[Freeciv-Dev] Re: comments on ics solutions

[Michael Kiermaier <stud8707@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

martin olveyra wrote:

> Well, as you have noted, my point of view was always and is to see the
> realistic side of the problem.

in my mail i did not argue with reality because reality in freeciv is a
weird thing. consider this simple example:

a legion can move one square per turn. one square represents 10.000
square miles of land and one turn lasts 20 years at the beginning of the
game. so a legion has a speed of 141 (diagonal distance between to
squares) miles per 20 years :)

the main goal in my opinion should be to make freeciv a more enjoyable
(not necessary a more realistic) game. therefore many different
strategies should be possible and all elements of the game (including
trading routes, buildings, luxury rate and the space race) should have
their function.

mike jing's "persuit of happiness"-solution is a good idea how to give
the happiness-related parts of the game more importance. but i think that
it is way to restrictive in its present form, because it makes expansion
over a certain number of cities nearly impossible. furthermore it does
not adress the real reasons for ics. (sorry for using this phrase again
and again.) for more details, read my last email.

> Think about the roles of both small and big cities:
> The bigs cities are the economical, scientific, trading, political,
> industrial and development centers of a nation.
> The small ones are the productive centers, those who are near the
> sources of
> production: small cities are basically those who extract raw material,
> transform them in a basic way (low level industry) and export them to
> big cities for a further transformation (because of high industrial
> capacity of
> big cities) or for a further exportation to other nations (because of
> the high
> trading capacity of big cities). Another role of small cities is, for
> example, to maintain and watch a position.

i did not say that all cities must be grown to big ones. every player has
the possibility to found cities in an area with limited food.
and always keep in mind: a freeciv city does not represent a single city,
but a whole area of cities and towns.

> The variability in the balance depends mainly on the
> geographical situation of cities (including the availability of certain
> kind
> of resources an scarcity of others) and its social characteristics.

> If we take all this in account, and bring them to the high abstraction
> level of freeciv, I think that the balance between building new cities
> and
> developing those who already exists, are reached in a natural way,
> without
> thinking in artificial ones who, at the long term, always leads to a
> loss of
> balance when somebody finds the way.

> So, my suggestions are:

> There must be a bigger gap between the science bringed by small and big
> cities than in the actual rules. Because in freeciv the science depends
> on the
> trade, who, at the same time, depends on the tiles inside the city
> ratio, the
> relation between both variables should be less than the actual one (for
> example, 3 or 4 trade unit per science unit) , and extra bonus trades
> for each
> tile might be won for each worker in the city. This is not an
> exageration,
> because you won't have lots of big cities, unless you have a very
> developed
> nation.

science depends on more than only the trade points given by land tiles. 
it heavily depends on the science- and trade related buildings inside a 
city. and it makes much more sense to build them in a big city, because 
the profit you gain is much higher there. so i do not see a reason for a 
bonus on the number of workers.
i think that at the moment scientists are not very useful. so increasing 
their power should be worth a try.

> - The number of specials in the map can be the same as
> usual, or little less, but I think they could be distributed in small
> clusters,
> so, there would be less places in the map to build a city, but this
> places
> would be very strategic instead. Or, as an alternative, reduce
> considerably the
> number of specials, but increase its value.

sounds interesting.

> At this point, I suggest an idea that might not be accepted by the
> conservative wing of freeciv players: instead of each city extracts
> shield and
> food for itself, there would be a net flux from smallest cities to
> biggest
> ones; this is very realistic, and gives importance both to big cities
> and small
> ones, both of them having its role. So, bringing the reality to the
> context of
> freeciv abstraction, we have the following results:

> 1 - reality: the people tends to gather in few big cities.
>       freeciv abstraction: the food flows to the big cities making them
>       grows
>       quickly and the small ones slowly.
> 2 - reality: The raw matter or low level manufactured production goes
>       from
>       small cities to the bigger ones, which really make the highly
>       manufactured
>       goods.
>       freeciv abs.: the big cities builds the units, very quickly, and
>       in a
>       centralized way, and all kind of expensive improvements and
>       wonders that only has to do with them; small cities will build 
>       only some
>       cheap improvements, those which are justified for a small city.
> 3 - reality: The new cities are founded basically by people who leave 
>       the big
>       cities.
>       freeciv: The big cities are practically the only ones that can 
>       build
>       settlers, in order to exploit newly discovered or conquered 
>       sources of
>       shields. This has the advantage that the shield surplus of the 
>       nation
>       would be increased, but the science and gold surplus will be 
>       reduced.
>       Here is where the sought balance can be seen better. 
>       In this context, each settler can take one worker from the city, 
>       as now,
>       but I agree with split it in two classes of units: one which 
>       builds
>       cities, and one which builds road, farmland, mines, etc. Also the
>       fortresses gain importance, because, in order to watch a position 
>       in the map, it
>       is more convenient to build a fortress instead of waste a settler 
>       to build a
>       city where there are not specials to exploit.

it is necessary to take away two workers when a settler is built, because
otherwise one of the main reasons for ics is still vaild. as an
alternative you could take away the free city center, but i think that
would too much restrict the locations for new cities.
but, together with a constant granary size, settlers can be easier built
in big cities. this is exactly what you wanted...

> Well, as a consecuence of all this, you can observe that the 
> playability of
> the game is increased, because you dont have to pay attention to the 
> small
> cities, but instead to the big ones only. The production of units is
> centralized. The player losses the need to watch the small cities 
> constantly.

> All this with little change in the code. Only changing some parameters 
> (except
> the case of the flux from small to big cities).

your suggestions sound interesting. but i think at the moment fixing up 
the current rules should have a higher priority than enhancing the game.

~michael