[Freeciv] Re: workinglist for units

[Henning Ehlermann <ehlerman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> What do you think about a workinglist option for units?

in former years i used to play xconq, where this was solved by a somewhat
different approach: you can "program" your cities to give order to units
of some kind.

For example:
"city1 has orders for phalanx to move to (5,5)", which would effect all
phalanxes entering city1 and having no order yet - the later one to 
avoid confusions for phalanxes who have (for example) orders to move to
(6,6) and city is just on their way to this point.

As simple (and maybe useless) this might look at the first moment, it 
would be quite helpful in bigger games. Imagine you control lots of small
islands and one of them is far away from battle but you need supply
from here. So you say to city1 to city9:
"cityi has orders for sea-units to move to (x,y)" where (x,y) is the
position of city10, there they get new order:
"city10 has order to move to (a,b)" where (a,b) is near your frontline
(maybe a city - to give you the chance to give further "city-order" ;-).
Let city1 to city10 up to produce ironclads or battleships and now you
can turn your attention to the battlefield - your forces will appear
there (a,b), where you need them. 
If the frontlines changes, just tell it to city10.

If you need groundunits instead of ships, let city1 to city9 produce
and send them to city10, where they got order to sentry and you produce
transports there (with orders to move to ...).

You can think of extensions from this. For example, let units have orders
for other units - in the above example just sentry a sail at (a,b) and 
let it tell to each ironclad to move to (c,d).

This approach doesn't exclude the other approaches, since it would only
effect units with empty "workinglists". And maybe, it is simple to 
integrate it. We already have some action if a diplomat/caravan arrives 
at a city.

bye,
Henning