[freeciv-data] Re: Re: Alternative nation dialog

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Feb 2002, Mark Metson wrote:
> > Being able to specify the starting techs would be very good. I tried
> > setting the number of starting techs and to my surprise they were not
> > chosen along the lines of development the nations are set up to follow.
> > An option to allow the initial techs to follow the lines laid down for
> > each civ instead of being chosen randomly would be very useful. Then for
> > example Egyptians could start with Masonry, Horse Riding and the Wheel.
> 
> You can set the nations.ruleset option
> 
> 	init_techs = "Tech1, Tech2, Tech3"

That is all very well for modpack authors, but it doesn't help players who
want to speed the game along a little by setting techlevel=number before
starting the game. They should be able to do that and have it mean the
nations all are that many steps along each nation's usual path, instead of
it putting in random techs that could be out of character or at least off
the beaten track for particular nations.

> If this option isn't documented in nations.ruleset, then it would be nice
> if you wrote a short explanation of it for nations.ruleset and posted it
> to freeciv-dev.
> 
> Modpack/ruleset documentation is badly needed...

Yeah I noticed too that pop_cost isn't shown in units.ruleset in any of
the units rulesets I've been looking in lately. No wonder I didn't twig to
it until I asked on the lists.

> init_techs also exists in game.ruleset, and in my teams patch, I'll
> introduce init_techs for teams of nations as well.

Great. For modpacks, updated info on what aspects of which buildings are
hardcoded and which can effectively be changed would be useful. I found
out the hard way that a certain building in sequence is given free at the
start of the game even if it does not have the flags that a palace
typically has. (I ended up with Offshore Platforms instead because I had
removed a building from earlier in the list moving Offshore Platform into
the sequential position that Palace had occupied.) I would like to be able
to start without a Palace at all, for the Quest for Fire scenario for
example.

BB
MM

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