[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#18260) Configuration files in LUA

["Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa" <vasco.costa@xxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=18260 >

Hello,

This patch is very interesting. It makes the rulesets more readable and
extensible.

It also moves us in the direction of XConq and LPmud. This is something
I tried to avoid in the past. Historically the problem with making
things extensible is that often the developers start focusing on
flexibility so much, they neglect that the game itself is what matters.
They end up making a 4th generation programming language for game
programming instead of a game. A 4th generation programming language so
domain specific few know how to use.

Players lose interest as the community fractions into a zillion
modpacks, none of them actually good, all barely passable.

As a player I want to have fun, not create modpacks.

As a developer I feel it is my duty to provide a fun bundled game.

I am also skeptical about the performance of the effects code with these
changes. From my glance at the code it seemed many array indexing ops
are now string hashtable lookups.

All that said and done, if these changes are proven to not significantly
impact gameplay, I think this should go in.