[Freeciv-Dev] Re: An alternate nopox strategy

[Terry Browning <terry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The initial idea was to have the rule applied so that the unrest is
caused regardless of ownership. It makes the change simple to implement
and understand, and has interesting (though possibly undesirable)
consequences.

If the Roman player creates Naples too close to Rome, then that's the
Roman's problem. If the cities are within each other's hinterlands, then
the player has given him/herself a permanent problem, unless one of the
cities is destroyed or disbanded.
It's a fairly aggressive nopox that applies early and hurts bad.

If Rome and Naples have different players and are allied, but (say)
Naples's player wants to end the alliance but wants the Romans to break
it, then a few of Naples's farmers could "accidentally" stray into the
joint hinterland and put Rome in revolt. The Romans either suffer Rome
in almost permanent revolt, or break the treaty. :>
This runs the risk of becoming a repetitive tactic, undermining the
value and stability of treaties. Therefore, I think the act of farming
joint hinterland (no-man's land/neutral zone) would have to be defined
as a treaty violation, and the automatic farmer-placement (e.g. when a
city grows) would have to be changed to take this into account. This
would also make valuable resources in no-man's land, such as coal or
gold, useless. YMMV.

Enemies would, of course, farm no-man's land out of spite.

You'd have to site your own cities carefully when looking at valuable
resources. If you site two cities close to the same coal, it will cause
extra instability whenever you mine it (jealous neighbours).

This proposal would change the tactics, strategy and balance of the
game. As such it could change the character of the game in unexpected
and/or undesirable ways, so should be treated with caution; although
this is probably true of anything efficacious enough to cure the pox.

One new seige tactic: settler-bombing (plant a new expendable city close
to a large and well-established enemy city). The new city wouldn't last
long, but all hell would break loose in the enemy city for a while. The
expendable city would be in permanent revolt, due to the enemy farmers,
so democracies couldn't do this; so that would alter the balance between
different political systems, though not by very much.

I've thought about this for a day now, and can't see anything (apart
from the treaty-breaking farmers) likely to cause boring, repetitive or
predictable gameplay.

--
Terry

On 10 Jun 2001 11:28:25 -0400, Miguel Farah F. wrote:
>  Terry Browning [10/06/2001 08:20] dijo/said:
> >I've had an idea for a different approach to nopox.
> >
> >The change is to count non-native farming within the hinterland of a
> >city as if it were population. i.e. If Rome has size 3 and Naples is
> >farming 2 squares within the Rome's hinterland, then the city has a
> >stability as if it were size 5. Naples's city square counts as a farmed
> >square.
> >[...]
> 
> Hey, I *like* this idea. It's simple and elegant. I'm trying to come
> up with situations where this idea wouldn't work, and so far I'm
> empty-handed.
> 
> The only thing that I can think of is this: should this approach be
> used in the same way if Rome and Naples belong to the same player, to
> two allied players or two enemy players?
> 
> 
> -- 
> MIGUEL FARAH
> miguel@xxxxx