard than
 > quincuntial topology.
 >
 >> mechanics so that relationships between various non-sea features are
 >> maintained.


The fact that longituninal lines do not meet at a point, but are kept
parallel in the standard projection of Earth onto a flat 2-D map has
long been accepted and understood by just about everyone. Before you
got into the arcane science of alternate projections I'm sure you
never really worried about such imaginary walls either.

The distortion introduced by this standard projection does not affect
either the game mechanics, nor people's intutive understanding that
when one moves south in a straight line, one does not end up somewhere
to the east or west, or even heading back in the opposite direction.
Game mechanics do not support the latter concepts either, so this means
that the quincunx model you are proposing does not work for Freeciv
maps and gameplay.


As I keep saying, you should spend some effort trying to come up with
ways to resolve these oddities of the quincunx topology in the context of
2-D Freeciv maps, rather than arguing that Freeciv needs to chaange to
support your rather non-intuitive tastes. Freeciv is a game, to be played
and enjoyed by gamers. and should not be used as an experimental tool for
building odd mathematical constructs or fostering other agendas. There
are lots of useful neat things to enhance with Freeciv code without
wasting time on the arcane just for arcane-ness' sake.

You can work to solve the problems, or you can try to convert this into a
political popularity contest and ignore any concerns about destroying the
quality and correctness of the Freeciv code to get your prototype ideas
and code pushed into the codebase without change.

But you aren't going to resolve problems by arguing that because one hides
problems in obscure corners of the map, they are thus less important. And
then moving to tiled scenarios where they are now no longer in out-of-the-way
corners and arguing that this is now just a perception problem and everyone
needs to learn advanced mathematics to understand the non-intuitive anomalies.
Or one needs to forget about reality and live with the breakage in spatial
relationships and supporting game mechanics. You need to make some adjustments
rather than the rest of the world needing to adjust to your tastes.

Part of the rationale for the review process is to identify and correct
such problems as are being raised before they do get into CVS code.
Unfortunately most programmers get too emotionally attached to their
prototype code and spend too much time at this point trying to block any
change rather than using the opportunity to make those final improvements
on it - at least in this respect your tastes are normal :-).


I still think there are solutions to minimize or make clear non-intuitive
problems with the quincunx topology, and classes of similar topologies.

This is still worth pursuing in my estimation. But if Marcelo is not
interested in any more work on this, my recommendation as a reviewer is
that this patch is probably not worth spending too much more time on. One
should reject it on the basis of its current level of problems and move on.


Cheers,
RossW
=====