Thoughts on the standard game

[Keir Novik <ken21@cam.ac.uk>]

There are a couple of things I find a bit bizarre in the standard
game.  Let me throw a few ideas out and you can tell me what you
think.

Supply
------

My main objections to supply are that the comments don't match the
code.  Right now we have (stdunit.g):

(table in-length
  ;; Supply to ground units can go a couple hexes away.
  (ground m* 3)
  ;; Cities and bases can get their supplies from some distance away.
  (/ m* 6)
  (cities m* 12)
  )

Fine and dandy.  It looks like ground units (i a) and places (/ * @)
can get supplies from distant sources, while all the other units can
only receive supplies from units in the same cell.  But look at
out-length:

(table out-length
  ;; Net consumers of supply should never give any up automatically.
  ((i a b f nuke) m* -1)
  ;; Cities and towns can share things around.
  (cities m* 1)
  )

This means that (i a b f nuke) never give out supplies, (d s t cv bb /)
will share with units in the same cell, and (* @) share up to one cell
away.  I.e. our places and ground units won't get supplies from more
than one cell away.  Worse still, our aircraft can refuel from
submarines in the high seas!  The first problem can be solved by

(table out-length
  ...
  ;; Places can share things around.
  (/ m* 6)
  (cities m* 12)
  )

or something similar, and the second problem by

(table out-length
  ;; Net consumers of supply should never give any up automatically.
  ((i a b f d s t bb nuke) m* -1)
  ...
  )

I've left carriers off the list so we don't have to manually resupply
aircraft.  Unfortunately, other ships no longer have the ability to
supply each other, and will drain supplies from carriers.  Does anyone
have a better solution?


Cities and Combat
-----------------

I'm not satisfied with the way places protect their occupants.  I'm
tired of seeing things like 

Your 2nd armor misses the Siamese town Upper Stepney.
  (and destroys occupant the Siamese 1st fighter!)
  (and destroys occupant the Siamese 4th infantry!)
  (and destroys occupant the Siamese 5th infantry!)
The Siamese town Upper Stepney throws back your 2nd armor!

It's obvious to me that it's a mistake to leave anything in a place
that might be attacked.  This problem appears to be that misses on the
town attack *all* the units inside.  How can we get around this?

On a more picky note, it should be "destroys the occupant Siamese X"
or "destroys occupant Siamese X", and not "destroys occupant the
Siamese X".

 - Keir