[crossfire] Buildable Land Plots

[Brendan Lally]

On 9/21/05, Anton Oussik <
     
     antonoussik at gmail.com
     
     > wrote:
>
     
      On 9/21/05, Alex Schultz <
      
      alex_sch at telus.net
      
      > wrote:
     
     >
     
      > ISSUES:
     
     >
     
      >     -Where should land plots be buildable?
     
     >
     
      I would say allow anywhere, on world map, but not in a city.
     
     
This ties into the building over an entrance problem. Basically you
restrict map-makers too much (you also allow potentially for maps on
inaccessible islands off the coast, or surrounded by impassible
mountains)

>
     
      This raises some new
     
     >
     
      issues:
     
     >
     
          - Where/how to pay to buy a plot
     
     
python script that checks the list of available squares, and either
picks one of an appropriate price, or picks one at random (maybe with
a little history stored, so that the more plots are purchased in each
area the higher the prices go)

>
     
          - How to determine who owns a given plot, and who the tax should
     
     >
     
      be charged to
     
     
if the map header that limits control is set, then simply call that
'owner' then the only people who can build is a player who has a name
that matches 'owner' or someone with a building permit, which has a
race field that is 'owner' (these would be given to the player who
brought the plot, probably at a fee.

>
     
          - How to accomplish the previous two and keep the maps sellable
     
     >
     
      between players
     
     
there would need to be a trade array, of outstanding trades that would
take effect on next map load (either that or load on the fly, but that
is unneccessary). Probably a python script could be used to populate
such a table.

>
     
      If you do not pay up the land tax your most expensive plot wil be
     
     >
     
      demolished, and the money salvaged used to pay tax for remaining
     
     >
     
      properties. This carries on until there are no more plots to sell.
     
     
surely, least expensive that is over the value of the debt owed?

Although I'm inclined to go with random, whilst the above might be how
baliffs are /supposed/ to work, I don't think they really do in
practise.

>
     
      I can see several ways of calculating the tax for a given plot. Either
     
     >
     
      per region (so in scorn charges 800gold/plot/day, brest may charge
     
     >
     
      300, and navar 450. This approach would work but be inflexible.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Another approach I can think of is to have a base price of plot, and
     
     >
     
      then raise price for every nearby developed plot within surrounding
     
     >
     
      5-9 squares or so.
     
     
Don't know that I like this, it seems a fairer metric would be
something like number of standard entrances within 20/50/100 squares
(and therefore proximity to town)

>
     
      Additionally extra tax could be imposed for every object stored in a
     
     >
     
      plot as a way of cutting down on clutter on maps. If it was really
     
     >
     
      wanted the object tax (or land use tax) could be made exponential
     
     >
     
      after some time.
     
     
this requires yet more big arrays, with the entry for each owned map
updated either periodically or when it is being saved out.

As it is, I think probably an asset tax would be more fair, I can't
really see how having a thousand arrows would lead to a greater tax
burden than 900 artifacts.

>
     
      >     -When a map maker builds over a land plot entrance, what happens to
     
     >
     
      > the land plot?
     
     >
     
      Do not allow building over the entrance. That is a silly thing to do
     
     >
     
      and would only be attempted by accident.
     
     
How do you intend to know, from the map editor, where entrances have been sited?

If you allow building anywhere that isn't a city, then there is no
obvious place new maps can be added, ever. (also you could have
buildings appearing in the middle of roads, this would not be very
clever).

the way I see it there are three approaches, either use a list of
coordinates or maps, or a map header, or a map square (can develop)

the map square could probably be set in the archetypes on grass, that
wouldn't be so  bad, but then anytime a valid plot coordinate wanted
to be assigned, there would be a need to search through the map files
directly, which is a lot of wasted I/O.

another approach is map headers, this has the advantage of only
needing to search the first 20-odd lines of the map file, but they
still all need to be opened.

The first approach listed would be the quickest, having an external
list, but then there are other issues involved in keeping such a list
up to date.

>
     
          - When a plot is developed change the face on world map to reflect that.
     
     >
     
          - (this one is harder) If a player buys a 2x2 set of plots, should
     
     >
     
      they be able to build a house 4 times as big, and should the world map
     
     >
     
      introduce a large building into itself whaen that happens?
     
     
assuming the names are systematic, simply set the tile paths north,
south, east and west to what the map names of the new maps would be,
if they exist, the maps will tile, if not they won't.