[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#13327) Scenario and nation selection

["(Eddie Anderson)" <saywhat@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13327 >

"Mateusz Stefek" <mstefek@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I was just experimenting. And this solution was the first which didn't
>crash client or server.
>The problem is that the client needs to know value of
>game.info.is_new_game and rulesets in order to properly display flags on
>the PAGE_NATION page. Loading a game when there are clients connected is
>really messy.

    Pardon me for jumping in, but I'd like to ask some questions and
perhaps propose another approach.

1) Is the display of national flags necessary for selecting a nation?
   Presumably the nation selection code be simpler if the flags were
   omitted, no?

   and (this is probably a more radical suggestion),

2) Can you choose a flag separately from the nation that you choose?
   E.g. could I choose to play as the American nation and use the
   British flag instead of the American flag?

    If so, then in multi-human games, players could choose their
flags without regard for the city list and ruler list that they have
chosen.  Of course, every player would have to approve the set of
flags chosen by all the players before the game could begin.  But
since so many other settings (nations, map size, land mass %, etc.)
have to be agreed upon too, would the choice of flags be too much?

    But that ability (to choose flags independent of nation choice)
might help avoid problems caused by flags that look similar to each
other.  Furthermore, as I think someone previously suggested, each
player would have the option to use a generic, solid color flag
instead of a real flag.  That might make distinguishing the flags on
cities and units even easier.

    What do you think?

Eddie