Re: network game ?

[Jens Granseuer <jensgr@xxxxxxx>]

On 27.08.2006 10:38, Dave Fancella wrote:
> Multi-player mode.  When you only have two players, it's perfectly reasonable 
> to have each take their turn in sequence, but when you have 6 players that's 
> quite unreasonable.  I don't recall if Jens ever said (in my presence, 
> anyway) if he thought Crimson fields would ever be more than 2 players, so 
> maybe it doesn't matter.

I don't know if I publically stated anything, either, but I'm not opposed to
the idea. The area that needs most work for this is probably the AI. The
unit tiles system would have to be adapted as well (to use team-colouring)
and we need artists for that. But otherwise, it shouldn't be too hard.

> I've been playing a bit of freeciv lately and it's got some good things and 
> some bad things.  I like that everybody takes their turn at once, 
> presses "turn done" and the next turn starts when everybody's pressed "turn 
> done".  I don't like that since everybody moves at the same time, you could 
> move real quickly and wipe out somebody's army while they're reading popup 
> dialogs telling them what their scientists have discovered.  So in Crimson 
> Fields I'd like to see it work where everybody takes their turn at the same 
> time, presses turn done, and then the server resolves all the commands it's 
> given based on a predictable (even if complex) initiative system.  So you 
> might command a tank to move <here>, but on it's way it encounters an enemy 
> tank.  What does it do?  Does it attack the enemy tank?  I think they should 
> immediately attack each other, and I think that's a fair way to resolve it.  
> Maybe someone else disagrees.  :)

The main problem with such an approach is that it basically changes
absolutely everything about the way which CF works right now. It's not a
matter of "simply" adding networking capability, it's about changing all
of the internals. And that's an undertaking I can't see going forward ATM.
I won't complain about patches piling about in my inbox, but they'd surprise
me big time.

Jens