[Freeciv-Dev] Re: civ3's answer to smallpox

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On Sun, Oct 21, 2001 at 02:09:30PM -0400, Ross W. Wetmore wrote:

> The real CIV counter to ICS was the corruption and unhappiness factors
> that arose with horizontal growth (number of cities) and were equivalent
> to many of the ones that people claim hurt vertical growth (pop per city).
> Freeciv has few of these basic controls, and a lot of esoteric hacks to
> try and patch up the symptoms.

I think this is related to the fact that Freeciv was designed to be
multiplayer.  With a timeout and other players breathing in your neck
you just can't afford esoteric limitations of the kind "at 13 cities
one of them becomes unhappy" - you don't have time to figure
out the exact rules.  Or maybe it's just me being lazy.

> Reducing the pop size at which cities generate unhappiness proportional
> to number of cities, or increasing corruption (loss of production) would
> far more effectively control ICS than the initial trade penalties. It just
> means implementing much of the basic code equivalently in both directions.

Yes, if this effect is really proportional i.e. no sudden jumps in effects.
 
> It is also quite possible that the basic corruption factors for primitive
> govermnments are set far too low in Freeciv, and the effective radius at
> which you can create useful cities from your capital is just way too large.

I don't think it is - but it's true that in Republic, distance to
the capital is no longer a real factor, and that it's too easy to reach
Republic.  One actual difference with Civ II in this respect is the layering
of techs into stages: you can't just head for Republic in Civ II like you
can in Freeciv.  But simply slowing down researchspeed in Freeciv already
has an impact here.

> It might be better to really discuss "all those arguments" and figure out
> where things are going wrong, than to dismiss the core principles of the 
> game in favour of massive application of unbalancing bandaids :-).

Most 'band-aids' I've seen applied take care to leave the default situation
the way it was, and just add more parameters for tuning - this way they
are purely optional.

> >-- 
> >Paul Zastoupil
> 
> Cheers,
> RossW
> =====

-- 
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