More revisions to exploring_worth

[Hans Ronne]

>Something else that didn't occur to me until this message is that
>water-based units are useful only for determining the outline of
>the islands and continents (and one or two sectors of beach).  If
>the islands and continents don't have enough inlets, you can't
>really determine very much about them.  But that's where all the
>production occurs and all the value is located, at least in the
>standard game.

I agree. See my reply to your previous email yesterday. However, on second
thought I don't think it's such a big problem. The reson is that most
cities are land-locked, so they will only build ground and air units even
if naval units are rated higher. For those cities that have sea access, it
makes sense to build mostly naval explorers.

>Construction time is probably easier than visibility, unless there
>are relatively complex construction considerations (e.g. research,
>"technology levels").

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. There are game-specific balancing
issues. See my reply to Lincoln's latest mail.

>     1.  Perhaps this could be a configuration option for a
>         game, but providing weights for each of these
>         different considerations.  Thus, we could have, for
>         example, different "standard" games with different
>         weights.  This would allow for lots of testing
>         without needing to recompile xconq.

There is alreay a mechanism for this: the doctrine. You can specifiy in the
game file how a given side (and its units) should behave using doctrines.
This is a tool of great potential which is not used much right now.

Hans

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se