[Freeciv] Re: suggestion: ships out of cities

[Jules Bean <jules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2002 at 11:08:47PM +0200, Per I Mathisen wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Jules Bean wrote:
> > No, the ship is in the port, which is at sea level.  But the city is
> > surrounded on all sides by steep mountains, which makes mounting an
> > attack almost impossible, and the cruiser can pick off enemy forces at
> > long range whilst they're still climbing down the mountains to mount
> > an attack.
> 
> Good explanantion :)

Thanks :)

> > Although I might favour a (hard-to-implement) restriction which didn't
> > allow ships to use cities as ways to cross from one ocean to another.
> 
> Not that hard. Requires Ross' ocean patch and an additional int in the
> unit field denoting the ship's original ocean, that's all. But is it
> desirable? I always thought of such cities as the equivalent of the Suez
> Canal, and a very good feature.

How does Ross' ocean patch work?  Global ocean numbers?  If so, that's
not enough;  it won't stop ships taking short cuts (such as a short
cut through barcelona from the med to the atlantic, since the med and
the atlantic are connected properly at gibraltar).  Notice that in the
real world most of the major oceans are in fact connected (so not, in
a usual sense, different oceans).

You need local ocean numbers, defined at each city.  Just defined in
terms of local adjacency.

I think the 'automatic' ship canal is annoying: I'd be in favour of a
ship canal as an improvement, though.  Only available to build in a
city which has two or more distinct local oceans, requiring roughly
railroad-level technology.

> > * Reduce ships firepower/attack when retaliating a land attack; they
> > can defend themselves, but not hit back very hard.
> 
> Quoth NEWS, on changes since 1.12.0:
> "Units attacking ships in cities double their firepower, while
> defenders get only 1 firepower."

He he.  I knew I'd read that idea somewhere.  Now I know where.

Jules