[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#12949) Players can use the AI moves twice bug too.

["Brendon" <yautja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12949 >

I assume someone has messaged him about timeaddenemymove, so I'll rant 
about the problems with that.

It's annoying when the turn gets extended (to 150 - 200%) continuously 
by people like me, trying to scrape in at the last few seconds before 
timeaddenemymove comes into effect.

Timeaddenemymove doesn't work if the transport is already in their 
vision, you can disembark units without time penalty in the last 
seconds. Diplomats can be impossible to stop this way, even if you buy a 
defender.

As Peter complained you can just wait until you're the last one left to 
end turn and invade, then turndone before they can take advantage of the 
bonus timeaddenemymove (if there is any).

Before I knew about timeaddenemymove I thought this should be fixed by 
not allowing moving within, or disembarking troops onto non-allied 
borders for the last XX seconds (or % timeout).

Basically turning it into a management / building phase where you could 
only attack in friendly / unclaimed territory.

Would be easiest to just remove all movement points of land units in 
enemy / peaceful territory and give client messages if you try and 
unload units, use marines, heli, paratroopers (hopefully stopping bug 
reports, although given how much problems newbies have with ZOC it may 
not help).

Also if you're the last one to press turn done you can't move such units 
in the same manner. It would have to be limited to the last 1/2 of the 
timeout though, to make games with only 2 players remaining fair for the 
invader. As a bonus it would give incentive to attack within the first 
1/2 of the turn in case you can't in the second.

Hopefully this could fix all end of turn attack cheapness / advantages, 
but won't work without borders.

Would be nice, or with timeaddenemymove instead if you think the above 
idea is retarded, that there is some indicator that it is in effect. 
Changing the countdown timer to red or appending a *, with a tooltip 
explaining it (or in /help time...) would be easiest. With an indicator 
it could be changed to a percentage (0-50%) of the timeout as well.

Peter Schaefer wrote:
> <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12949 >
> 
> Players can use the same trick that the AI was taught not to do:
> 
> - empty city by attacking with a frigate
> - Wait until all other players hit end turn, or there are few seconds left
> - Unload warrior
> - hit end turn
> - capture city in second move in sequence
> 
> This problem could be cured by making turns overlap, i.e. with 8
> players and 40 seconds time, schedule the end turns of players to be 5
> seconds apart.
> 
> Just an idea ;-)
> The code forcing the AI to go slow then would be less necessary.
> 
> There are basic problems with this idea, such as 
> - what happens if players hit end turn and don't use the full time
> - this would make wars between players that are 20 seconds apart be
> different from those 5 seconds apart.
> 
> But maybe this could be worked out?
> 
> The other way would be to have freeciv work more like an RTS, for
> example by attaching an activity points/ last move time field to each
> unit, but that would be unwieldly I guess.