Re: New Xconq Features

["Hans Ronne" <Hans.Ronne@imim.uu.se>]

>Take all this with a grain of salt, I'm an engineer not an economist.
>
>Comments?
>
>--
>Mike

I think putting in support for global stocks of all materials and then
letting GDL specify if this is allowed in a specific game, is a good idea,
since it keeps all options open. It would be trivial to add a
side->msupply[nummtypes] array and it would waste little space since both
nummtypes and the number of sides typically is small.

From a practical point of view, however, it could still make sense to treat
"money" as a special variable side->cash which is not itself an mtype. This
would make game design easier for those who are not familiar with all the
details of the GDL data types. One possible use for "money" is that one
could add the option to divert some of the "trade" from science to cash,
which could then be used to buy units etc. just like in Civ.

This could of course also be achieved using the mtype approach, but I think
writing such game modules (and also the necessary Xconq code) would be more
complicated. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution. One does
not rule out the other, however. I would opt for having both
side->msupply[nummtypes] and a special side->cash variable supported, to
keep all options open in game module design.

This whole discussion about "money" is conceptually related to another
problem which I already spent some time on: how to best handle "people".
Should they be an mtype (not as crazy as it may sound) an mtype property
(already supported in Xconq) or a unit->population variable? Again, the
approaches based on mtypes are the most flexible ones, and therefore most
elegant, but also more difficult to handle. Using a unit->population
variable would be easier, both for the Xconq programmer and for the writer
of game modules.

Not an economist either,

Hans

Hans Ronne

Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology
Uppsala University
Uppsala Biomedical Center
Box 582
S-751 23 Uppsala
Sweden

Tel: + 46-18-4714239
Fax: + 46-18-509876
Email: Ronne@bmc.uu.se