[Freeciv] city smallpox syndrome (was: Re: Some questions)

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 07:26:57AM -0600, Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
> Reinier Post wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Dec 18, 2000 at 06:34:43PM -0500, Mike Jing wrote:
> >
> > > My sentiment exactly.  What disturbed me the most are the staunch 
> > > defenders
> > > of this strategy that I met in the server.  I am worried that people would
> > > come to accept that this is the only way the game could and should be
> > > played, while in fact it is anything but.
> >
> > No, it is often the only way in which the game can be *won*.
> 
> I think that's what he was getting at.  If you can "win" the game using a 
> canned
> strategy that only touches on 5% of the features of the game, what are the 
> other
> 95% of the features there for?
> 
> Some of us enjoy the experience of building a civilization.

I don't understand this response at all.  The effectiveness of city
smallpox isn't a matter of debate, it's a matter of fact.  Pointing out
this fact to newcomers isn't "staunch defense", it's an attempt to be
polite and helpful.  Under the assumption, of course, that most players
would like to be good at this game, and that to most of them, being
good means being able to beat opponents.  To me, spending effort trying
to invent and perfect game strategies loses most of its appeal when these
strategies are known to fail against the play-to-win players out there.

So the real challenge is to find ways of providing better balance
between strategies and game features even in human-to-human games.
Isn't this the problem we're trying to address?  It is certainly
the purpose of my postings on this subject.

By the way, even with the city smallpox strategy being spelled out in
detail on the website, it still takes a good deal of skill and creativity
to excel at this game.  Cranking our cities as fast as you can is crucial
- and this is what we'd like to change - but it isn't all it takes.

-- 
Reinier