[Freeciv] Re: Speeding Up Games

[Daniel Herding <DHerding@xxxxxx>]

Hello John,

Monday, April 21, 2003, 3:41:36 AM, you wrote:

JW> Aren't there barbarian leader units?  Maybe each civ
JW> could start with a leader, and losing your leader
JW> means your civ is defeated.  I think it would be a
JW> nice touch if the leader unit got, say, triple defense
JW> from a palace, so he would spend most of his time in
JW> the capital city.

That sounds quite boring to me. Everyone would keep his leader in his
capital and stack some units there, i.e. it would be nearly the same
as your other suggestion (game ends when capital is captured).

So here is my counter-suggestion:

The leader is a 0/0/2 unit. He 'motivates' his nearby troops, i.e.
when a Phalanx is stacked with the leader, and it is being attacked,
it gets e.g. a 50% defense bonus, plus there is no 'killstack' (when
the phalanx is being defeated, the other units on the same square
aren't killed - like in cities).

When a unit attacks from a square where the leader is standing, he
also gets an attack bonus. This will encourage players to take the
risk of taking the leader to the front lines.
Other methods to achieve
this: give the leader a higher range of vision, or increase the odds
that a unit will become veteran when the leader is nearby. But these
suggestions are less realistic.

We would need a new graphic for the Leader unit. (the Barbarian Leader
uses the Diplomat graphic.)


Another idea is not to let the game end when the leader is killed, but
to make it Capture-The-Flag-style. The leader gets the same advantages
as described above. When the player's leader/flag carrier
was captured, the player has e.g. 20 turns to retrieve the unit.
Maybe show the position of his captured leader to the player (only as
a coloured dot on the map, don't reveal terrain/cities/units).
When an enemy ship which carries the captured leader is being sunk,
the leader returns to the nearest friendly city (leaders don't die
unless the player lost the game).

Problem: I don't think that the freeciv code is capable of recognizing
the original nationality of a unit (not sure what exactly happens
when you bribe a unit). It should work like a captured worker in Civ3:
When you click on it, it should say e.g. "Leader (Babylonian)(12)"
when there are 12 turns left for the Babylonian player to retrieve his
leader.


-- 
Best regards,
 Daniel