[Freeciv] Re: the struggle against city smallpox (was: Some questions)

[Andrew McGuinness <andrew_mcguinness@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 02:13:49PM -0600, Tony Stuckey wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 03:54:01PM +0000, Andrew McGuinness wrote:
> > Building big cities should be difficult, *but*, it should bring
> > rewards in terms of science and production.
> 
>       The benefit is in leverage.  Building a marketplace in a size 3
> city generating 6 trade gets you very little.  Building a marketplace in a
> size 18 city generating 30+ trade gets you a lot.  Same 80 production
> points either way.
> 
Exactly - that is fine.

> > The central underlying dynamic of ICS seems to be that even if you
> > keep food production steady in terms of surplus food points per turn,
> > you can generate workers in new cities much faster than in old cities,
> > because of the "scaling" in the foodbox.  What is the justification
> > for it taking so much more food surplus to produce the 10th worker
> > than to produce the 2nd?
> 
>       The reported population numbers aren't linear.
>       Just a first thought.

The thing is that the population numbers aren't really significant in
the game.  If you want to consider the 10th worker to represent many 
more actual people than the 2nd, then why can it only farm the same
amount of food, or mine the same amount of resources?  The game has
been deliberately balanced against large cities in this way since the
original Civilisation.

-- 
Andrew McGuinness     Luton, UK        andrew_mcguinness@xxxxxxxxxxxxx