[Freeciv-Dev] Re: city_incite_cost

[Davide Pagnin <nightmare@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2002-09-30 at 18:04, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Sep 2002, Thomas Strub wrote:
> > this is a new version of city_incite_cost.

I haven't read the patch, only the mail on freeciv-dev...

I want to remember that on July, I've posted a patch and opened a thread
of discussion on how to consider courthouse improvement and all the
corruption modifier in the ruleset.
Bug id 1762
ML thread is:
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00191.html.gz
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00205.html.gz
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00321.html.gz
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00332.html.gz
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00359.html.gz
http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/06/msg00362.html.gz

Perhaps that thread is only a little bit "in topic" on respect of this
patch, but seems to me that if we start to handle inciting cost, also
bribery of units, and related improvement and rulesets variables must be
part of the entire rework.

This means, obviously, more work and more time to do the job.
But IMHO modifying the inciting part of the game, is *VERY* intrusive in
the game mechanics, so if we want to make such a job, definitely we have
to to a complete job.

Anyway, as a general suggestion, I propose to have incite/bribing rules
put in the same file/function, so that we can modify them as wanted and
without having to change other places in the code.

> 
> This is a version that is cleaned up a bit and has the following changes:
>  - Removed my diplomat patch which was previously posted (one thing at a
>    time, please)
>  - Supported units don't cost extra: some units do not have upkeep, and
>    are thus not in the list of supported units, they would go cheaper
>    as defenders in the previous patch, which is bad. Also, ingame
>    it is always (correctly) assumed that units away from home cause
>    unhappiness, and unhappiness is the reason for incitement in the first
>    place

If we look in a Real World perspective, supported units perhaps will
decrease the cost of inciting if they are distant from the city, but
this effect is already considered by unhappiness, so it is ok, IMHO, not
to consider them here.

>  - Courthose now has double effectiveness (distance divided by four)

Per, perhaps you don't remember, but in a post about such (more ore
less) topics about the courthouse you replied to me:

"Gen. impr. should be extended to implement both cases. That way neither
aproach will be hardcoded and civ2 can have it its way in the civ2
ruleset. And we can fight about what should be the default afterwards
;)"

http://lists.complete.org/freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx/2002/07/msg00201.html.gz

At the time, I've not replied against this suggestion, because I founded
it reasonable... But if you want to fight, BEFORE gen-impr inclusion,
here I am! :-)

>  - Celebrating cities cannot be incited

Doubling the cost of a celebrating city, should be enough.
Not incitable cities is a gift of democracy, why you want to help other
governments?

>  - All values now multiplied by happy/unhappy adjusted size and divided
>    by adjusted distance

I've to read the code to understand what 'adjusted' means in this case,
anyway I hope that all modifier for distance/fixed distance, proper of
government.ruleset are considered.

>  - Happiness very very important to increase incite cost, as this both
>    doubles cost _and_ increases/decreases size multiplicator

If a factor, is considere *many* times, isn't a good choice, IMHO.

>  - Very large cities are now very hard to incite, while small cities far
>    away from capital still come at a bargain
>  - It is now more important to know where the enemy's capital is. This may
>    be bad.
>  - City improvements are much more important to increase city prices than
>    units. This is intentional and anti-ICS.

I like this! :-)

>  - Angry citizens bring the price of cities down to insane cheapness :)

Well, angry citizens counts normally as 2 unhappy, why in this case they
should be considered differently? (are they?)

>  - Unhappy cities or cities during anarchy go very cheap as well
>  - On average I think prices went up by 2x... maybe too much?
> 
> This patch contains lots of temporary logging stuff. Do not complain about
> style issues ;)

I would like *VERY MUCH* if all this 'new' parameters, to be considered
in the incite cost, can be tuned by a 'ruleset' file, this way we can
play the number easily to found a reasonable default AND we give modpack
writers the opportunity to use different settings.

(Not to say that I hope to maintain civ II compatibility, for the civ2
ruleset, in this particular topic...)

> 
> Please give it a try.

Scheduled. (There are other patches, though, so I'll ask to wait and
discuss on what to do, before going further on development)

> 
>   - Per
> 
> ----
>