[freeciv-data] Re: (PR#3597) german ruleset new version

Raimar Falke wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 04, 2003 at 07:59:09PM +0300, Nikos Mavroyanopoulos wrote:
> 
>>On Fri, Apr 04, 2003 at 04:25:22PM +0100, Daniel Herding wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hello,
>>>This ruleset includes Wuppertal, Barmen and Elberfeld.
>>
>>Will new nations be included in freeciv? I've asked some time
>>ago about including the Byzantine empire[0],
>>but got no reply. Also the Ottoman empire is missing (more than 400
>>years of history). If new nations are to be included I could contribute
>>some of them.
> 
> 
> New nations can be included. Only the laziness of the maintainers are
> the problem. It is isn't considered a high priority job. I have
> started to add some nations in PR#3589
> (http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=3589) However it
> received not much feedback.

I wouldn't say they're a low priority - in principle, they're very 
simple to add.

The problem is any two patches to add new nations will conflict with 
each other.  A new nation requires:

- A nation file, data/nations/xxx.ruleset.
- A new tileset tag in data/misc/flags.spec
- A new flag in data/misc/flags.png

Which means you have to manually edit flags.png to add your new flag - 
and if another nation is added in the meantime you have to do this 
again.  I would be in favor of splitting (or allowing the split of) the 
flags into different files.  Problem is, with the current tileset setup 
this is infeasible - we'd need, for instance, data/flags/*.png and 
data/flags/*.spec, and every tileset (including add-ons) would have to 
list every flags/*.spec file for inclusion.  ESR did some work to change 
this, but it was never completed.

In addition to the above, there are a few pieces of code that need to be 
changed.  For instance MAX_NUM_NATIONS==63 right now; changing this 
means a new capability.

jason