[Freeciv-Dev] A few miscellaneous ideas for improvement

[Jules Bean <jmlb2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Caveat: Although I played Civilization I extensively when it came out, I
have only played through 4 complete games of freeciv - and I've never
completed a network game of freeciv, so I'm badly placed to comment on
the game balance there.

Therefore, most of these criticisms could also be leveled at the
original civilisation.

These partly client mechanics, and partly game balance - I assume this
is the right list?  Or should I have brought it up on the plain freeciv
list?

A) AI is too hard:

We all know that the AI is actually very stupid, and it is easy to see
it's deficiencies when you beat it and examine what it was doing in its
cities.  However, it is very good at rapid expansion and research at the
beginning of the game - making it virtually impossible to beat for a
beginner at the game.  It would be nice to have a 'novice' mode which
make the AI beatable even for beginners.

B) Micromanagement:

In any reasonably large game (e.g. default map size) when you are
winning, micromanagement becomes a pain.  This could be alleviated by
building a bit more 'helping hand' AI into the client.  A few things I
can think of which would help:

B.1) Better route finding : A 'goto' command for land units which
understands the advantages of roads and railways.  Even if this only
worked between cities (the client could keep a table of quick routes
between cities).

B.2) 'New unit' orders : A city could be set to automatically send new
units to city Y, or put them all on sentry duty, etc...

B.3) Creation queue :  A city could be told to 'build a marketplace,
then a temple, then a bank, then a coastal defence'.

B.4) Settlers/Engineers in 'auto-improve' mode (is something like this
already implemented?).  Carry out the following actions as possible, in
roughly this order of priority : Clear up nearby pollution, Irrigate
unirrigated grasslands/plains, Build roads on any square, Mine hills,
Build railroads on any square, Convert jungle to trees, Convert swamp to
trees, Convert desert to plains, Convert mountains to hills.  If there's
nothing to do, go on sentry duty.

B.5) Better auto-choice of what to build (Notably, build pollution
reducing improvements if generating any pollution).

B.6) Allow stacks of units to be moved around as one.

These improvements are designed to shorten the goes toward the end of
the game - when you have > 30 cities, there's always so much trivial
stuff going on...

C) Graphics

The graphics are really excellent now.  Superb job.  There are a few
obvious weak links, though: In particular, the citizens in the city
display. I'm not much of an artist, unfortunately, but when I was
fiddling around with them I convinced myself we couldn't do much better
in that size (12x8, is it?  something like that).  It would be nice to
boost that up to around double, and have some nice looking ones
(overlapping if needed, when the city gets big, like the Mac version of
Civ did).

Also, whilst the numbers are more functional, I find myself missing the
lots of little sheaves of corn...


A few other random jottings....

I don't think I like helicopters.  These weren't in Civ I - I guess
they're a Civ II invention?  It doesn't feel right, to me, being able to
occupy a city without some ground troops.  I think the strategical
implications of requiring ground troops (necessity of transports, which
can easily be destroyed) were a good element for game balance, making
conquest over sea quite hard, even if you technologically outpace your
enemy. (This is just a remark, really: obivously I could remove
helicopters from my ruleset if I wanted to).

Being able to land missiles doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Missiles
should be carried, either by land, air or sea units, but once fired you
should lose them if you don't guide them to a target.

I think it should be possible to transport planes by railway - possibly
this needs a 'carrier' unit which is a land unit.  It would also be nice
to have troop transport planes - probably only capable of carrying one
land unit.

A larger world map (brought up by a menu command) would be nice - it can
be hard to read that little one.

Sentried ships aren't woken up, it seems, by enemy ships unless they
actually touch.  I think sentried ships should be woken up by any enemy
with sight range (2, for most ships).

Well there's a few points for discussion.  I imagine many of these have
been brought up before, but I thought I'd through in my 0.02 euros...

Jules

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|  Julian Bean   | jmlb2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx        |  TW9 2TF *UK*       |
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