[Freeciv-Dev] [patch #7079] civ2civ3 - Disallow Triremes to navigate rivers

[David Fernandez]

URL:
<http://gna.org/patch/?7079>

Summary: civ2civ3 - Disallow Triremes to navigate rivers
Project: Freeciv
Submitted by: bardo
Submitted on: Sat 26 Mar 2016 08:26:25 PM UTC
Category: rulesets
Priority: 5 - Normal
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Originator Email:
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
Planned Release:

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Details:

The ability of triremes to move on rivers introduces some exploits that I do
not know how to prevent:
1) It is possible to bypass the rule "slow invasion" by moving from ocean to
river.
2) It is possible to use chains of triremes to allow one unit to move an
unlimited number of tiles (along a river) in one single turn (by repeating
load-move-unload, load...)
3) Even without chaining, a unit can move in the same turn inside a trireme
and then continue his own movement along the river.
It feels like using twice the bonus to movement on river and it causes a lot
of micromanagement.

I think the bonus to movement by river is a good representation of sails being
used to move the units faster. I suggest to remove this capability of triremes
for good.



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File Attachments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat 26 Mar 2016 08:26:25 PM UTC Name: civ2civ3-trireme_river-S2_6.patch
Size: 1kB By: bardo

<http://gna.org/patch/download.php?file_id=27027>

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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #1, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

New version of the patch that includes some related changes:
- Make Trireme obsolete by Caravels, again.
- Fix reference in the Lighthouse wonder.
- Update Readme.

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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #2, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

And the patch...

(file #27075)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: civ2civ3-trireme_river_v2-S2_6 Size:3 KB


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[Marko Lindqvist]

Update of patch #7079 (project freeciv):

Status: None => Ready For Test
Planned Release: => 2.6.0, 3.0.0


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[Marko Lindqvist]

Follow-up Comment #3, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

It's quite likely we need to make some code changes first, for sensible
handling of 2.5 savegames with triremes up in the river.

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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #4, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

They sometimes use Triremes on rivers for longturn online games, so they might
not be as unbalanced as I think.
If it is problematic we can try to keep it for now.

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[Marko Lindqvist]

Update of patch #7079 (project freeciv):

Status: Ready For Test => In Progress

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Follow-up Comment #5:

I attach a draft patch (S2_6) in case you want to progress with this.

In essence it adds the Trireme-that-cant-travel-rives as a new unit type and
class. The old river-moving one is unbuildable, so it can be in the game only
if it's old savegame (or via editor). The old one has the rule_name "Trireme"
(for loading old savegames correctly) but display name "Riverboat", while the
new one has display name "Trireme" and rule_name "SeaTrireme".

(file #27370)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: SeaTrireme.patch Size:10 KB


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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #6, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

I like your solution. I'll test it.

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[Christian Knoke]

Post by David Fernandez
The ability of triremes to move on rivers introduces some exploits that I do
1) It is possible to bypass the rule "slow invasion" by moving from ocean to

river.

Post by David Fernandez
2) It is possible to use chains of triremes to allow one unit to move an

unlimited number of tiles (along a river) in one single turn (by repeating
load-move-unload, load...)

Post by David Fernandez
3) Even without chaining, a unit can move in the same turn inside a trireme

and then continue his own movement along the river.

Post by David Fernandez
It feels like using twice the bonus to movement on river and it causes a lot

of micromanagement.

Post by David Fernandez
I think the bonus to movement by river is a good representation of sails

being used to move the units faster. I suggest to remove this capability of
triremes for good.


Units transported by triremes sailing on a river loose all their move points
ATM the trireme moves.

Christian


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[Jacob Nevins]

Post by Marko Lindqvist
The old river-moving one is unbuildable, so it can be in the
game only if it's old savegame (or via editor).

I vaguely wonder about doing something to weed out old Riverboat units, like
adding a retirement effect that disbands them 10 turns after the old savegame
is loaded (...this probably isn't possible), or giving them zero moves in the
new ruleset but allowing them to be disbanded for production points, or
something like that. Just to avoid the incentive to hang on to your special
unique riverboats forever.

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[David Fernandez]

Post by Christian Knoke
Units transported by triremes sailing on a river loose all their move points

ATM the trireme moves.
Such feature would be an improvement, but it'd not prevent all the issues
about transported units.
For example, a unit does not require move points to be unloaded and loaded to
other transport in the same river tile (or inside a city), so chained movement
would be still possible.

Anyway, if the only purpose of triremes on rivers is to increase the movement
of units, this can be simulated with the reduced costs of the movement along
the river tiles, that requires much less micromanaging. The same than rails
does not require a train unit in order to take advantage of the extra
movement.

Post by Christian Knoke
I attach a draft patch

Now that I opened your patch, I'm not sure if it is worth to introduce a whole
new unit class just for this purpose.

Post by Christian Knoke
I vaguely wonder about doing something to weed out old Riverboat units, ...

or giving them zero moves in the new ruleset but allowing them to be disbanded
for production points
I like how it sounds.
An intermediate solution could be to decrease the movement points to 1 when on
river, so it is not worth to use triremes further inland, but only near the
coast. I'll test it.

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[David Fernandez]

Post by David Fernandez
An intermediate solution could be to decrease the movement points to 1 when

on river.
After some tests, I see the same issues. It was not a useful idea.

Post by David Fernandez
like adding a retirement effect that disbands them 10 turns after the old

savegame is loaded
We could use negative Unit_Recover to remove hit points to the new riverboat
unit every turn. For example:


; 3 turns of lifetime outside cities (and no recover inside cities)
[effect_riverboat]
name = "Unit_Recover"
value = -4
reqs =
{ "type", "name", "range"
"UnitClass", "Riverboat", "Local"
}



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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #11, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

I have made a new patch based on cazfi's, but keeping the name trireme for the
old class (native to rivers, non buildable), and using the name galley for the
new unit and the new class.

Updated the helptexts and readme.

I send the patch here because I'm having troubles to register to hostedredmine
(I don't receive the confirmation mail).

(file #29908)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: civ2civ3-trireme_river_galley-S2_6.patch Size:15 KB


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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #12, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

I have found a bug in my patch. The trireme is showed twice in the tech tree.
I'll upload the fix to hostedredmine when/if I can register/contact the
admins.

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[David Fernandez]

Follow-up Comment #13, patch #7079 (project freeciv):

Patch v2 fixes the double entry in the tech tree, and revises some related
code comments.

Post by David Fernandez
We could use negative Unit_Recover to remove hit points to the new riverboat

unit every turn (3 turns of lifetime outside cities).
At the end, I did not include this effect. This patch lets players continue
v2.5 games almost as if nothing happened.

If we are going to kill the old triremes, I think it is not worth to create a
legacy class for them.

(file #29915)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: civ2civ3-trireme_river_galley_v2-S2_6.patch Size:18 KB


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