[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Civ II player puzzled by ICS strategy (long)

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

K@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I don't understand what you are talking about. A size 1 city is not
> in revolt unless you do some military actions (in that case you can
> simply home the unit in another city or disband it to avoid unhappiness or 
> simply wait for the end of the military action).
It is true that this is not a problem with the default settings.  It only 
shows up with higher unhappiness settings (e.g. unhappysize=1 and 
#cities>citifactor).
> I agree that your deity level patch is an interesting alternative.
> Whether one likes to limit overall expansion is, of course, a matter
> of taste. Personally, this is exactly what I dislike.
> I find it rather strange and unnatural that you effectively need to
> restrict your empire to some number of cities, that you even need to
> destroy your opponents cities instead of conquering them to avoid
> passing that number. It also means that you need to spent a lot of your 
> time in mid-game on disbanding cities and happiness issues. This time I 
> would prefer to think about diplomatic and military strategies.
You are not alone in disliking this idea.  However, if you stop to think 
about it for a minute, you will see that it introduces much needed balance 
into the game.  First and foremost, it forces you to develop vertically, 
thus killing ICS.  War will come a little bit later in the game, and the 
playing field is more level overall.  Secondly, conquest becomes harder, but 
not impossible as you might have imagined.  It just requires different 
strategies that involve all major features of the game.  Diplomacy will 
become more important because military might may not be enough anymore.  And 
the space race may even become a possibility (imagine that!).  Most 
importantly, it alleviates the problem of "big gets bigger" by making 
conquest more difficult.  Rest assured that you can still win by conquest, 
but it just requires a different strategy and more skill.
Remember that the realism argument goes both ways.  One can go on forever 
about whether a larger empire means more unhappiness or not in reality, but 
that's largely irrelavent.   The matter of the fact is that happiness has 
been a non-factor in Freeciv, and people prefer to keep it that way because 
they do not "like" to deal with all the trouble associated with it.  I 
happen to think it is an important feature for balance in the game.  I 
believe Sid put it in for a reason, not as an afterthought.  It is an 
important piece of the puzzle that is missing in Freeciv for a long time, 
and that's not the way the game was meant to be played.
I know many people don't like to play the game dealing with unhappiness, but 
you know what they say: there is no arguing with taste.
> Deity also prevents you from building an empire which I feel is
> the underlying idea of the game and which I would  define by
> controlling a larger area with a large number of rather
> big cities (what I dislike at the present model is that the best
> and only way (until steam engine) is to build as many tiny cities
> as possible, what is so nice about "no central worker" is that it
> does not matter whether one has two small or one big city of twice
> the size).
No it doesn't prevent empire building at all.  Again, it simply requires a 
different strategy and more skill, that's all.  It also levels the playing 
field by limiting the initial expansion, which is something the "no central 
worker" approach doesn't do.
> I think removing the free city center is a simple, plain solution
> which naturally results in larger cities and a greater choice
> of strategies (you have a more balanced choice between building a new city 
> or an improvent allowing the old city to continue to grow,
> e.g.).
That's what I thought when I first wrote that patch, but I have since 
changed my mind.
> As long as the free city center remains, ICS is still in the game
> (namely exponential growth by building new size one cities) but only
> punished at some point (e.g. by minimum city distance
> or by happiness with the deity patch).
Yes, but it will cease to be a game-breaking problem, and I can live with 
that.
> Freeciv is both a strategy game and a simulation of the raise and fall of 
> empires. For the the latter aspect, I think the current
> growth model is very unnatural and an option for an alternative is 
> desirable.
That may be true, but I found the alternative I have tried to be even more 
unnatural.  And by taking on a different approach, there is no longer the 
need to change it.
> K
>
>
> P.S.: For the deity level to be playable, I think one needs
> the concept of vassal states that depend on a more powerful nation
> and transfer some part of their trade points to that powerful nation
> unless they revolt at some point.
I don't see any need for that either.

Mike

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