[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#4539) rules against smallpox (tutorials/nopox page)

["Guest" <rt-guest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, 
I haven't played FreeCiv much, but I like "civ" games 
very much. I have read Mike Jing's letter 
(on the tutorials/nopox.html page) 
and I think it is quite sad that he sees the smallpox 
strategy as an incurable problem of FreeCiv. 
Here are my suggestions how to solve this problem: 
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1. A simple solution would be the following: 
introduce a rule which forbids creating a city 
"too near" to the other cities. The minimum 
distance could be 3 or 4 tiles. When a settler 
gets a "build" command too near to an other city 
then it simply refuses it (exactly like it refuses 
the "irrigation" command when there is no water near). 
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2. A more complex solution could be the introduction of 
the following rules: 
- the "science producing" buildings (library, university) 
  need a minimum city size to be useful (ie. if you 
  have a library in a city smaller than 4 or a university 
  in a city smaller than 8 then it has no effect)
- a similar rule applies to the "commerce producing" 
  buildings (ie. if you have a marketplace in a city smaller 
  than 4 or a bank in a city smaller than 8 then it has no effect)
- in "more modern" times the productivity of the smaller 
  cities (which do not have the appropriate buildings) 
  disappears. Ie. after inventing University, those cities 
  which does not have an "effective" library will produce no 
  science at all. After inventing Computers, cities 
  without an "effective" university will not produce science. 
  Similarly, after inventing Banking, cities without an 
  effective marketplace will not produce any commerce. 
  After inventing Economics, cities need at least an 
  "effective" bank to produce any commerce. 

This set of rules could be extended if you introduce 
the "culture" concept of Civ3 into FreeCiv. The already 
existing cultural buildings (temple, cathedral, colosseum) 
would produce not only content/happy citizens but "culture 
points", too. The amount of "culture points" produced by your 
cities (per turn) would limit the size of your empire 
(and it should be a "hard" limit: if you extend over this 
limit by founding or conquering a new city then this 
new city must go into civil disorder and there should be no 
way to cure it except if you increase the "culture" 
production in your old cities). I think it would be 
a more logical (and flexible) "empire size limitation" 
than the fixed numbers described on the 
tutorials/nopox.html page.
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I have one more suggestion, independently of the above. 
I think it is very stupid that the Barracks are getting 
obsolete (and eliminated) and not the obsolete military 
units. It is quite absurd (but entirely possible with the 
current rules) that you have warriors in your cities 
while you are building tanks ("armor"). Barracks should 
remain the same during the whole game but when a player 
develops a technology which obsoletes a certain military 
unit (and he/she has such units) then the server should 
automatically activate these units in the same turn and 
ask the player whether he/she wants an upgrade. If the 
response is "yes" then the units are upgraded, if the response 
is "no" (or there is not enough money in the player's treasury) 
then the units are disbanded. 
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I hope that you will find my suggestions useful. 
Best regards 
Mr. Csaba Kecskes
Budapest, Hungary
cskecskes@xxxxxxxxxx