[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Submit patch again?

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:39 PM 01/08/15 -0700, Trent Piepho wrote:
>On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Miguel Farah F. wrote:
>> >> it one of its nation.
>> >
>> >    And the vicious Malthusian view:
>> >    Watchtowers are a waste of space.  Build a city! :)
>> 
>> You have just destroyed the entire argument in favor of a watchtower.
>> I am duly impressed.
>
>I think Tony has a good point there too.  Part of the balance in FoW for civ2
>is that you need to deal with watching your borders.  You can do this by
>sticking units there, but they have to be built in your cities and then have
>upkeep or unhappiness to deal with.  Units like a caravan or diplomat that
are
>keep to leave sitting around die easy.  You can build a city, but there are
>a lot of costs associated with that too.
>
>If you make something a settler can build, doesn't cost anything, doesn't
need
>upkeep or unhappiness or any work at all to keep around, then that makes
>watching your borders quite a bit easier.  I think the continued
popularity of
>civ2 is a testament to the balance the game had.  I don't think that
should be
>changed unless you come up with a good reason why the multiplayer nature of
>freeciv necessitates the difference.

To sort of hit on both sides of this, watchtowers provide little visibility
that isn't already present in the game. Thus they probably won't destroy
the balance too much but neither is there yet a really good argument in
their favour.

For example, I can stick a spy somewhere and I have effectively got a
watchtower. If I am worried about protecting it I put a fortress around it
and a defensive unit inside.

One might expand on the range of visibility of fortified diplomats and
spies, probably with not a lot of code tweaking, e.g. a fortified (as
opposed to just sentried (as in transported) diplomat would have the
visibility of a spy, and a spy one or two more range. The rational is that
these units when dug in, establish a network of informants and
communication channels, or techno gadgets that provide the several hundred
mile visibility that several squares actually represents. Since forts
within a city radius can be manned w/o unhappiness penalty at the higher
levels of government there is some control on the spread of these too far
beyond city borders.

It is another alternative to the "visibility" aspect. Personally I like the
infrastructure idea and the ability to "conquer" it, but perhaps someone
can explain a little more what this buys one?

Cheers,
RossW