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

["Jason Short" <jshort@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--On Friday, July 11, 2003 12:20:14 -0700 Guest <rt-guest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:

>
>
> 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.

There are really two concepts here: smallpox and infinite city sprawl (ICS).

Smallpox is the advantage gained by putting all of your cities very close 
together.  It's easy to make this an invalid strategy.

ICS is the advantage of always building new cities rather than improving 
your existing ones.  The player who spreads out more will always beat the 
player who concentrates on infrastructure.  This is much harder to 
counter-balance.  One way is to improve the quality of city improvements 
(e.g., make library give 100% bonus).  Another is to get rid of the 
"affect-all-city" wonders (like pyramids, michelangelo's, js bach's, hoover 
dam, etc).  One suggestion was to have the cost of settlers increase for 
each settlers you build.  Another idea is to increase the penalties that 
are based on the number of cities you have: e.g., unhappiness.

> Here are my suggestions how to solve this problem:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> 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).

See the 'citymindist' server variable.  But it defaults to 0.

> ------------------------------------------------------
> 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.

See the 'notradesize' and 'fulltradesize' server variables.  But they 
default to 0 and 1.

> 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.

In civ3 settlers take two population points to build.  I believe this 
counter-balances smallpox but not ICS.  And in my experience culture didn't 
counter-balance ICS either (you still want more cities => more culture).

> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 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.

Interesting.  But units get obsoleted so often this would make the existing 
rulesets unplayable.  I think it would have to be implemented as a "forced 
obsolescence", different from the standard upgrades - so that when you 
researched gunpowder (for instance) all of your outdated units were forced 
into retirement - but the discovery of phalanx doesn't obsolete your 
existing warriors.

jason