[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#5437) wishlist: new unit, the worker

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

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=5437 >

> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=5437 >

I -love- the idea of a worker unit.  In fact, I tried this a couple months
ago on my own, having no idea it was actually in the works for the normal
ruleset.

I would support making a settler unit that is completely useless for
anything but settling, which does not have any upkeep.  If it's not worth
keeping around, giving it no upkeep makes sense.  I hadn't thought of the
high hitpoint problem (a problem because it gives a purpose to keeping
them around, meaning they should have upkeep), but I would think that
could be addressed separately.  In fact, if a "bodyguard" function is
introduced, couldn't settlers just be given 10 hitpoints like the other
units of their age, and be guarded when sent to dangerous areas?  (A
tactic that would also give a newly built city some defence immediately,
which would have it's own benefits.)

Having played Civ3 a bit, I made settlers cost pop=2 to build, and I
really liked it.  I found that it did a very good job of slowing down
sprawl, and encouraging growth of larger cities.  And the trick here, per,
is that when you can't build settlers yet, you actually build city
improvements.  (Especially when the same ruleset disables the great
library, the pyramids, Bach's & Michelangelo's, and the ability of
Caravans to add their full production towards building wonders.  When
nobody can build the pyramids, and large cities are a must, building
granaries in your cities starts looking better and better.)

Also, I made workers cost 1 pop to build, with no upkeep.  I ended up with
quite a few of them, but the competition with settlers for population to
put into them deffinitely limited how many I built. (While at the same
time, having them around and not devistatingly expensive to maintain,
allowed for much more irrigation, which supplied the faster growth needed
to build more settlers/workers, which meant that it didn't seem to slow
the game down -too- much, over all.)

I decided after some play, that I would definitely want Workers to have an
upkeep, but not a food upkeep (unless maybe it was nationalized, or would
be nationalized after you developed a certain tech, or something).  I
would like to try having upkeep cost for workers be 1/2 to 1 gold per
turn.  I think that would work well, because it would limit the total
number of workers you could maintain based on your national budget, rather
than limiting where you could build them.  I think that would make it more
-fun- for me, because I don't like running my country like separate city
states that don't know how to nationalize.

Adding a tech somewhere that improved your ability to nationalize things
would be very interesting, and having upkeep of workers depend on
government type would make a lot of sense.

Random crazy idea: give workers a food upkeep, but have any cities
connected by roads share the upkeep for their workers, so it's harder to
have a starvation problem, but you can get a generally stagnant empire. 
Maybe have it work that way till you develope the Telegraph (tech) or
something.  Who knows?  I'm full of crazy ideas!

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So um... limiting myself to the Worker unit and settlers again...

I really like (/thing I would like if I could try it) the effect on the
game with it set like this:

Settlers: Build cost = 30 production + 2 pop.  No upkeep.  No ability to
do anything but explore a little and build/add to cities (possibly only
adding 1 pop to existing cities).  Movement=1, (2 after a certain tech). 
Weaker defence (10 hit points).

Workers: Build cost = 20 production + 1 pop.  Upkeep = 1 Gold.  No
settling ability (not sure what I think about adding to cities).  All
irrigation/roads/fortress building ability formerly given to Settlers. 
Upgraded to Engineers which also couldn't settle cities.  Possibly
movement=2, possibly Engineers would have move=1 + [IgTer]
(explorer/alpine troop type movement).

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That's how I'd do it.  But what I really -reeeeaallly-  REEAAALLLY want to
see is...

I'd like to see all the players (who can't code C worth a damn) be able to:

A: edit all the rulesets.
B: easily save their rulesets (and server options) in such a way that they
can reference a whole -set- of rulesets (and server options) with one (or
a very small number) of pre-game server commands.  ("/set civstyle
raven001" or something, I don't know).
C: easily reference their own home-made "civstyles" or "ruleset-sets" or
whatever you call them for games ON THE PUBSERVER, and play with other
humans who are interested in testing something new.

I think that would free us up from a lot of bickering about what the
default settings "should" be, and open the door for a whole lot of
fantastic development, as lots of people try out lots of crazy ideas for
how to balance the game a little better (or worse, if that's their
thing...)

--Zack