[Freeciv] Re: Some questions

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Niels Weber <nath@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From what I read there, it doesn't seem to be a great idea to kill the free 
> city centre.
As far as I can see, removing the free city center goes right to the heart 
of the problem.  Of course, I would be very glad to hear any counter 
arguments.
> Another idea came to my mind as I was reading the articles:
> We could introduce a tech-maintenance-penalty. For say every ten techs you 
> researched, every city will produce one less science (used
> or teaching the people). But if you build a library (university, research 
> lab), this effect disappears.
Not a bad idea, but it feels a bit contrived, as many of the ideas on the 
forums are, and it is not clear whether it would work or not.  I would much 
prefer a simpler solution.
> So for every ten techs, you would have to build at least a library. And 
> when you've started building improvements in a city, it's often wise to let 
> it grow to get more out of them.
That was the general idea I was trying to push earlier elsewhere, but 
apparently the reward is not big enough to be worth the effort under the 
current system.
> So there would still be many small cities, but
> your main cities will grow to large cities with improvements. I think
> this would be realistic as most cities are small.
The realism argument can only go so far.  I don't think the population model 
in Freeciv is detailed enough to be able to reflect such realism, and it 
doesn't have to.   For example, it has no provisions to merge small towns 
into larger cities, as often happens in real life.  In essense, the rural 
population is still considered to be within the "city radius", and it works 
pretty well as it is.  Since the city radius covers a quite large area, I 
don't think it is unrealistic at all.
Mike


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