using precomputed fertility probabilities (was: [glob2-devel] Remaining Beta 1 bug)

[Joe Wells]

Stéphane Magnenat <address@hidden> writes:

> Talking about fertility map, we could pre-compute it at map creation and use 
> its probabilities in the resource growing code instead of doing the lookup on 
> the actual terrain. I don't know why Nuage and me did not think at it 
> earlier. We were young and short-sighted ;-)

Clever!  Yes, the grass/water/sand layout never changes, so obviously
this can be precomputed.

How many bits are needed?  I worry a bit about the memory impact.  CPU
cache misses and paging can cost a lot more than simple computations.

By the way, are we sure the fertility map gets the probabilities
exactly the same?  Otherwise your proposed change will alter game play
on existing maps, which might then need to be redesigned to be good
maps.  So, your idea would need to be implemented carefully.

-- 
Joe