[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#3489) Patch to add new generator

["jjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 02:48:01PM -0700, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 02:36:41PM -0700, jjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 02:16:13PM -0700, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
> > > 
> > Do you still think that with versions 5 and later?  If so can you elaborate
> > on why you think it is artificial?

> I'm not at all hot on the idea of roads at game start. This veers a bit far
> from the idea of _map_ generation to me. 

The problem is that land movement without roads is really really slow.
On a 80x50 default sized map to move a legion from a center peninsula
at the bottom to a center peninsula at the top across pure grassland
would take 40 turns to get to the isthmus, 50 across it, and 40 to the
other peninsula.  This is one hundred thirty (130) turns.  By this
time, the other player has advanced to musketeers and butchers the
incomming players units.  Even with the roads this is about 45 turns,
so realistically, you probably are not going to launch an attack on
that distant of a player even with the roads.  However, the roads do
make a significant difference in how fast colonization goes.  The
settlers on the prebuilt roads can go about 3 tiles in a turn.  This
does tend to speed up how fast the players get close enough to
interact.  Generally you have met at least one other player with in
the first 5 turns.  Settlements start colliding with another player's
much sooner than in a standard game.  Without the roads, about the
only interaction that happens quickly is exploror meeting.  With the
prebuilt roads, settlers, diplomats, and military units all can get
somewhere without the player falling asleep of boredom.  

I have tried this patch with and without roads (it is pretty easy to
comment out the road building code) and I find the games are much more
interesting with the roads.  Non-trivial player interaction happens
much sooner, expansion happens quicker and the games feel quicker
since you don't have to wait as long to get anywhere.


> And it's awfully artificial.
Anything specifically that looks artificial?  I am aiming for the level 
of naturalness that generator 2 has, but with all starting locations being
connected by land.
 
-- 
Josh Cogliati