[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Land Reclamation

[Tony Stuckey <stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 08:44:02PM -0700, Andy Black wrote:
> I wish to propose a method for dealing with land reclmation.  If I
> understand corectly, land reclmation works by building a wall in the ocean
> that is higher than the sea level, then leting the water inside the wall
> evaporate.

        Or pumping it out.
        Remember Civilization Myth #1 -- Seawater can be used for
irrigation.  Letting the water evaporate would leave behind large amounts
of undesirable dissolved minerals.

>  How this could work is your enginer starts on land and moves
> into the water.  Before the enginer moves you have to confirm the move.

        I think that the idea of using existing transport units to support
the Engineer, and/or creating a new unit Dredge Barge which is a seagoing
unit with Transform capability would be a better plan.
        Being a smaller modification to the current game would seem to be a
good thing.
        The major issue with the Dredge Barge is that it is a unit with a
single relatively small purpose in the game.  Historically, the rules have
shied away from those units, and I think including them is one mistake that
Civilization: Call to Power made.

> the enginer then transforms the water into a useable land type.  The land
> also has an improvement on it called dikes.  If someone pillages the dikes
> and they are opened to the sea, the sea floods the area that was blocked
> by the dike.  All cities, units (excluding boats/units on boats),
> improvements, et cetra,  within the floded area are destroyed.

        "Farewell, hills of Terra, Farewell, my beloved home,
         Good bye to my Condo, Hello to a Pressure Dome." :)

        Destroying everything is probably both more realistic and better
than including still more special buildings/units to stave off this rare
(?) occurrence.

> Production
> within the square is reduced by 1 if producing more than 2 units of a kind
> are produced.

        What's the rationale for this?  That the residual engineering
structures and/or inherent fertility limit the available benefits?  I
thought that was the major point with requiring the result of this
transformation to be Swamp -- it's not incredibly useful immediately, but
with further transformation can become so.
        Note that the change from Ocean to Swamp changes production values
from 1/0/2 to 1/0/0.  So there is significant short term detriment.  With
the city buildings which already enhance Ocean production, it's a fairly
hard case to make that other terrain types are worth the direct resource
value.  Remember that normal game length is just over 500 turns, and most
proposals have limited the applicability of Ocean Transformation to the
final 1/3 of the game.  Thus shifting from Ocean's 1/0/2 Resource
production to Grassland's 2/(1 or 0)/0 doesn't seem to be worth it long
term, and the enhanced values with Irrigation and Roads aren't an
incredibly better deal given the effort.  At best, you're looking at 4/1/2
for Grasslands versus 2/1/3 for Ocean.  Over even 100 turns, I'm
unconvinced that's a good deal.  It would make a Very Large City strategy
more effective, though, since food is the limiting resource on making that
work.
        The best case for resource changes would seem to be that an island
or peninsula created in this way would allow Ocean squares currently "far"
from land to be turned into productive city squares with the buildings
which modify Ocean resource production.

>  Boats can travel within the diked area because canals are
> built within the dike system.

        That assumes the existence of the Canal land improvement. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

        One other thing I haven't seen discussed is who will benefit from
all of this Transformation, and that is: Players who are already ahead.
        Players who are under siege will not be able to divert great
resources to building new lands just to lose them.  Players who can protect
fairly large territorial expanses will be the ones who can use this, and
they will use it to concentrate even more units on continents where they
are not yet dominant.

        If I'm missing anything, please let me know.
-- 
Anthony J. Stuckey                              stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"And they said work hard, and die suddenly, because it's fun."
        -Robyn Hitchcock.