[Freeciv-Dev] Re: for discussion: ics revisited

[Gregory Berkolaiko <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> This patch limits the usefulness of _only_ playing with inifite city
> sprawl (ics) as a player strategy, without imposing artificial limitations
> like notradesize, citymindist and family.
> 
> It doubles research cost, and doubles the effect of all science
> improvements.

This should be played with.  Hard to say how good it is from the 
description.

> It also changes research cost calculation from civ1/2 standard, to
> techstyle 1, which makes tech cost dependent on its depth placement in the
> tech tree. This makes it easier to fill holes in your tech tree later on.
> Tech leakage is further set to 1 to reduce cost of techs when other
> players that you have an embassy with already have this tech. This
> increases the value of embassies and makes it easier to catch up a tech
> lag. But these changes are secondary.

Very reasonable changes.

> The AI at present doesn't understand the increased worth of science
> improvements, and this would have to be fixed if the above suggested
> changes should go in.

This is trivial to fix.  Less trivial is to teach AI to build diplomats 
(to establish embassies).

G.