[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Blitzkrieg patch

[Reed Meyer <rdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Pfitzner wrote:
>> If a
>> user insists on playing by strict "Civ II" rules, he can set the tech
>> requirement to "Never" so that it can never be built.
>
>There already exists a civ2/buildings.ruleset where you should 
>do this; also civ1/buildings.ruleset (at least so that these 
>rulesets will load successfully).

Good point.  I see no reason why this shouldn't be done.  In a "final"
patch, I can include patches to the buildings.rulesets you mentioned.

>A problem with this patch is that it introduces incompatibility
>for servers and clients which don't have this patch (see 
>common/capstr.c for how to address), and I guess for old 
>savegames (should be possible to add work-around I guess),
>and for other modpacks.

I'm submitting this patch for hopeful inclusion into the MAINSTREAM source
code as of some future release (for example, 1.11.6 or 1.12 or whatever).
Thus, the problems you mention are the same as would be encountered for
ANY OTHER patch to the mainstream source code; generally speaking, for
example, a server running freeciv 1.11 wouldn't be able to talk to a
client running 1.10, right?

>As far as the patch itself, I'm concerned about game balance,
>since this seems a overly powerful wonder...

Yes, I also am very concerned about game balance, and others who have
posted are too.  It's a legitimate concern.  Let me try to address it as
well as some points made by others in this thread.

First, I don't think Blitzkrieg is an *OVERLY* powerful wonder.  I did
playtest it with Juan Cortes, and Blitzkrieg certainly was helpful but was
not "all-important".  As I've said several times, I consider it a "must
have Wonder" like the Pyramids or Hoover Dam (those being my two favorite
Wonders in Civ II).  In other words, I go after it as SOON as the tech
becomes available, and I HOPE TO HELL no one else gets it first, but life
does go on if someone else does develop it first.
     It is on the same level as the best Wonders (Pyramids, Hoover, A.
Smith's, [insert your favorite here]).  But it is not better than them, at
least not tremendously.
     If you want, it can be "watered down" to a small extent by changing
the definition to "adds 1 movement point to any land unit".  The current
definition gives 2 movement points to units already having 3.  The change
would only affect TWO units however (Armor and Mechanized Infantry), and
therefore is rather minor.  (I originally gave +2 movement to Armor and
Mech. Inf. because I feel +1 is a rather small bonus compared to their
base movement (a 33% bonus compared to 100% for units moving normally just
1 tile per turn), and the "idea" behind Blitzkrieg was, after all, Panzer
Tanks speeding across the North European plain, so tanks, if ANYTHING,
should gain from "Blitzkrieg".  I considered giving percentage bonuses
rather than +1 or +2, but that proved difficult to implement reasonably
since at the end things have to be rounded to an integer.  Another
possibility was to give the bonus only to units that could already move at
least 2 per turn, but that weakens the Wonder too much.)
     The Wonder can be made more expensive.  Currently it costs 600, the
same as the most expensive standard Wonders.  It could be made, for
example, 800.  I wouldn't want to go any higher than that.  One problem
with making it very expensive is that only the rich ($$$ or resources) can
afford it, and so "the rich get richer".  This is tied to the game-balance
problem regarding Wonders that others have pointed out, which when you
boil it down to its essence is "the rich get richer" problem.

     In any case, to sum up my argument, I don't think that Blitzkrieg is
OVERLY powerful, at least not drastically more powerful than any other
Wonder in the game.  You might want to see for yourself by applying
the patch and playing, rather than arguing on theoretical grounds from
looking at the definition of the Wonder.  Believe me, I too am concerned
about game balance.  (I am also concerned about the proposed Fascism
government type being too powerful.)

     Most of the points for arguing against Blitzkrieg argue against
other powerful Wonders, and perhaps in fact the very concept of Wonders in
general.  In particular, those Wonders that are "eternal and global"
(to use Jeff Mallatt's term) are the most scrutinized.  Wonders such
as Hoover Dam and Magellan's (the Pyramids needs to be added to his list,
and is probably the most blatant example since the Pyramids can be built
very early in the game).
     The people who posted about this general topic (certain Wonders being
too powerful) have valid points, and I don't 100% disagree (the "rich get
richer" argument).  But let me try to explain a GOOD aspect about them.
It is precisely BECAUSE they are such powerful entities in the game that
they add a rich, fun aspect that the game otherwise wouldn't have.  When I
play Civ, sometimes my primary focus is making absolutely sure I build a
certain Wonder before someone else.  There are often some anxious moments
(particularly in the early stages when I don't have caravans "lined up at
the host city" ready to be poured into the city in one turn) when I'm
really hoping that some other guy who is building the same Wonder isn't
going to beat me out.  There's a lot of frustration when he beats you by
just ONE TURN (see below).  But I think that all tends to add to, rather
than subtract from, the game.`
     Yes, "the rich get richer" with Wonders.  But keep in mind several
things:
     (1) A smaller nation can STILL research the tech for a particular
Wonder before a bigger nation, and thereby build it (and thus profit 
from it) before the bigger nation can.
     (2) Any nation can always TAKE the Wonder by force, by capturing the
host city.  In fact, it's not uncommon for me to declare war on some other
nation that otherwise I have no quarrel with, only because they have a
nice Wonder that I covet.
     (3) Perhaps most importantly, Wonders help speed up game play.  If
you have a "stalemate" between several nations all of approximately equal
power, it could take a long time before a clear winner is determined (let
alone someone truly "winning" the game by conquering the world).  In this
sense, one nation whose power rapidly accelerates is a GOOD thing.  That
nation builds most of the Wonders, and its power accelerates even more.
The game is over faster.

     Based on this last argument, I think I'd have to reverse my original
opinion and say that "the rich getting richer" is a GOOD thing more than
a bad one!!!
     Keep in mind that in this thread, *TWO* different types of "balance"
have been talked about.  I don't know what to call them exactly, but let's
say one is "game balance" and the other is "balance of power".  What I
want is "game balance", but I don't necessarily want (and in fact, I would
sort of want to avoid, based on argument (3) above) "balance of power".
What I mean by "game balance" is, in a nutshell, is this: that a player is
forced to choose between several different plans of action.  The different
plans of action should be ROUGHLY equal to each other in terms of relative
advantages to disadvantages.  When I mean ROUGHLY, I mean "on the same
order of magnitude"; there SHOULD be one plan that is "slightly better"
than the next one, that the experienced player would take.  But the
choices should not be cut-and-dried, and would take time to weigh the
positives and negatives.
     Putting the definition of "game balance" into practice: the player is
forced to choose between building one of several Wonders, all of roughly
equal importance.  Or, the player is forced to choose between building a
Wonder, or an army that he needs to invade some island.  Etc.
     What I feel isn't so important is "balance of power" -- which is, in
essence, that all nations have an equal chance to win the game.  Once you
look at this statement twice, you realize this condition CAN'T be
fulfilled always, because SOMEONE has to win the game sometime!  (We don't
want eternal games!)  As long as a Wonder (or any other perk) isn't
INCREDIBLY powerful, I say "so what!" to arguments that "it makes one
nation more powerful than another".  That's what's SUPPOSED to happen with
Wonders or other perks, and becoming more powerful than the next guy is
the player's general goal!  The question then becomes what is the working
definition of "isn't INCREDIBLY powerful".  I would say "anything that
doesn't instantly determine the fate of the game within the next few
turns".  In other words, anything that doesn't make the player an "instant
winner" (to use a phrase from the lottery/sweepstakes world).  If Nation A
and Nation B are equal, and Nation A suddenly got a great Wonder, well,
it wouldn't be a bad thing unless that meant that the chance of Nation A
winning the game suddenly jumped from 50% to nearly 100%.  If the chance
of winning went from 50% to 51% or 52%, which is how I would characterize
even the best actual Wonders in the game, then it's no big deal.  By this
definition, the Wonders aren't anywhere CLOSE to being "incredibly
powerful".  Nation B can still win, especially if he's the more
experienced strategist.  Take for example, Jeff's example of Magellan's
Expedition, which he feels "quite unbalancing".  This is an appropriate
example because Blitzkrieg is the land-based equivalent of Magellan's.  Do
you think that if Nation A's boats suddenly got to move 1 or 2 extra tiles
per turn, its chance of winning would climb to anywhere near 100%?  I
would argue that it's more like a 1%, possibly 2% at most, effect.

     Before I wrap up this message, I'd like to second a proposal made
in some other thread about adding the "number of resources
completed/remaining" for any Wonder being built, in the Wonders of the
World screen (F7 key).  It would help take away some of the anxiety about
"am I going to be able to finish this Wonder in time"?  (It can still be
defeated by a player/AI dumping multiple caravans into the host city.)  I
can understand arguments for not adding such information to the Wonders
screen, if you think it's unrealistic that one nation should know EXACTLY
how many resources another nation has invested in a Wonder (without a spy
infiltrating the city).  If so, perhaps a good compromise would be to show
how many TURNS (years) the city has been chugging away at that Wonder.
(Since this information CAN be figured out by the player, if he cares to
scroll back through the messages and see what year a "the [xxx
civilization] is now building the [xxx wonder]" message appears.)

Cheers,
---Reed Meyer
   please respond to rdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx