[Freeciv-Dev] Rules, ICS, suggestions

["Jussi Asp" <silakka@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rules, ICS, suggestions. ( long story, maybe worth read anyway.. :) )

Greetings Freecivers,
I've been playing Freeciv for a while now and am kind of bored with default 
rules, which prefer building lots of small cities. ( also called ICS ) Imo 
rules should be changed to not favor ICS, by fixing the reasons behind it, 
and also introduce new rules to make multiplayer games more interesting and 
balanced between players.
So I have written down some thoughts and suggestions on how to improve
the game. Freeciv is far ahead of Civ I/II in playability and interface 
already, and I think the rules are the thing that most need to be improved. 
I realize most Freeciv players are old fans of Civ I/II, like me, but even 
those games weren't perfect and Freeciv rules should evolve too. Biggest 
difference between Civ I/II and Freeciv is obviously that Freeciv is a 
multiplayer realtime network-game while old Civs were designed for 
single-player only and had no real-time element. There has been some 
suggestions on how to fix ICS, but Imo these have not fixed the actual 
reasons behind it, and those are what I've been here trying to find out and 
fix. Here's a short analysis of advantages of ics, some rules to overcome it 
and others to make game more interesting and suggestions on how to implement 
them.
ICS:

Some advantages of building more and more undeveloped small
cities / disadvantages of big cities.

- Settler takes 1 worker, new city gives you 2, which leads to exponential 
growth when always building more cities. This is the biggest flaw imo.
- City growth slows down always when it gets bigger. (granary size grows)

- With default settings new cities gets free production even terrain where 
city was buildt has no production (min_city_center_shield=1)
- New city is buildt immediately and gets 'free' road, which i think is 
somewhat inconsistent with other rules. ( settlers/engineers can't build new 
road in the same turn in freeciv, as they did in civII )
- Because of the way corruption calculation is rounded up, every
small city gets 'free' science and tax and this favors having lots of 
cities.
When I play, what I do is let city grow to size 2, and arrange
workers to put production as high as possible to build new settler and city, 
and repeat this untill I have filled land with  tiny cities. And when I get 
republic I help this by setting tax to 80% and start buying settlers. It 
really is a killer strategy, but I don't like it too much.
Rules:

So I have been trying out following settings, some of which I had
to hack in the code, as they are not supported by rulesets.

1. granary size doesn't grow, always the same as foodbox.
( done by setting option granary_food_inc        = 0
 in game.ruleset )
- to make city growth faster

2. settler/engineer takes away 2 workers instead of 1 ( this i had to hack 
in )
?? should this option be made to game.ruleset or make units.ruleset more 
flexible by adding amount of workers unit takes from city ??
  from city and costs 60 ( set in units.ruleset )
 ( either this or standard settler should build a city which only
  has 1 worker, which I feel would be too odd. )
- to prevent exponential empire growth with new cities

3. city, trireme, caravel, galleon, frigate, ironclad view radius is bigger
( city view radius I had to hack in, other can be set in units.ruleset )
?? is game.ruleset right place to put option city_view_radius, which would 
probably be better to have minimum of default city work area ??
- I feel city should be more easily defendable against land-attacks,
 and to balance things I gave ships a better view radius too.

4. city improments cost 3/4 of default. ie 80 -> 60, 100 -> 75
( set in improments.ruleset )
- this makes city improments more attractive to build

5. min_city_center_shield = 0, ie. city center gets no free production if 
terrain has no production.
( set in game.ruleset )
- i see no reason to give free production.

6. initially visible radius is 6
( set in game.ruleset )
- find a good spot for first cities easier, as it is more important when new 
cities are harder to get.
7. settlers have 2 movepoints, which means they also work faster.
( set in units.ruleset )
- you want to improve terrain / build roads when it's faster.

These rules already work very well against advantages of ics, and
instead prefer bigger cities. Main idea is to make settlers more expensive 
and powerful. And they're fun to play too.
More rules/features I would like to play with:


8. Possibility to set initial techs. I would like to set horseback
 riding to be avaiable at start, this would be consistent with settler 
having 2 movepoints.
?? server option, option to game.ruleset or some way to set techs in 
techs.ruleset initial ??
9. Possibility to set initial units. For example to have a few horses and 
warriors when game starts.
?? best way to do this - server option or option to game.ruleset ??

10. Many nations should be able to build the same wonder. Civ II was 
originally a single-player game and limiting wonders to only first builder 
brings great unbalance. I would suggest other players building the same 
wonder would have to wait for example 500years after building before it 
would start working. Player could allow other player, ally for example, to 
get the same wonder working sooner, in diplomatic meeting.
11. Ships should not see inland, only the coast, even when they have bigger 
view radius. I think this would make sense.
?? should this be default behaviour or option in game.ruleset ??

12. Rules should be changable from client, like server options.  Changed 
rules should be easy to spot when joining a server. It's fun to play with 
different kind of rules, but I think the problem now is it is hard to find 
out what is different from default rules in the server you just joined.
?? some way to see changed rules from client and marking not default rules /
server options red or something easily visible ??

13. Surrender, with units. Surrender-option in diplomacy meeting, which 
would give all the units too. I know it is possible to give all cities now, 
but this is ankward if you have a lot's of cities and wish to give them 
away.
14. Moving units from player to another. I would like to give some units to 
my allies to help them in their war-efforts.
15. New corruption-algorithm to favor building roads, and to not favor lots 
of small cities. I think corruption should be calculated from city's travel 
distance to capital, not flying distance. ( well maybe after discovery of 
flight.. ). And with railroads there would be minimal corruption with cities 
connected to capitol.
?? Option to game.ruleset ??

16. Building city should take one turn instead of being built immediately. 
This would probably be more consistent with other current rules, or maybe 
city should have road only after 1 turn has passed, like it's being built in 
first turn of city's excistence.
?? option to game.ruleset ??

17. Support of unit from cities changable / units should not disappear if 
their homecity is lost. Current rules offer very little realism ( where do 
all those units go? :) ). I think unit should start dying slowly if it's 
homecity is lost and a way to set new homecity should be possible.
( without going to that city )
?? option to game.ruleset ??

18. City improments shown in city-list. If I remember right this was 
possible in Civ I/II and I really liked it. Supported military units shown 
in city-list. This too would really help maintaining empire. I have many 
times forgot which city has my palace, and have even asked player with 
embassy with me where it is.. :p
19. Better diplomacy-dialog. I usually play with different dialogs in
different work-areas in kde or icefm, which I usually use. One has freeciv 
main window, other has players, science advance and messages and third has 
cities-window. So it's easy and fast to check and change things. I'd like to 
see diplomacy dialog open all the time too and change techs/treaties faster. 
With shared vision in the cvs-version, diplomacy with other players will 
become more important. A way to automagically open different dialogs to 
different workareas would be nice too, kind of integration to wm, but I 
don't know if this is possible at all.??
That's all.. :) Please do comment.

Jussi Asp



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