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

[Jussi Asp <Jussi.Asp@xxxxxx>]

Hi,

IMO best way against smallpox is to set settlers cost 2 workers instead 
of 1 to prevent the freecitycenter which comes with every new city and 
maybe set settler cost higher too - 60 or 80. And in addition lowering 
the cost of city improments by 1/4 - 1/3 would shift the balance even 
more against smallpox, but you have to be careful to not make it too 
easy to build big cities, because they are very powerful..  I think 
these are simple solutions which work well. Separate, cheaper 
terrain-Improment unit would be nice though.

-Jussi Asp

Thomas Strub wrote:

>Hello,
>
>many people are complaining about ICS or smallpox. Me not, i like to build 
>cities like measles. But if want to prevent me from doing that perhaps the 
>following suggestion will help.
>
>1. Increase the number of shields a settler costs with every settler is build. 
>There are some nuances but they can be discused later.
>
>So 
>settler 1 costs 40
>settler 2 costs 40 + x
>settler 3 costs 40 + 2x
>
>And so on.
>
>With increasing costs for a settler its better to build cityimprovements 
>before building a new settler. Defending Cities will be more important because 
>if you payed for example 400 shields for building the new city you don't want 
>to lose it. 
>
>2. There are some open questions:
>
>2.1 How big should x be. 
>
>Think something between 10 and 20 is a good default value. As an option it 
>should be free to changable between 0-40.
>
>2.2 Should the number of built settlers be taken or another modifer.
>Ideas are: number of cities (= noc), built settlers (= bs), built cities (= 
>bc), active settlers (= as) 
>
>2.2.1 noc:
>With built cities alone players would stockpile mass of settlers to build the 
>cities in few rounds.
>Invading would give a penalty ...
>
>2.2.2 noc + as:
>This give bs + invaded cities - lost cities + starting settlers/cities
>
>2.2.3 bs:
>i prefer this.
>
>2.2.4 another weighted sum from {noc, bs, bc, as, ...}
>
>2.3 With increasing settlercost the unit which is making terrain improvements 
>is getting very expensive. So noone will do terrainimprovements. Should there 
>be a terrain-improvement-unit?
>
>3. Think i forgot something, but will be here for discussion and will try the 
>new option to see if it works or not.
>
>Thomas
>  
>