[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Artillery and sea units (PR#1476)

[Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

scripsit Brandon Craig Rhodes:
 
> The one-against-one model is quite acceptable, and was not my worry;
> since Civ games are designed for expansion and empire building, it
> makes sense for combat to be simple and slow so that people are
> encouraged to concentrate on (what else?) building a civilization
> rather than massing huge armies.
[snip]
> Why not have the one-on-one rule work in the open fields as well as in
> cities?  The simple city combat algorithm, that deletes a single unit
> when it loses, could so easily have been applied to field combat as
> well.  Instead, someone wrote a more complicated version that iterates
> across a bunch of units not even involved in the combat and destroys
> them as well.

I disagree.  Turns are _very_ long in Freeciv, years long.  We accept a
certain amount of distortion because it is a game, not an academic
model, but anything which would slow combat down is bad.  As is,
military campaigns often last centuries in Freeciv.

I have two objections to this:

1) It is ahistorical.

2) Before howitzers, combat is very laborious and frequently
uninteresting from a wargaming perspective:
 a) Build many units.
 b) Throw them at the enemy.
 c) Watch them die.
 d) Repeat as necessary.

I would prefer campaigns that I could actually imagine occurring.

-- 
Thanasis Kinias
Web Developer, Information Technology
Graduate Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.

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