[Freeciv] Re: How to solve ICS - increasing settlercost

[Thomas Strub <ue80@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 06:23:44PM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Thomas Strub wrote:
> > You can't have one cityimprovement for all unittypes so there are
> > allways good units which could be build without the building.
> 
> Quick suggestion that would pretty much kill ICS:

Then there should be some units which need multiple buildings.
 
> UNIT          REQUIRED BUILDING
[..]
> "Fighter"     Factory
> "Bomber"      Factory
> "Helicopter"  Factory
> "Stealth Fighter" Mfg Plant
> "Stealth Bomber" Mfg Plant

perhaps + Airport

> "Cruiser"     Factory
> "AEGIS Cruiser"       Mfg Plant
> "Battleship"  Factory
> "Submarine"   Factory
> "Carrier"     Factory
+ Harbour 
Battleship + Port

> This is a very quick suggestion only, but note how you are going to have a
> hard time defending your new ICS cities and that you cannot expand without
> building in depth in your interior so that you can produce units capable
> of defending your empire. Relax too much on your improvements building,
> and you have no capability to produce military units to defend yourself.
> No more "100% tax, 50 cities, I'm Mr Invincible".

I think this change is bigger than the one i suggested. No doubt that
this will make freeciv to another game. But the problem with having many
small cities additional to the big ones to get more money and tech isn't
solved.

 
> > Its only 1 units where the cost is changed. The settlers. One small
> > change.
> 
> Hardly small. You introduce a totally new mechanic not seen in any civ
> game I've ever seen. That is not an argument against it, just an argument
> against "small". To the contrary, it is complex and untested.

There are many games with increasing costs of the main resource. 

And freeciv has this system on another part too. The techs. For every
tech you research the techcost is increased by a constant factor. So the
idea isn't that new. Only used on another part of the game.

> Though, a good thing to say about it is that it should work perfectly fine
> with the AI, probably without any changes at all. So if anyone feel like
> adding it as an option, I am not opposed. Just don't add it to the default
> ruleset any time soon :)

The AI at this time isn't the problem i look at. AI is poorly. And i
think the AI will perform better (the distance between a good player and
AI decreases) with the change i suggest than status quo.
 
Thomas
-- 
Thomas Strub  ***  eMail ue80@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nur weil das Aufzeichnen, Kopieren und Schnüffeln bei elektronischem 
Datenverkehr leichter als bei der klassischen Post ist, darf man es nicht
einfach tun.