[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#6994) Wish List: Cities should see their whole city area.

["raven@xxxxxxxxx" <raven@xxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6994 >

>
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=6994 >
>
>> [raven@xxxxxxxxx - Sun Nov 30 14:55:53 2003]:
>>
>>  I'd like (an option) to have the whole city area become visable when
>> you settle a city.
>
> I concur, except I don't see why it couldn't be all the time (except
> possibly if a square is across the border or occupied by an enemy unit).

I'm not sure I follow.  I deffenitely meant cities would always see their
whole area, if you were refering to my "an option" comment, I meant that
this would idealy be a changable server option.  (I'm all about the
flexibility, one of the coolest things about freeciv is that you can use
the same engine to play some very different games, which is something I'd
like to see taken even further.)

>> On a similar note, having explanding national borders akin to Civ3
>> would be an interesting option too, at some point.
>
> For those of us who have never played Civ3, could you explain how this
> works?

The city area is the same as ever, cities can never have workers on more
than the 20 squares around the city just like in freeciv/civ1/civ2. 
However, there's a "culture" rating for each city (and nationally).  The
culture rating goes up by a certain amount per turn in cities which have
certain city improvements and/or wonders.  The main effect that has, is on
national borders...

When you settle a city, only the 8 squares immediately surrounding the
city square are within a border, and are visible and usable (though
sometimes if the city is close to other cities of yours, the borders will
stretch to connect).  That's your national border.  Inside your national
borders, fogofwar == 0.  When your city's culture rating passes certain
levels (10, 100, 1000, 10000, 20000 if I remember correctly,) the national
borders around that city expand.

One of the real kickers of this, is that you can't -use- squares outside
your national border, and you can't grow your national border to more than
8 squares around a city without building one of the improvements that give
culture points.

The other main point though, is that people get something important for it
when they build -up- instead of just -out-.  You often end up with vision
out several squares into the ocian around your empire, even if you never
build a boat, which means more advance warning if someone is coming
towards you, and a lot of tactical information in a drawn out war.

Also, if you have a border with someone else, occasionally cities with
less culture will rebel and offer themsevles to the other player who has
high-culture cities near by.


This would obviously be a big edit to the engine, and though I think it
would be worthwhile, my near-future wishlist item is still just to have
cities be able to see their whole area.

--Zack