[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#8890) Removal of free city center

["Per Inge Mathisen" <pim@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=8890 >

I played with this patch for a bit. I am not at all convinced that this is
the solution to smallpox.

In the city dialog, you can no longer click on the city center to get the
server to rearrange your workers. Instead, you can work another tile than
the city center. Is this intentional? I would think there is rarely any
reason to not work the city center.

With the huge food bonus you get from the city center now, you can settle
anywhere. Specials become hugely important, and settling on top of
mountains with gold or on top of bisons or other land specials is crucial.
Settling on normal land, where most cities in the real world are, is just
dumb now.

I never played freeciv as smallpoxy as I did with this patch. Getting +2
food production on a tile _and_ the usual faster growth rates (since
foodbox size increases with city size) means that smallpox became even
better.

However, shield production overall went down, making the game slightly
slower.

The AI did not look like it had any big problems, although I suspect it
did worse than usual because its settler code assumes the free city
center.

All the above notwithstanding, the absence of the free city center was
aesthetically pleasing. It felt right. The new size 1 cities were more
primitive now, as they should be, and getting them biggger felt like a
bigger accomplishment.

  - Per