[Freeciv] Re: destroy a city instead of taking it over?

[saywhat@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Eddie Anderson)]

Ross Wetmore <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>This is a longstanding issue with the Civilization game as a whole. Over the 
>decades, there have been a number of solutions worked out using existing 
>rules, and in some case programmed enhancements.
>
>Of course, one would always want the option to activate such a feature in 
>the rules to allow player choice for solitary gaming. There are some further 
>issues with multi-user and competition games that that mean controversial 
>options are not always a great thing :-).
>
>Personally, I always go for an option system provided the longstanding 
>gameplay is one of the options and usually the default. This allows 
>experimentation, and certainly does not cause the anguish that neophyte 
>programmers often introduce by changing longstanding gameplay for their 
>limited reasons of the moment, arrogantly overruling those that have worked 
>and designed game options, play and strategies for considerably longer 
>periods of time. Getting fresh ofttimes good changes without being forced to 
>swallow initial experiments and misguided tries is the programming problem.

    Agreed.  I didn't mean to imply that I thought FreeCiv should be
changed to implement this "instant city destroying" capability.  I
merely wanted to know if such capability had already been
implemented.  I had looked for it, but failed to find it.  So I
wanted to know if it actually was in FreeCiv somewhere and that I
had just overlooked it.


>Some concerns to consider though are whether destroying a large city is in 
>fact a realistic event, and what resources might be required to actually 
>accomplish this. Certainly, doing this for villages and small towns is quite 
>a reasonable strategy, so a rule that applied until one could build or 
>required an aqueduct might be one sort of thing to be tried. Selling or 
>redistributing food as an order or diplomatic option without going through a 
>Caravan trade route path might be an interesting update to help with the 
>food disposal problem.
>
>Current strategies besides starvation which can be optimized to happen over 
>a small number of turns by things like "growing" the city until the foodbox 
>is empty, and then starving a city size per turn, include things like 
>leaving the city to be recaptured. After a couple of exchanges it will be 
>reduced to the small size that usually results in razing. Note promoting 
>tax, science or luxury during the starvation process is one of the side 
>benefits from currently usable strategies, as well as selling all current 
>improvements and/or transferring ownerships of non-essential units or other 
>assets.

    All useful techniques.  I find starvation to be quickest in most
cases but I like your idea of filling up (rather than slowly
emptying) a nearly full food box.  Realism is also desirable (other
things being equal).

    Thanks for your help.

Eddie