[Freeciv-Dev] Wanting to help

[Jérôme Plût <Jerome.Plut@xxxxxx>]

Hi Freeciv developers,

I started hacking at the FreeCiv code (I only had 2.0.1, but will port
whatever could be of interest to you to 2.0.7) in order to prepare it
to be able to simulate (or rather, update) an old game which a lot of
Freecivers probably appreciate much, that is, Master of Magic. Now I
know that Master of Magic must obviously be a rather recurrent project
(as is shown in the wiki) but, firstly I don't want a clone but an
update, a project that would be able to take advantage of FreeCiv's
magnificent features :-), and I don't want to fork a MoM-like outright
but rather contribute as much code as possible to mainstream FreeCiv,
since there are some improvements that could probably be rather useful
to FreeCiv itself (if you want to emulate Civ3/CTP, don't know about
Civ4), and _then_ think about a fork.

I have made a (crude) roadmap to FreeMagic, starting with trivial
changes and gradually adding in more complicated (and less precise)
ones :

 - handle unit experience as an alternative to the veteran system,
 - allowing tiles to define more than two specials per terrain type
   (this needs separate "resources" (ores, animals...) from
   "modifications" (infrastructure, pollution...), but would be
   compulsory if you want to emulate Civ3),
 - allowing stack moves and stack combat (as in CTP),
 - allowing different unit species (the Martians etc. could have a
   different tech. tree, and different units),
   (this is ill-fitted with the nations system, especially since on my
   build you can play Mordor High Elves vs. Martian Hobbits vs.
   Dunédain Trolls...)
 - add the building tree as a parallel to the tech tree (this is
   already more or less the case, but the AI seems to ignore it
   altogether ?!),
 - change move types (to add in mountaineer, forester... and this
   would help for Civ-like games too, think alpine troops and
   partisans),
 - add other planes (MoM has Arcanus and Myrror, CTP has Ground and
   Space, although they behave quite differently, at least some code
   could be factored).
 - heroes?,
and now the fun begins, and I think the part belows doesn't concern
mainstream any more:
 - add a second tech tree, which could be named (I wonder why) Arcana,
   (and this need to change the civ. selection screen),
 - implement spell effects,
 - and, last but certainly the most difficult, implement tactical
   combat.

Of these, I implemented (from 2.0.1, but will port to current if this
could be of any help to you) the terrain resources, experience system,
building tree, and unit species. Stack moving is almost done (only in
the GTK-2.0 client, I can't write SDL...) but stack combat is not.
Would anything of this interest you? Do you have any ideas of what
else could be of any help?

Thanks for you all for your game (and particularly for your
well-writen code ! :-),

-- 
        Jérôme