[Freeciv] Re: Civ

[Nathan Lovell <lovell@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > > Have you considered porting a version of FreeCiv to the Palm
> > > pilot?  I'm sure it would be incredibly popular, as I've already seen a
> > > great deal of interest and support for Civilization in the Palm
> > > community.  Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions,
> > 
> > Well, since it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to answer your
> > question, I will (and I'm not an expert by any means).
> > 
> > I agree that a Palm version of FreeCiv would be great, but as far as I
> > know nobody has tried it.  I can think of three possible reasons:
> > 
> > 1) The FreeCiv code, in it's present form, would run much too slowly on
> > this generation of Palm processors to be much fun.
> 
> I have an iPAQ!
> 320x240 12 bits colour screen, 200 MHz StrongArm.
> 32 MB flash, 32 MB RAM.
> Should work.
> 
> iPAQ has an infrared connection, which is fast enough. So you can play
> multi-player. Otherwise, I would not see much reason in trying to put
> the current UI on a much smaller screen.
> 
> libgtk has already been compiled for iPAQ, so I am quite confident
> that compiling freeciv is no problem. The UI should be changed, though.

I was referring to PalmOS-based devices.  I imagine a port to the new
wince devices would require less pervasive changes and challenges in
performance and footprint.  As I own a Visor Deluxe, a port to wince
doesn't interest me at present, but I'm sure there'll be a bigger market
for it in the future as M$ pushes their PocketPC (wince 3.0) as much as
possible.

Infrared is "fast enough" on the Palm as well.  I was referring to
internet connectivity (wireless), which hasn't been available until
recently.

Somebody mentioned the memory footprint issue.  Thing to remember is that
Palm is more efficient in its use of memory.  Other thing is that tilesets
would, of necessity, be very small.

There is a port of SimCity to Palm, and IMHO a port of FreeCiv would have
no more display problems than that does.