[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [SPAM] Re: (PR#7021) fighting ICS (was: allies give all their techs for nothing)

["imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7021 >

On 03-12-06 you wrote:

AL> On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 15:51:46 -0800 imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>> We have these ideas to fight ICS -- some change the petty variables,
>> some change the rules:

AL> Nice enumeration.

Thanks :)

>> - increasing settler cost with each built settler,

AL> Several implications:

AL> 1. I don't see any realism aspect.

It shouldn't be an issue, we're trying to make the game better. Life
sucks already, why make games as bad? :)

Agree with the rest.

[snip]

>> - increasing tech costs with every city (mine, mine! ;) I could even
>>   write a patch, I believe.)

AL> Uhm.. counter-intuitive? Realism?

Yeah, counter-intutive and unrealistic. I aimed at punishing players
who don't care to place their cities in good places, but also
promoting players with large cities (they would have lower penalties.)

[snip]

>> - having settlers cost 2 pop; splitting settler to settler/worker,

AL> Genereal slowdown. But since we have the nice worker unit graphics..

And it works in SMAC, IMHO :)

[snip]

>> Now we should analyse what are the benefits of ICS. There is one:
>> exponential growth in every aspect of the game.

AL> The benefits? The merry slugfest is fun :-) but it's also all we have.

And it quickly stops being fun. That's a problem.

>> Observation: To successfully combat exponential things, you need to
>> apply exponenetial countermeasures or change game rules. If it's true,
>> then we need to have some costs growing at a rapid
>> rate. Or change the rules.

AL> Assuming the defense problem is fixed, so that you can survive til
AL> later ages, we can increase the shields cost of modern units to match
AL> the production output of big cities with factories. By then, the guy
AL> with only small cities would not be able to produce units in due
AL> time.

AL> The current shields cost of Musketeers is only 50% more than Phalanx,
AL> but the light bulbs required is 11900% more. With luck you can even
AL> steal the particular tech you need. So I agree, we have missed an
AL> opportunity to use exponential countermeasures.

This is a very important (and really trivial) fact. Your solution is
pretty nice, but needs refining wrt history. In the middle ages (and
in the midgame) the production wasn't much higher (or was it?) than in
the time of Romans. I suggest an extra city improvent (relativly cheap
-- that's important!), for example a workshop or a blacksmith (or
both :), which would increase city production by 100%. Then we could
increase midgame unit shield cost ~2 times, effectively crippling
ics/smallpoxers a little (a little more if the horizontal guy has more
waste than vertical.) A factory could then be made more saner -
something like 400% increase, and the mfg plant maybe another 400%.
Making units cost 8x-16x more than they do now isn't a problem.

This of course won't change almost anything if it's the only change.
There has to be some waste in base city production even under
democracy for this to work.

-- 
{ Marek Baczyński :: UIN 57114871 :: GG 161671 :: JID imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  }
{ http://www.vlo.ids.gda.pl/ | imbaczek at poczta fm | http://www.promode.org }
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