[Freeciv] Re: lighthouse-wonder

[Sean Connor <sec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2000 at 09:33:10PM +1100, Stephen Hodge wrote:
> Jamie Love wrote:
> > I would imagine that there should be a -civ2compat flag or some such
> > thing. I mean, I would rather the freeciv team diverged from civ2 rather
> > than made a complete clone. Heck, why not aim for civ3 - ctp?
> 
> I'd rather we had both a Civ2 clone/ruleset and a FreeCiv
> extension/ruleset. As for aiming for CTP - I for one consider it to be
> inferior to Civ2 (and to Alpha Centauri, for that matter).

Look, instead of generally slagging off CTP this way, why don't you
make a specific list of complaints that you have against it?  This
kind of vague criticism isn't very useful here.  Personally, I 
thought that CTP was a worthy successor to Civ2, but there were
definitely things that I didn't like about it:

- The worklist feature was cumbersome to use, so I often ended up
  not using it.

- The movement system, while it was certainly useful for planning
  long marches, often got in the way when moving a unit a short
  distance.  There also seemed to be some implementation problems
  -- sometimes it would plot a course through terrain that the
  unit couldn't move through when a perfectly acceptable alternate
  route was present.

- The UI was somewhat slow and unresponsive.

- Because of happiness rules, it was almost impossible to build
  a very large empire.

- There was no direct equivalent to Civ2 railroads -- even 
  MagLevs cost 1/10 of a movement point.  Considering that
  a turn corresponds to a whole year (at least by the time 
  MagLevs are available), I don't think this is very 
  realistic.  (MagLevs should be able to move a unit pretty
  much anywhere on the planet in a matter of days.)

- You can't have both slavers and abolitionists.  Yes, I
  realise that it would be hypocritical to have both, but
  if the player wants to be a hypocrite, I don't think that
  the game should stop him.  (On the other hand, the 
  effectiveness of a civilization's abolitionists may very
  well be reduced if the civilization also has slavers,
  since this may well cause the slaves that the abolitionist
  is trying to incite to be wary.)

- There are no 'special resources', at least not in the sense
  of the Civ2 specials. (But see below.)

- You can't turn off the display of trade routes completely.
  You can disable the animations, but you can't disable the
  display of the blue lines linking cities that have a trade
  route between them.

- I think that the impact of pollution is overestimated. 
  (You can disable pollution, though.)  While the concept of
  'dead tiles' is reasonable, IMHO, a tile shouldn't become
  dead until it has Civ2-style pollution on it for a number
  of turns and isn't cleaned up. 

There are definitely some differences between the two games.  Different
does not necessarily mean bad, though.  We've been through the 
differences involved in building tile improvements before, and I'll
say again that I don't think that the CTP method is inferior -- 
just different.

On the other hand, there are some things that I think CTP gets right,
that Civ2 didn't:

- Units no longer belong to a specific city, but to the entire
  civilization.  This means that you don't have to worry about
  losing a unit because it's home city can't support it.  It might
  make some sense in the very early part of the game for each unit
  to be supported by a particular city, but even by Roman times,
  it was the resources of the civilization as a whole that supported
  military units, not just the resources of its home city.

- Trade is much improved.  The items that a city has to trade are
  taken from the special resources found in the squares in the city
  radius, rather than being assigned at random, like they seemed to
  be in Civ2.  (Unfortunately, this means that specials no longer
  affect the productivity of the square they're in, aside from 
  producing extra gold.  See above, but don't get caught in an
  endless loop. :)  Also, when you build a caravan, you don't have
  to actually move it to its destination.  When a caravan is built,
  it gets added to a pool of available caravans.  A trade route is
  established between two cities with a single click.  This is much
  more convenient, IMHO, than fiddling around with an actual caravan
  unit.

- The ability to colonize the sea floor and space.

- The ability to link islands and continents with undersea tunnels.
  This allows land units to easily travel between two continents/
  islands without fiddling around with boats.  (You did have 
  airports in Civ2, but they are somewhat limited.)

> > The worst thing to do is to be bound to a game that is getting on in
> > years, especially when there are genuine improvements that could be
> > made.
> 
> I really don't think the age of Civ2 is an issue. It's not Quake or some
> other game that becomes outdated due to time passing. It's also very
> good - better IMHO than either CTP or Alpha Centauri (the so-called
> sequels).

You have to realize that not everybody is going to agree with that
assessment.  Even accepting, for the moment, that Civ2 is superior
to CTP, there's certainly no harm in looking to CTP for inspiration
for new features to add to FreeCiv.  It is up to the implementor to
figure out what new features are worth adding, which are better left
out, and which could be improved.

This process is a lot easier if the implementor has some idea of
what's 'wrong' with CTP.

-- 
  -Sean Connor  (sec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
                (sec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
                (sec@xxxxxxxxxxxx)

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it
is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the
majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be
foolish than sensible.
                -- Bertrand Russell