[Freeciv-Dev] Re: More on (un)happiness

[Tony Stuckey <stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 07:42:26PM -0500, Mike Jing wrote:
> Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >We saw such a 'slowdown' change between 1.8.0 and 1.9.0 when cities 
> >suddenly had to have a foodbox of 20 before growing to size 2.  I am
> >not sure what the net effect was.  I'd expect longer games because you 
> >still need to develop the same number of cities, it just takes longer.
> 
> You are correct in saying that simply slowing down the game in every aspect 
> won't make much difference except making the games last longer.  The problem 
> here is that city building and city growth are closely tied together, and it 
> is much easier to build new cities than to grow your cities to a bigger 
> size.  That's one of the reasons why ICS works so well.  And the separation 
> of the city-founding unit and terraforming unit is meant to address this 
> problem.  Unfortunately, making city-founders more expensive will slow down 
> the game in general.

        And I'm really fine with the functional separation.  This is the
SMAC solution, so there is a supporting compatibility argument.

> Another thing to consider is to modify the growth model of cities so that 
> they can grow bigger faster.  But that's even more of a radical change and 
> has to be carefully evaluated.

        There are three current ways to speed up city growth.

        1) disband a Settler into a city.  This is inefficient, as you blow
40 production points + other side effects for a net infusion of (city size
difference * 10) food.
        2) Build a Granary.  When a city grows, the foodbox is set to half
full, rather than empty.
        3) Go to Republic or Democracy, and celebrate.  +1 Population per
turn.  If that's not fast enough for you, you have other problems. :)
-- 
Anthony J. Stuckey                              stuckey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"And they said work hard, and die suddenly, because it's fun."
        -Robyn Hitchcock.