Prevent disclosure information via empire statistic

[o01eg]

Currently empire statistics disclosures much information about player empire. It could be inconvenient in multiplayer so there should be a way to restrict statistics.

I got some ideas and those without game rules could be implemented without breaking compatibility with 0.4.8 protocol and content:

1. Add server-side option to turn-off while empire statistics. It is most simple solution to sent dummy instead of real data when option enabled.
2. Add game rule per each graphs. It would be preferred because players could decide which graph will be available in the game. But either it will require to maintenance list of game rules in sync with list of graphs or each graph description must declare game rule as well.
3. Add server-side option to randomly shuffle or nullify empire in empire statistics. Player will see their own stats but won't determine which other stats belongs to which other empire. Server will send information to the player where only the player itself saves his id.

[Dilvish]

Currently empire statistics disclosures much information about player empire. It could be inconvenient in multiplayer so there should be a way to restrict statistics.

Right-- the expectation is that eventually access to this kind of information would be gated in some fashion by an Espionage system-- there might start out being an extreme amount of uncertainty about the other empires, which is reduced as certain espionage techs are acquired, and espionage projects might be required.

In the meantime, I could totally understand that the multiplayer groups might want to be able to more simply turn these on or off. One possible solution even slightly simpler than the ones you mention, is that for now the default could be that only single player games continue getting the current handling of empire statistics, and for multiplayer games the provided empire statistics could be similar to your last proposal, either be entirely limited to the respective player's info, or maybe that could be augmented with an average or median value for the other empires.

The ideas you listed all sound OK to me. As for game rules, I think that there should be an overall on-off rule whether or not you plan to have individual statistic on-off rules.

[Vezzra]

Yep, that definitely sounds reasonable.

[xahodo]

Why not make it simple? You only see statistics on empires you have actually discovered. When espionage gets added, this becomes a requirement too to see the statistics.

[Dilvish]

Why not make it simple? You only see statistics on empires you have actually discovered. When espionage gets added, this becomes a requirement too to see the statistics.

That would be a fine tweak to the current arrangement, but I don't think it would really do much to address o0leg's main concerns, or at least what I am inferring to be his main concerns, about this information being available in multiplayer games.