[Freeciv-Dev] Re: buying cities

[Mark Metson <markm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> Mark Metson wrote:
> > But by then I usually find
> > even howitzers not much fun or use, too awkward and clunky,
> > easier to use spies and just buy cities.
> 
> I'm surprised if it's all that effective.  I've certainly done it in Civ
> II, SMAC, and Civ III - it takes gigabucks.  If it doesn't take
> gigabucks in Freeciv, if it's fairly convenient, I'd call that a design
> imbalance.  I think it took too much in the commercial Civs, but it
> shouldn't be basically easy.  One big variable is what kind of enemy you
> have.  A Monarch or Communist has always been easy to buy off, the
> farther away a city is from its capital.  But you're not supposed to be
> able to buy a Democracy, and I thought the AIs often switch from
> Republic to Democracy when it becomes available?  I've yet to finish a
> game of Freeciv, I tend to get bored after 3 hours and just quit.

I have yet to run into an AI democracy I guess. Not positive as I dont 
even bother to make an embassy until/unless I really need to know where a 
capital is to do a surgical strike on a capital. Right now for example I 
am at about 1890-something, on future tech 5 or so on a 100x200 world 
built by generator 5 with aifill 14, no huts or barbarians, starting techs 
0, AI skill level hard. (Maybe I should try experimental, I keep 
forgetting to try that having tried a a version or few ago and found such 
a level did not exist back then, I think maybe it does exist in 1.14.1 
though and might have in 1.14 ?)

I have only explored/conquered about 1/4 of the world but am #1 in just 
about everything (e.g. except pollution) and haven't needed to look up the 
Aztec's capital yet because first I am going to grab Adam Smiths and the 
Pyramids off of them, they aren't being troublesome enough right now to 
have made me worry where their capital is. Chances are good its one of the 
two wonder-cities I am gonna hit anyway so why bother. Though come to 
think of it starting an embassy is basically no cost now that I am susing 
spies instead of diplomats.

I can buy cities from most of the AIs for occassionally as low as 97 gold, 
occassionally as high as 600 or 700, I have seen one that was just over 
1000, most are about 250 to 600. I make over 1200 per turn as I have tax 
set at 70%, I only need 30% science to get research time of 3 turns per 
tech. Actually this particular game-instance is getting boring now, even 
though I only took 1/4 of the world it seems to be basically a foregone 
conclusion since some time back that I will win. I am building a spaceship 
though in case maybe the AIs might all start building them now that I 
resorted to the Apollo Project. I have stockpiled enough freight to buy up 
the Manhattan Project in a hurry if I am forced to but do not expect to be 
forced to, so am building the Statue of Liberty just for fun (for points 
as it were) not that I ever use it but just for conspicious luxurty of 
building crap I dont need. For same reason I am still building 
universities in my large cities that dont have them. Just in case maybe 
one day I want to do some "other world first landing" scenatio in which 
how many future techs I once had when I landed on another world might 
actually mean something.

I think maybe before I start another game I might try to get a tech tree 
that does have umpteen more techs, since ending up with a bunch of future 
techs that do nothing is boring. It happens so often it seems reasonable 
to do something about it...

-MarkM-

-- 
Got a website? Get 10,000+ hits a day FREE...
http://makemoney.knotwork.com/10000hits/