[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#8890) Removal of free city center

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=8890 >

> I played with this patch for a bit. I am not at all convinced that this is
> the solution to smallpox.

No, it's not _the_ solution.  Actually, it's only an attempt at removing
one of the most obvious advantages of smallpox.
 
> In the city dialog, you can no longer click on the city center to get the
> server to rearrange your workers. Instead, you can work another tile than
> the city center. Is this intentional? I would think there is rarely any
> reason to not work the city center.
> 
> With the huge food bonus you get from the city center now, you can settle
> anywhere. Specials become hugely important, and settling on top of
> mountains with gold or on top of bisons or other land specials is crucial.
> Settling on normal land, where most cities in the real world are, is just
> dumb now.

I agree.  It's probably better to force the city to work the city center
first, and still give each city a fixed food bonus of 2.  Specials would
still be very important, but settling on mountains would become impractical.


> I never played freeciv as smallpoxy as I did with this patch. Getting +2
> food production on a tile _and_ the usual faster growth rates (since
> foodbox size increases with city size) means that smallpox became even
> better.

The minimum city center food of 4 is too high.  And as I mentioned
earlier, settlers should be more expensive in order to slow down smallpox.