[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#6170) Alternative city square utilizations

["John Wheeler" <jdwheeler42@xxxxxxxxx>]

[ue80@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Tue Sep 16 12:27:43 2003]:

> On Mon, Sep 15, 2003 at 08:32:45PM -0700, John Wheeler wrote:
> Why stopping at 4? Rom got resources from half of europe. I think a
> model like the cities can share fields and can use fields with larger
> distance could be fun.

I'm certainly not opposed to allowing more; my main concern is whether
GUI clients could handle the display.  (Smaller city radii should be
easier.)  I think some limit will have to be hard-coded.  But I do like
Jason's idea of defining limits as the radius of a circle.

This whole idea probably will work best when gen-topology is implemented.

Historically, though, I think Rome is a bad example.  While resources
did come in from half of Europe, the people who harvested those
resources did not live in Rome.  The current game models this in several
ways: pooling gold and research, having caravans build wonder, producing
military units in any city.  I think if we're going to have more than
that, a more sophisticated resource model is necessary.
 
>> I think an even better (historically) idea is having squares produce
>> declining resources the longer they're used. (This is the way gold is
>> handled in *nix empire and gold and iron are handled in Serf City.) 
>> However, this would require a much more sophisticated resource model
>> than is present in *civ.
> 
> Think that doesn't fit well with small numbers of production and food.

That's a large part of what I mean by a more sophisticated resource
model, having larger numbers for finer control.  (The other major part
is having more kinds of resources.)  Ironically, the easiest way to do
this with the present game is for food, by degrading the terrain.  So,
for example, after 200 turns of irrigation, grassland would become
plains, or after 100 turns of farmland, plains would become desert.

Historically, while food production has increased over time, that is
mainly due to improving technology; soil fertility has been declining. 
In fact, that is a major reason for the decline of civilizations.  Just
remember, Iraq used to be called the fertile crescent.

I will certainly admit that declining resources would make the game more
difficult -- in Serf City, it is entirely possible to run the game to a
standstill, where there is no more iron to produce swords and shields to
create knights.  However, I think that makes for a more interesting
game, when the built-in limit is not time but resources.

Again, this would best go in a version fairly distant in the future.  I
just mention it here as an alternative to limiting resource utilization
spatially around cities.

-- 

++JohnWheeler