forum.freeciv.org

A thread started with in the original post in CivLand forum, see http://civland.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=413. I repost it here cause it is more suitable for Freeciv.org

If you center-click on a land or sea tile, a unique small number in brackets [] will identify which water mass or which continent/siland that tile belongs to.
This imply, for example, that if at the beginning of the game you can see two shores, one N and one S, by click on a sea tile of both you can inmediately know if they belong to the same sea (so they are somewhat connected) or not.
If you send a trireme to a near shore and right-click on it, you can also infere if it is part of your same island or not. Same for two distant shores.
This is a huge spoiler when it comes to exploring.
This feature can spoil the game even when you have discovered only one shore (and only one land): in fact, from the number in the brackets you can infere how big is the sea/ocean or the land: as the game starts to count the land/sea masses beginning from one tile and proceding on, if on a sea tile the bracketed number is [1] there are high chances that this sea is The Ocean, and if it is a low number, that it is a big interna sea. Usually, small internal seas have high bracketed numbers.
Same for continents/islands: [1] have high chances to be Pangea, high numbers may be smaller islands.

Is there a server-side way not to send the clients this precious and spoiling info?

I'm seconding this! While I don't know for sure (I suppose it is possible that some sort of pre-existing object is present where all the information in the object is displayed automatically by the implementing code), my guess is that you actually have to ADD code to the graphics to cause that number to display. If that is the case, it is simply a matter of deleting that code. If it's the object thing, it might be a little more difficult because you'll pretty much have to write a new implementation, but it could still maybe be in a wishlist for the next time someone is available to do it.

That number is shown only in debug builds (ones built with --enable-debug configure option), and we do need them there when developing freeciv, fixing bugs etc. It should not appear in non-debug builds targeted to end-users.

Also note that freeciv client needs that information internally even if it's not shown, and server always sends it to the client. So, in multiplayer games there's no guarantee that your opponents do not see the numbers (with modified client) even if you don't.

Why exactly are those numbers needed? Pathfinding?

Any continent range effects, should as civ1 wonders affecting cities on the same continent

Yes, it would make sense that if player him/herself does not know that two cities are on the same continent, (s)he wouldn't get the benefit of them being on the same continent - such bonuses are presumably because travel between the cities is easier than between islands.

I think it is enough if the client doesn't show it.
If someone uses modified clients... well Ithink it is not welcome in our games!