[Freeciv-Dev] Possibilities of an underdog

[Tobias Brox <tobiasb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I haven't tried them yet, but I like the idea of disasters. One of the main
> flaws in the Civ model is that it is a dominantly positive feedback game.
> Once you start winning, you carry on winning. (as long as you pay sufficient
> attention to tactics). 

I agree this is a problem - I think that must be one of the major
design challenge if we're to do other things than cloning existing games -
the underdog needs a chance to get up and dominate - At least I find the
game (and games in general) most amuzing when I'm uncertain whether I'm
going to win or not.

Personally I think disasters sucks.  Well, I think it's a good idea to
have server setable options for it, but I don't think this should be the
most significant way for an underdog to get the lead.  It's not fair to
let anyone get the lead just because of random events, I think - maybe if 
it's possible to some extent to be prepared for such events, to predict
them, to exploit them, etc.  Thinking about realism, it's usually the
small and/or poor nations that are most set back by disasters.  Big,
wealthy nations can afford better preparations, they can afford to handle
it, and quite usually disasters strucks quite locally, harming a small
country more (but less frequent) than a large nation.

I think we should think out other things that can give more benefits -
or even better, possibilities - to the underdog than the winning part. 

Today the underdog can win because:

- The bigger empire decays because the winner grows tired from all the
micromanagement / don't have time doing all the micromanagement.  That
sucks a bit, I think.

- The underdogs can cooperate to make things harder for the bigger empire.
That's good.

- The smaller empires can pretend to be friendly, stockpile military units
and then launch a surprise attack.  That's good.  Anyway, I'm color blind,
so sometimes the other part can do large clearly visible troop movements
which I should have done something with, but I just don't notice it at
all.  That sucks.

I personally think it would have been übercool with more
possibilities for advanced espionage and covert actions, propaganda,
cultural imperialism, puring money into hostile cities for building
resistance forces, etc ... letting city and nation happyness and
military  service time play a more significant role, etc.  But before
discussing such things in detail, it's important to analyse the possible
impacts on game play and discuss where we want to go with freeciv (after
civ2-compatibility).

-- 
Tobias Brox (alias TobiX) - +4722925871 - _urgent_ emails to
sms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.  Check our upcoming MMORPG at 
http://www.anarchy-online.com/ (Qt) and play multiplayer Spades, 
Backgammon, Poker etc for free at http://www.funcom.com/ (Java)