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

[Paul Dean <Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> johannes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> > 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.

I agree with this.  It seems clear that the way to fix freeciv in this
regard would be to make the city improvements much more powerful.
Opening up ones mind, why not make a library give five times the
science rather than 1.5?  Similarly with the other improvements.
ICS has discovered that the benefits of those things are too small.

> 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.

That's where you miss the point.  It certainly not "nothing more".
The main part of freeciv is the warfare.  Two people both playing ICS
strategy at some point go to war.  That's where it gets interesting
and the skills of the players manifest themselves.

> 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.

It's just not true.  Your enemy has ironclads, so what?  Let him
capture a city.  Steal technology from that city and then bribe the
city back.  Hey presto, you probably now have ironclads too.  Your
enemy has better production than you, so what?  Form an alliance and
launch an attack on the enemies capital.  Think of something to
surprise the enemy.  That's what warfare is about.

Freeciv is not SimCiv.  It is more than making a nice empire of
cities, roads and improvements.  It's a war game.  The ICS strategy
means that new players will lose quite spectacularly until they learn
to use it.  But after that they will still lose spectacularly until
they learn to express their creativity in warfare.  But that is OK - a
game in which new people can compete with experts is a game in which
there is nothing thing to learn.

Now I don't mind getting rid of smallpox, but I wouldn't want the game
to turn into an 8 hour SimCiv.  Essentially it is a war game, and of
course *very* few people can often spare 8 hours in a single stretch!

-- 
Paul
http://www.redeemed.org.uk/