civ1 behavior

[cazfi]

As far as I know, holes are allowed in all rulesets UNLESS there is root_req specified for each technology in the tech.ruleset.

In 2.5 and earlier, yes, but in 2.6 and up it's configurable in game.ruleset. What I want to know is what would be the civ2 compatible configuration.

The fact that freeciv has had "holes allowed" as a hardcoded behavior would suggest that it has been the civ2 compatible setup. Hmm.

[meynaf]

Yeah but in my memory they weren't allowed in the original games (pretty sure for civ1, unverified for civ2).
I admit that i have no idea for civ3, civ4, civ5, civ6

[cazfi]

- Offers choosing research at start (when 1st research unit is obtained) and after each advance. Viable option, as these things are easily forgotten.

Something that might help "after each advance" part: Game -> Options -> Local Client -> Interface -> Popup tech help when gained -> Enabled

[meynaf]

Something that might help "after each advance" part: Game -> Options -> Local Client -> Interface -> Popup tech help when gained -> Enabled

It doesn't help much. Should popup the research (F6) instead.
For a simple recall, i've found that the popup message is enough.
And neither will help against forgetting to setup the very first tech...

[GriffonSpade]

Something that might help "after each advance" part: Game -> Options -> Local Client -> Interface -> Popup tech help when gained -> Enabled

It's probably notable that QT doesn't have that option.
In: Game -> Options -> Messages -> Technology: Acquired New Tech and Technology: Learned New Tech
You can set it to give popups when you learn or acquire new technology, though. Don't know whether it's checked by default. (And the research button flashes)

It doesn't help much. Should popup the research (F6) instead.
For a simple recall, i've found that the popup message is enough.
And neither will help against forgetting to setup the very first tech...

Having a confirmation box popup telling the player to go look at technology on the first turn would be a good idea too. I usually don't pay attention and get a random tech.

[meynaf]

Another difference.

When you unleash barbarians from a hut ; sometimes freeciv does not create barbs but just kills the unit. This is hardcoded in the unleash_barbarians function.
But it NEVER occurs in civ1.

[meynaf]

One more.

When a city is taken/destroyed in civ1, units depending on that city are removed.
In freeciv they are just given another home.

Again, the ruleset does not appear to be able to change this.

[nef]

When you unleash barbarians from a hut ; sometimes freeciv does not create barbs but just kills the unit. This is hardcoded in the unleash_barbarians function.
But it NEVER occurs in civ1.

"Sometimes" = before barbs first appear.

In Civ I you always get real barbs giving you a chance to escape if you plan for it. freeciv behaviour is a PITA.

[nef]

Time to unload about resources.

In Civ I (and II) individual tiles were marked with two distinct and independent resource extras. These are allocated in two distinct patterns:

1. Grassland / Grassland with river.

Average density is 50% !!!!! Actual pattern is probably not so important in freeciv but it was in pairs of tiles in diagonal strips running NE to SW. Useful for predicting where the shield would turn up a) because with river tiles were not marked, and b) if you wanted to transform ANY other terrain to G or G w/R you could anticipate the result.

2. General (Civ I).

Like G - G w/R, individual tiles were marked as being/not being a general resource tile. These were in hounds tooth type pattern (long knight move) in patches (about 5x5?? resource tiles). Nobody seems to know the rules regarding the actual allocation of patches but they left a small amount of extra space between them - probably means that no part of the patches overlapped.

In both cases it was the tile that was marked: transforming a tile to a terrain would show the resource that was relevant to the terrain if the tile was a "resource tile". (Of course some terrains had no resource extra of the specified type - e.g. grassland would never show a general resource.)

I have recently played the Iberian scenario which has large swathes of monolithic terrain - mostly grassland. The ridiculously low density of shields in the grassland has a serious impact on gameplay - huge numbers of smallpox cities with only the freebie shield of the city center tile.

One simple change that could entertained is to provide density options on each resource type. This would still leave the problem that you get penalised if you want to transform a tile that has a resource extra.

EDIT: A quick calculation gave me a density of 1:9 for the LKM pattern. Civ I&II grassland extra is 4.5 times this so a quick fix would be to increase the grassland shield extra to 4 or 5. Some may argue that this is not civ tradition but the wrong density is the problem and needs to be fixed. Besides 4.5 is ballpark average for other resource specials.

[nef]

- Offers choosing research at start (when 1st research unit is obtained) and after each advance. Viable option, as these things are easily forgotten.

"Easily forgotten" - another PITA.

- Opens city popup every time something is built. Default choices are rarely the right one, and again it's easy to miss something.

I use Coinage and the city report but sometimes I actually want coinage - especially near the end when I am running out of things to build. (In my own hack I had both coinage and capitalization.) Would it be so difficult to add an option in the settings page? Another option would be to allow another setting to be shown as a mark in the city report (much like city happy/riot state). Yet another - add some text.

In freeciv the default choices are never the right one (they are selected alphabetically). Civ I tried to guess (via an adviser) - if you asked it to. Speaking of advisers - the AI have them, Civ I let the human player use them, but freeciv is just plain mean.