Unless I am misunderstanding something, I would protest against adding this as a general across the board for a couple of reasons 1. The additional calculation for all players will add to the processing time (granted, this is negligible in most cases, but imagine a turn where multiple players are forced into anarchy because they lost the government tech) 2. The game allows players to keep (and benefit) from buildings (and even great wonders) that require specific tech even if they lose (or never had) the tech required for the building (ie: they are gifted/traded the city containing the building(s)/wonder(s) from another nation that does have the required tech)
However, I do support that if a player is in the midst of a revolution and loses the tech that supports the government they tried to change into before the revolution is complete, this check should be done.
I think this check would be very cool as part of a particular ruleset or a configurable server setting (like how the UN wonder under the civ2civ3 ruleset forces any player into anarchy if they have civil disorder for 2 turns in a row in any city) as it creates new level of challenge
Reply To (Anonymous)
Unless I am misunderstanding something, I would protest against adding this as a general across the board for a couple of reasons
Reply To cazfi
Reply To (Anonymous)
Unless I am misunderstanding something, I would protest against adding this as a general across the board for a couple of reasons
Your examples are not protesting the proposed change (that other requirements are treated like tech requirements) but the already existing behavior of tech requirements (I've not checked how long it has been that way, but I assume "forever"). But you comment brings up the point that one way to resolve the inconsistency would be removal of that government-cancelling behavior also from tech requirements, and for the reasons you list, it might be a better solution than making other requirement types to behave like tech requirements currently do.
You make an excellent point. I think my concern with the check from how I initially interpreted this proposal is how the check would be processed and how appreciated this change would be for a player. I was fearing (as a worst case scenario from a player standpoint) that if the check from losing the required tech means the player loses the government they already changed into, this would probably have player backlash. But if the check is to simply to take the government off the list of options should the player want to change government, then its perfectly fine (as is the case when a city is in the midst of building a unit, improvement or great wonder (no penalties if already completed/built, but the city is unable to produce/construct or select to make if the required tech is lost)
Reply To (Anonymous)
if the check from losing the required tech means the player loses the government they already changed into
That is the current behavior, and - now I checked it - it has been that way as long as losing techs has been possible (since freeciv-2.3)
The inconsistency is that if the government requires, e.g. a wonder (as was with some custom ruleset), loss of that wonder does not cause similar (immediate) loss of current government. In worst case (what player expects least) current government could be lost on some random turn long after the loss of the wonder.
I'm yet to form strong opinion whether we should drop the behavior also from the tech requirements, or extend it to all requirement types. About the improvement requirements you gave as an example, one could do the counter-argument that they are about building the improvement, whereas government requirements are about running the government. Why would you retain your ability to run specific form of government when you no longer know how? Likely we want to make this somehow ruleset controlled in master, but not sure what to do in stable branches - in any case we need to be careful not to break any assumptions of existing custom rulesets.
Reply To cazfi
Reply To (Anonymous)
if the check from losing the required tech means the player loses the government they already changed into
That is the current behavior, and - now I checked it - it has been that way as long as losing techs has been possible (since freeciv-2.3) The inconsistency is that if the government requires, e.g. a wonder (as was with some custom ruleset), loss of that wonder does not cause similar (immediate) loss of current government. In worst case (what player expects least) current government could be lost on some random turn long after the loss of the wonder. I'm yet to form strong opinion whether we should drop the behavior also from the tech requirements, or extend it to all requirement types. About the improvement requirements you gave as an example, one could do the counter-argument that they are about building the improvement, whereas government requirements are about running the government. Why would you retain your ability to run specific form of government when you no longer know how? Likely we want to make this somehow ruleset controlled in master, but not sure what to do in stable branches - in any case we need to be careful not to break any assumptions of existing custom rulesets.
Fascinating, I don't think I've ever seen a player lose their government due to insufficient tech (except if the government fell into anarchy for some reason like losing their capital or civil disorder), but something I will look into when running future games, but certainly I'm convinced having the check. As far as I recall (granted, most of my tested games are 2.6.5 either classic, experimental or civ2civ3), as far as improvements and wonders go, in the games I've played and monitored actively, I always thought as long as the city has it and doesn't lose it (conquest or selling or forced selling due to insufficient funds (or city destruction for wonders), they reap the benefit from it (unless the spy/diplomat investigate city window is lying to me about the F/P/T numbers from the city in question)
Related a bit to https://www.hostedredmine.com/issues/856947
When a tech is lost, there's a check if the current government can continue functioning. There's no such check for loss of other potential requirements of the government (or acquiring !present requirements). With a wonder requirement, this can even mean that government that has continued functioning despite loss of the wonder, suddenly stops functioning when unrelated tech is lost (because the check is made at that point).
Likely we just should do the check at turn change.