The next more experimental game

[wieder]

Few ideas we had for the next LT40 type game. This stuff will not be in the traditional games. No worries. The traditional games will have just minor tweaks.

- based on LT40
- SDI defense only kills the attacking nuclear missile with 75% probability
- there is still one small wonder that will give 100% defense against nuclear missiles but you can have it only on one city
- something could be done with civil wars. maybe using the LT44 approach and make 1-3 govs with super low civil war probability
- some new world wonders that are not too powerful but would still give a nice bonus to the player building them
- the players would get 2 free upgrades / turn after researching invention. no need to build Leonardo's
- Leonardo's would be a world wonder giving one additional upgrade to the player who builds it
- using the more expensive tech tree
- unit based tech trading that would be more easy compared to what we had in LT40 (no worries, the next *traditional* LT game will be tech trading free)
- smaller empire sizes in the start but compensated for bigger empires when techs advance. maybe implemented by splitting govs into two like: ancient monarchy and monarchy where the main difference would be smaller/bigger empire size. or maybe even having Monarchy I, Monarchy II and Monarchy III like with barracks. The revolution time will remain as one turn so it's not big issue to switch multiple times
- making the trade based governments less powerful by making markets, banks, stocks and super highways to give 40% bonus instead of 50%
- city working areas may grow in 3-4 steps instead of just 2. traditional games have no steps but LT40 had those
- new production based improvements for most of those govs without trade bonus (communism, federation, monarchy...)
- pollution will also affect ocean tiles
- SDI will give 25% defense against non-nuclear missile units
- new city improvement giving 25% defense against non-nuclear missile units
- missiles and cruise missiles are no longer city busters but will have FP3 by default and shorter range
- less range for all fighter units and the first fighters will be less expesive

[jwrober]

Corbeau has started talking about long longturn and the discussion of some different unit came up by me

http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?id=989

Since I am new-ish to LT. What is different with LT40 vs what is going on with LT43/44?

With more expensive tech tree, I think it would add some fun to the early game to gave some newer units that come on at the 4th column so we don't have to wait from the 2nd column to the 6th column before new more powerful units are available. The trick with new units is sprites, however. Wonder if that would work for another experimental game...

[wieder]

http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?id=829

Here is a list of LT40 specific changes. Some stuff was used in LT41/LT43 but most of it was LT40 specific.

We could test with new sprites in the future. The rulesets allow alternative sprites and also fallback sprites. Is there any guides about how the sprites work in Freeciv? My knowledge about the subject is very limited.

[Sketlux]

We could test with new sprites in the future.

What? Thought everybody has to have the sprites on his computer in order to be displayed? Anyhow, Im not an expert but I can make you sprites...

[Caedo]

The ruleset can specify different graphics for basically anything (such as units, terrain, city improvements etc.). However, these gfx must be present in the client's tileset; otherwise the client will forcibly exit the game. While rulesets are automatically transferred from the server to the client, I don't think that's implicitly possible for tilesets – even if the ruleset suggests a tileset that is present on the server but not on the client. I might be wrong though, but I wouldn't count on that.

Long story short: Every player would have to download the ruleset's dedicated tileset for that game. Moreover, this would reduce players' ability to select which tileset they want to play with (e.g. amplio2 or isotrident), unless you created modified versions of each tileset used by any player.

[HanduMan]

The tileset used by a player is totally up to them. It is a client issue, nothing to do with the server. The server does not use any tileset in any way.

There is no 'dedicated' tileset defined by a ruleset, only 'preferred'. A client can join a game without having that preferred tileset installed/downloaded. The client does not have to find all graphics defined in ruleset. It should be able to find at least one for each item that needs it. For example, units.ruleset can define two sprites for each unit. They are

Code: Select all

; graphic       = tag specifying preferred graphic
; graphic_alt	= tag for alternate graphic if preferred graphic is not
;		  present; especially if preferred graphic is non-standard,
;		  this should be a standard tag.  Otherwise can use eg "-"
;		  for no alternate graphic.

As the explanation says, if you introduce a new unit and wish it to be shown different from existing units you should define a new gfx as 'graphic' and set 'graphic_alt' to "u.warriors" or some other standard unit that could represent your new unit in tilesets that do not include your new gfx. Here is one of mine:

Code: Select all

[unit_super_soldier]
name          = _("Super Soldier")
class         = "Land"
tech_req      = "Genetic Engineering"
obsolete_by   = "None"
graphic       = "u.super_soldier"
graphic_alt   = "u.fanatics"

Which means that with standard tilesets like Amplio2 or trident my Super Soldeiers look like Fanatics units but with my own tileset they look like The Incredible Hulk.

The only way to prevent a client from free choice of tileset is to define both graphics as non-standard. But I see no point in doing such thing.

I would like to know what wieder is referring to with 'fallback sprites'.

About creating/modifying tilesets: http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Editing_tilesets (this is a lot more than you are looking for but it's in there somewhere).

[wieder]

Fallback sprites = graphic_alt

[wieder]

The sprites and experimenting with those.

We could do some sprites for the players to download and use those as the preferred graphics. The fallback sprite, aka. graphic_alt would be one that's found from all clients.

In LT40 there was this early missile from 40's or 50's that was not as powerful as the cruise missile. Something like that could use custom graphics but it would also work with the cruise missile sprite. LT40 also had the anti-aircraft missile. Maybe we could start with those two? For me the problem is that I have little idea what to do and how to tell people about what actions they need to take in order to get that stuff working.

[jwrober]

What about the binaries we are running for the server. Do we need to think about updating those to something more current or from the 2.6 branch?

[wieder]

Maybe we could update once there is a new stable version with clients for both windows and linux. I'm not sure how 2.6 is but I've understood that it's not yet finalized?

The 2.3 -> 2.5 upgrade tooks some time and 2.4 was skipped. 2.6 seems to have lots of interesting features. There is no upgrade process for lt.org games. Last time the ruleset was upgraded by hand to 2.5 by using 2.5 civ2civ3 as the base ruleset. Maybe next time we should edit the rulesets to support a new version.

[Lord_P]

Something to bear in mind.. some people might be using some form of linux on ARM devices, for example I have previously used Linux Deploy to to play freeciv on a rooted smartphone and tablet and at the moment Im experimenting with Debian Noroot (Because I have a work phone).
On all the various options I have tried it is extremely difficult to 'make' stuff from source that will compile properly on ARM linux, so you have to rely on installing freeciv via package manager. Ive not seen an ARM linux version with freeciv 2.6, most still have 2.4...

Not a reason not to do it though, Im sure im in the minority with this kind of stuff...

[wieder]

Yeah, it would be good if there would be also a version for that kind of purposes.

I'm really not sure how long it will take for 2.6 but my guess is that longturn.org will not be using it this year.