Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Catching up + Some thoughts - comments sought

[Greg Wooledge <wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Per Mathisen (permath@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> Besides, Communism as a government is way
> to weak compared to the other governments as is.

It's stronger in Civ2 than it is in Freeciv (see below).


Pedro Timoteo (deh@xxxxx) wrote:

> You could make (at least as
> an option) AIs try to change to their "real life" system and stay there. 
> 
> Imagine the Russians always as Communism, etc..

But Russia is currently a Republic/Democracy, no?  And as someone else
said, Russia wasn't Communist until this century.  (But then, *nobody*
was Communist until this century....)


Per Mathisen (permath@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> > Do you really think in the USSR, corruption was reduced to 0 ?
> 
> But neither is it in Civ. Corruption is distributed evenly among all
> cities, highlighting the western impression that in the USSR, its citizens
> were not just supposedly equal but also supposedly uniform.

This brings me to the strength of Communism in Civ2.  Not only is
corruption the same in all cities (as in Civ1) -- it's also *greatly*
reduced.  In my most recent game of Civ2, I played under Communism until
the very end, when I shifted to Republic to pick some extra future tech
and to force population growth with "We Love the..." days (this is the
easiest way to score mucho points).  (The AIs were completely conquered
except for a token city or two to keep the game going.)

Under Communism I had not a single bit of corruption *anywhere*.  I had
Courthouses in many of my cities (from my Monarchy days), but the total
lack of corruption surprised me.  And under Republic, I had to build
more Courthouses to help control corruption (I had stopped building them
under Communism -- they just weren't needed).

The other strength of Communism is the production of veteran Spies.
This doesn't apply to Freeciv yet, since Spies' veteran status isn't
currently used (last time I checked, anyway).  I consider this a
relatively minor feature, though, since I only use Spies in moderation.


Rizos Sakellariou (rizos@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> People with civI/II experience tell me that the Republic had disadvantages
> that are not currently implemented in Freeciv. If this is true, isn't
> perhaps time to start thinking about adding these?

The biggest disadvantage not currently implemented is the presence of
a "Senate" which can overrule your decisions in matters of diplomacy.
If an AI requests a cease fire, there's a 50% chance that your "Senate"
will currently be controlled by pacifists who will go behind your back
and sign a peace treaty even if you say "No".  Moreover, you can't just
send the foreign herald away (as you could in Civ1) -- the "Senate"
may meet with him/her in secret and sign a cease fire (or treaty?).


Brent Nelson (nelson@xxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> If I
> remember correctly, socrates was either exiled from Athens, or
> executed by Athens for saying contrivercial things because the
> populace voted to do it.

Socrates was executed.  He drank poison ("lethal ingestion" ;-).

-- 
Greg Wooledge                    | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx             | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |