[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Blitzkrieg patch

[Reed Meyer <rdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
>  Giving extra movement for those very powerfull attack units with only one
> movement and weak defense makes really big difference to strategy. They
> need less protection since they can attack from afar instead of waiting
> next to city vulnerable to counterattacks. Also, this gives them
> additional attacks ("OneAttack" flag might help here)

Blitzkrieg comes late in the game.  (The original plan, as part of the
"Fascism" patch, was to come with "Fascism", which comes after Communism
and Democracy.)  Therefore, the only real 1-movement unit that satisfies
your concern is Artillery.  Possibly Cannon, I guess, depending on if the
player still has lots of cannons around or somehow he didn't develop the
tech for Artillery by that time.  But I can't think of any other units.
     The additional attacks is precisely one of the benefits I *do* want
with Blitzkrieg.

> > 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
> 
>  If players are equally powerfull and rather good players (so luck does
> not have overly big part), almost any wonder can have very big effect to
> results (if its only thing that differs...). Even with my weak subset of
> wonders, its not uncommon that some wonder changes 51/49 to something 
> like 75/25.

Not in my experience, and I've played many Civ I and Civ II games.
There's no way in heck, from my experience, that I could say that ANY
Wonder comes close to changing the winning probability to 75% for the
aforementioned scenario.  Nowhere CLOSE.  Perhaps you're thinking that
it's more like 75% because the nation who happens to build the Wonder also
tends to win the game in the end, say roughly 75% of the time.  THIS I can
believe.  But there is a subtle but important difference; do you see it?
The nation that builds the Wonder tends to win because he does OTHER
things right as well.  He smartly made the decision to build the Wonder
first, and it's likely that he'll make other decisions with greater skill
than the other player.  In other words, the Wonder could be a "predictor"
of who is the better player, and that "predictor" might have a probability
of being correct 75% of the time in determining the winner.

> > 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.
> 
>  Depends on world. With Magellan and pretty strong navy, you can destroy
> basicly all enemy ships aproaching your island. Thay can't escape you and
> you can probably escape them even with wounded unit.

But, keep in mind that with the 400 or so shields that you COULD have
spent on Magellan, you spent on something else, like a fleet of ships for
example.  If both nations have 800 shields, and Nation A spends 400 on 
Magellan and 400 on ships, but Nation B spends all 800 on ships,
Nation B will literally blow Nation A out of the water.  Sure, in the LONG
TERM having Magellan is better, and that's why it's usually better to
build the Wonder if you have the opportunity.  But having Magellan will
not guarantee mastery of the high seas by any means.  Here's an even
better example:  Nation A builds Magellan, but later on Nation B builds
Hoover Dam.  Nation B pumps out naval units like crazy, building them 50%
more efficiently than Nation A can.  Who do you think will gain the 
mastery of the seas?

Cheers,
---Reed Meyer