[Rails-devel] Tile orientation display

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

The currently ongoing discussion in the [18xx] group on how to describe tile
lays is also of interest for Rails.  I'm in particular referring to cases
where the Rails (TileDesigner) tile orientation (i.e., the tile number
placement)  is different from the physical game. I just checked 1830 and
1856. The 1830 tile orientations are the same as in Rails (except tile #65),
whereas with 1856 there are many differences.

Take tile #23 as an example. The 1856 orientation of this tile is
upside-down as compared with 1830 and Rails.  Now assume tile #9 has been
laid before on hex O10 (connecting SW-NE) and is upgraded to tile #23
(adding a connection NW-NE).  Now the question is: how to display this
upgrade in the map window and the game report?

The Rails tile has the number as in 1830, on the SW side in this case, so
the upgrade is now coded as #23/O10/SW.  However, the physical tile would
have its number on the NE side, so in an FTF game the upgrade would be
denoted as #23/O10/NE. 

My question is: what do we prefer? 

I am thinking on adding an optional attribute to <Tile> in TileSet.xml that
specifies the 'base rotation' of the physical tile as compared with the
Rails tile (or vice versa). This 'base rotation' would then be added (or
subtracted) to the internal value to calculate the displayed tile
orientation.

So, to make the laid tile in this example be described as #23/O10/NE we
should add an attribute like 'baseRotation="3"'.

Any need for this feature? Should it  be an option?

Erik.