[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [SPAM] 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 03-12-07 you wrote:

>> >> - 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? :)

> Ok, I'll put it the other way.  This is stupid.  It will piss
> players off.  Find some other way to deal with smallpox.  It's not
> realistic, and worse, it's gratuitously annoying and tedious.

Why is it stupid? And it's not designed to kill smallpox. It's
designed to make ICS an option, rather than a must.

> Civ III is guilty of that in spades BTW, with their rampant
> corruption and revolt rules.  The designers thought it would be cool
> if only your cities near your capital are any good.  It is *not*
> cool, the player wants to colonize and terraform the whole planet! 
> Let them.

So why not doing it is almost a sure defeat?

> There needs to be a payoff for cities being bigger.  That's the
> core problem.  No payoff, no point.

The core problem is that ICS is the best strategy, because small
cities are too efficient. You can do it your way (make bigger cities
be worth *much* more than smaller ones) or make a lot of small cities
a problem.

It isn't a matter of pissing off. A lot of big cities wouldn't have
trouble with making enough bulbs to balance increased research cost. A
lot of small ones would. And, with current production rules, a lot of
small cities would have a clear production advantage in comparision to
a lot (but not nearly as much) big cities, so we really have something
to think about when playing -- whether to go for production or science?

>> 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%.

> If it's a relatively cheap improvement, like a Barracks, or
> Harbor, or City Wall (40..80 shields), then a smallpoxer simply
> builds "one of those."  Or better yet, buys them outright when
> they're wealthy enough.

True.

This means that improvement building rules are broken.

> That's especially easy to do in the current game, you really only
> need a 10% Science budget if you've got allies.

Well, that's not really a whateverpox problem. I'd say it's not even a
problem (but it may be in future, when team games get popular. We'll
see.)

> Best suggestion I can think of: implement the Civ III notion of
> "Culture."  Make larger cities worth more culture, and of course
> having temples, cathederals etc. are worth culture.  People make big
> cities because they're afraid of being acculturated.  Little
> smallpox farming hamlets should be easy to convert.

This is a good idea, if it is implemented properly so that a big city,
say twice the size of small city, would make like four times more
culture (or more) even with just one or two improvements.

One more idea I came up with just a moment ago: make building cities
cost money, and the more cities you have, the more money it'd cost to
build another. For example:

cities   | 1 ... 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ...
----------------------------------
gold req |    0    | 1 | 3 | 6 | ...
to build
next one

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