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

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

Apologies if the following retreads ground that others have already explored.  
I've only been skimming all of these "what to do about smallpox?" suggestions.  
If I repeat something someone else said, consider it subliminal flattery.  :-)

The core problem of Smallpox is that proportionately speaking, small cities are 
*way* too productive.  It's really not about population, it's about the number 
of shields you can chuck out per turn.  And secondarily the amount of money a 
small city makes, but I'm going to talk about shields for now.

Someone else observed that in the real world, podunk farming hamlets cannot 
chuck out Destroyers.  So, how about a city has to be a certain size if you 
want to build a certain kind of unit?

For instance, historically speaking Musketeers were *not* cheap.  
Nationalization of European treasuries was necessary to enable them.  In Civ 
terms, I think it's absolutely reasonable to say that only cities of at least 
size 8 can build Musketeers.

Riflemen would require size 12.  Battleships and Tanks would require size 16.  
Hey presto, now Smallpox is a valid strategy in early history, but Bigpox is 
the only way to win in the modern era.

Also, a unit has to be *supported* by a city of sufficient size.  You cannot, 
for instance, manufacture armor units in your huge city and then, under a 
Monarchy or Communism, farm them out to the village hamlets for support.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every