Joan Creus wrote: > > > 2008/1/28, Christian Knoke [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > OED says: PHRASES in the field 1 (of troops) engaged in combat or > manoeuvres > 2 engaged in practical work in the natural environment. ... - ORIGIN Old > English. > > > This thread got me thinking. OED may say the origin is "old English", > but maybe in a military context, "field" is short for "battlefield". > This may be obvious to native English speakers, but not to me. If this > is true, then the best translation for my language would be along the > lines of "battle unit" rather than "field unit". Having units built > specifically for battles would justify unhappiness in cities, too.
It may be easier to think of this in terms of game mechanics. For gameplay, there is a very simple reason why these units always give unhappiness even when at "home": it's because even when attacking they usually rest in cities between turns (or for bombers, every other turn). Aside from balance issues it would be really obnoxious if every time you moved a fighter out of your city it went into revolt and the governor was canceled, only to return to satisfaction when the fighter comes home at the end of the turn (yet if fighters don't have the field-unit flag, that's exactly what is happening now). So I'd describe these units as ones that are based out of a city even when on attack. I suppose someone at some point thought "field unit" was a good simplification for english. -jason _______________________________________________ Freeciv-i18n mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/freeciv-i18n
