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[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Patch: bye bye free city center
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[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Patch: bye bye free city center

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To: johannes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: Patch: bye bye free city center
From: "Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 22:15:59 -0500
Reply-to: mike_jing@xxxxxxxxx

On Wed, 13 Dec 2000,  Johannes wrote:

Even though this might be a good idea, I see this potensial problem. If I remember correctly, even if the first worker is unhappy when you found a new city (which happens often in civ2 on deity level with a large civilization), you can always remove the first worker (but keeping the central square, of course) and this will solve the unhappiness problem. If there is no 'free square', how do you intend to solve this kind of unhappiness? You can't starve a city that you just built!

That's a very good question. Fortunately, it's not really a problem, as long as you don't actually starve that new city, but simply render it useless until the unhappiness is taken care of -- either through martial law, raising luxury rate or other means. I have to check the code to see what actually would happen in such a situation, but it's not hard to simply keep the city from growing and being productive instead of starving it to death. And as you can see, this has exactly the intended effect of limiting infinite expansion.

That said, I think we (can I use 'we' in my second freeciv note?) >need to solve the smallpox syndrome. It just feels a little stupid to
develop a complex game aspect (citydevelopment, buildings) if the
'best' strategy is to ignore it! Actually, a good strategy game should not prefer any one strategy. There should be at least a good handful of different strategies (and different not just on the detail
level) that are approx. equally good, so that a player can choose one
that fits his/her personality. This would also help to keep up the
interest in playing the game, perfecting ones playing skills and
trying to 'prove' that your strategy is 'the best'. Also, the 'best'
strategy should depend on a number of factors, like if the world is
mostly land or sea, the average terrain, unhappiness, the density of
resources, riversquares, mountains etc. This way one would would not
be able to choose a 'best' strategy at the beginning, but would have
to reevaluate as the game proceeded.

I couldn't agree more. This is precisely the reason behind this effort to fix the "smallpox" problem because it has become way too dominating and rendered several major parts of the game completely irrelevant. The exact same problem exists in the original Civ2. The whole problem becomes clear if you check out DaveV's ICS Strategy Guide in Apolyton's Civ2-Strategy Forum.

Of course, this might be how you already play, it's just that for me
hearing so much about this smallpox strategy, it feels like it's all
lined up: just let those settlers come, no need to stop thinking
about placement and development of cities! (Sorry about the sarcasm.)

Unfortunately, that's pretty much what Freeciv plays like now, at least in a multiplayer game. It only takes one ICS'er to destroy all your carefully developed cities simply because he will reach steam engine way before anyone else, and those ironclads are more than deadly in a gen2 game, which is how most of the multiplayer games are played. This patch is only the first step towards a more balanced game. And I still believe more unhappiness is needed on top of it.

Not surprisingly, quite many people are opposed to this. During one recent game, the great Assmund offered this objection to my effort to slow down the expansion:" You know, historically, expansion is extremely important." Ah sure, but it also makes an extremely boring game -- Freeciv is now simply Free-expand and nothing more. So that's entirely beside the point. Others argue that slowing down the game would simply make the game last too long. This is indeed a valid concern, but I believe a long and interesting game is much better than a short and boring one. I would rather sit through an 8-hour game where there is at least a possibilty that my space ship would reach Alpha Centauri, rather a 2-hour game where the result is apparent as soon as the first ironclad appears. But again, that might just be me.

Mike

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