Documentation? How to find a full list of (server) options?

[Corbeau]

Hello. I'm trying to find a few things to set up a game or two and I'm having trouble with it.

For example, how do I set up an option to disable tech stealing? (More precisely, set a chance to lose the tech you just stole to 100%)

The same for tech conquering.


And probably some other things that I am yet to look for. So, the main question is: where can I find all those options in one place? FreeCiv Wiki isn't helping or am I missing something?

[Alien Valkyrie]

Type "help options" (without the "") into the server console (or "/help options" into the client chat line) to display all server options, and "help <optionname>" (without the "" and <>) to show specific information about a single option.

You can also open a server options dialog from the client (at least the GTK+ one). In the GTK2 client, you can click the options button to the left of the player list pregame, or find the "Distant Server" entry in the File menu (it's in a submenu) when the game is running. Note that most options can't be changed once the game has started. In the options dialog, hovering the cursor over one of the options will display its help as a tooltip.

[Corbeau]

This list doesn't contain the option to set chance for "conquered tech lost". So, either I got something wrong and this option doesn't exist, or I asked the wrong question.

Note: this is not the same as "conquer penalty" which allows you to grab a tech when conquering city, but then you lose some bulbs. What I'm told is that there is an option to completely disable getting tech when conquering city.

[Alien Valkyrie]

Well, I can't find any options like that, neither as a server option, nor as a ruleset option, so you must be misinformed. The only way to do that seems to be lua scripting, but I have absolutely no knowledge about that.

[JTN]

Indeed, there is no such option.

The conquercost option you mention actually applies to several situations:

1. Taking over a city
2. Successfully bribing a city with diplomats/spies
3. Stealing tech with diplomats/spies
4. Capturing enemy gameloss unit (leader), in custom rulesets with gameloss_style="Loot"

I haven't worked out whether there's some combination of techlossforgiveness and techlossrestore setting values that would give the net effect you want with conquercost = 100, but if so it would affect all of these things.

Setting the techlost_recv option to 100% can prevent you receiving a tech by any means (all the above and others like tech trading), although it's a bit messy.

Editing a ruleset to add a Not_Tech_Source effect will allow you to do the same thing more selectively.

(All the above applies to 2.5; some of that stuff is not in 2.4.)

We could add a bitwise server option controlling which actions have the side effect of stealing a tech (of a, b, and d above).

[Alien Valkyrie]

Editing a ruleset to add a Not_Tech_Source effect will allow you to do the same thing more selectively.

And there I though I looked in every ruleset file for a way to do that...
Question about Not_Tech_Source: Does that apply to whole players or can it be made to only apply to specific cities?

[JTN]

Editing a ruleset to add a Not_Tech_Source effect will allow you to do the same thing more selectively.

And there I though I looked in every ruleset file for a way to do that...
Question about Not_Tech_Source: Does that apply to whole players or can it be made to only apply to specific cities?

It only checks the target player, I'm afraid. (It was added for barbarians, but is useful for other stuff.)

Not_Tech_Source is new in 2.5. (It was mentioned in the release notes.)

[Alien Valkyrie]

Editing a ruleset to add a Not_Tech_Source effect will allow you to do the same thing more selectively.

And there I though I looked in every ruleset file for a way to do that...
Question about Not_Tech_Source: Does that apply to whole players or can it be made to only apply to specific cities?

It only checks the target player, I'm afraid. (It was added for barbarians, but is useful for other stuff.)

Not_Tech_Source is new in 2.5. (It was mentioned in the release notes.)

It was added for barbarians, but then not actually used in any of the supplied rulesets. Alright.
If I understand te release notes correctly, it only applies to stealing technology? Because in README.effects, it says technology cannot be received from that player by any means, suggesting it applies to treaties too.