[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#12019) Effects TNG

["Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa" <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12019 >

Building effects will be in 2.0.0. They are quite useful, managing to
implement the vast majority of game effects.

However, for 2.1.0, an enhanced effects code should be put in place.

The current code has several rough edges, some which only were clear in
hindsight, others which were known, but ignored due to developer time
constraints (they were nice things to have, but not essential).

The next generation effects code will eliminate the major remaining
rough edges.

For example, the present code always needs a building. It cannot apply
to an effect without a building requirement, i.e. not to governments,
technologies, terrain types, etc. The Nuclear Power tech extra move is
a perfect example of this.

Another problem is that for player hints, the current code is quite
inflexible since it will not allow you to query some things you should
be able to query. A player will want to know precisely which reqs a
certain effect has. Like the Temple + Mysticism bonus. Since the
current code didn't have facilities, we just typed this into the help
text. This works, but the code should provide this help automatically
based on the effects definitions.

To see a work in progress document of the concept for the next
generation code, see:
http://freeciv.org/index.php/Effects

This will be a meta-ticket for this work, patches should start flowing
soon.