Hi, today I have downloaded and tested your upcoming release freeciv-2.4.0-beta1. I decided to hve a real look and also downloaded and tried old freeciv code, 1.14.1 and 2.0.10. And I see many things have changed mostly for the better. But a few things have in my eyes changed for the worse. And I will try to tell you why. Back in old days, it was possible to sail on "deep ocean" tiles with trieremes, with a loss probability. Old trireme rules Both Seafaring and Navigation reduced this loss probability, and LightHouse wonder did remove all loss probability. Old LH rules This made it possible to fill 3 to 4 triremes with horsemen and warriors and launch an early attack. The loss probability was a calculated risk, measured up against the potential gain of totally messing up other players game and celebration. Good times. With this rules, LightHouse was actually a quite powerful wonder.
For some reasons the developers decided to remove old trireme features and rewrite Lighthouse rules with the uppgrade from 2.0.10 to 2.2.0. Maybe it made code easier and cleaner? But this decision also effectively did kill a viable strategy in freeciv. And freeciv is a strategy game, isnt it? And it did kill a lot of the fun of playing online freeciv. Now we all know that an enemy will not arrive before Navigation are known, much later in game. And with current rules, Ligthhouse is a dead end not worth building at all. And as a result, Island-generated games became much more predictable and boring.
I also have tried WarClient lately, and I see WC have retained old trireme features. And I did loose cities due to early attacks, just as in good old Freeciv 2.0 days. I cast a vote for reintroducing old trireme and LightHouse rules. I cast a vote for reintroducing early warfare in island generated games. Lets reintroduce some good old chaos and unpredictability into the current online games.
Pekka