[Freeciv] 3 city maximum? (long)

[saywhat@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Eddie Anderson)]

    Is anyone else like me?  I play Freeciv (FC) exclusively in
single-player mode (like Civ2).  Furthermore, I dislike managing
large numbers of cities.  In the following post, I'll describe some
of the server settings that I use to try to make such games more
balanced and enjoyable. 

    I have tried to play FC while managing a large empire.  I have
even finished games where I've had 8, 12, or even 20 cities.  But I
found that those games were more like work than fun.

    I have also played numerous games of FC (and Civ2) with very few
cities.  Generally, I liked those games more than the large empire
games - plus they were quicker.

    By playing those games, I found that, for me, one city empires
are *too* small.  Two city empires are better, but usually still too
restrictive.  Three city empires provide a nice balance between
flexibility, providing the ability to work on multiple objectives at
once (a different objective in each city), and staying within my
tolerance for micromanagement work.

    Playing this way, the behavior of the AI determines whether the
game will be challenging (or even interesting) or not.  The FC AI
does some things well, other things poorly.  The trick is to find
a balance where the AI's faults don't ruin the game and the AI's
strengths don't overwhelm my empire.

    One thing the FC AI does well is to pursue an Infinite City
Sprawl (ICS) strategy.  By using the ICS strategy, the AI is able to
do research quickly.  On even the smallest maps, the AI will build
dozens of cities if left unchecked.  Each additional city
contributes to the AI empire's research effort.

    The AI's ICS strategy presents a problem for me and my 3 cities.
My research level will quickly fall behind the AI's.  Consequently,
the AI will frequently be able to attack my cities with chariots and
catapults before I've even finished building city walls.  The game
will be over before it has really begun.

    To prevent that, I tried adjusting the server options.  Setting
cityfactor to 6 and unhappysize to 1 prevents the AI from overwhelm-
ing my empire.  However, it has a side-effect:  the AI starts out
strong but eventually becomes ineffective.  The problem is that the
AI continues founding more cities even when it shouldn't.  Once the
AI builds its 3rd or 4th city, many of its cities get another
unhappy citizen and then fall into civil disorder.

    When that happens, production stops.  Research stops.  At that
point, the AI's empire is essentially paralyzed.  The AI apparently
isn't smart enough to operate an empire with an extra unhappy
citizen in each city.  From that point on, my three city empire will
catch up and pass the AI in research, production, etc. without any
effective challenge by the AI.  And that kind of game is not much
fun either.

    So where's the middle ground?  Is there a middle ground?  How
can I adjust the server options to prevent the AI from building
dozens of cities yet keep the AI from paralyzing itself?  I've
done a lot of experiments to try to solve this problem.  Here is
a set of server settings that I've found useful:

1) Play on very small maps - "size 1".  This produces a 40x25 map.

2) Landmass around 60.  "Gen 3" (or 2).  Keeps the AI players on
   their own islands (and away from your cities for awhile).

3) "Citymindist 4" (or 5 or 6).  The higher the number, the fewer
   cities the AIs will be able to build.  The tradeoff is that
   placement of cities becomes critical.

   E.g. With citymindist set to 6, on an island that's roughly 7x7,
   you might have room for only one city if its placed near the
   middle of the island.  However, if you place cities near the
   edges of the island, you might have room for 4 cities.

   Worse, given the small "seas" between some islands, another
   empire's city placement (on a nearby island) could prevent you
   from placing your city where you would like to on your island.

4) AI Teams - the effect of these is to keep the AIs busy attacking
   each other for awhile (giving you time to build some defenses).

   These are the team related server commands that I include in a
   script file:

     set maxpl 7
     set aifill 7
     create ai1
     create ai2
     create ai3
     create ai4
     create ai5
     create ai6

     team ai1 team1
     team ai2 team1
     team ai3 team1
     team ai4 team1
     team ai5 team2
     team ai6 team2

   The purpose of dividing the AIs into two unequal teams is twofold:

   1) Delaying the AIs' attacks on your empire

   2) Ensuring that at least one AI empire will *eventually* attack
      you.

      #1) happens because Teams pool their research.  Consequently,
      these AI teams generally research new techs faster than
      individual (un-teamed) players (like you).  Also, the AIs seem
      to use research level as a significant factor in deciding
      which empire to attack.

      So two things happen.  First, both AI teams quickly achieve a
      higher research level than you.  Second, each AI team, when
      choosing who to attack, sees the other AI as a more attractive
      target than you.

      #2) happens because the 4-player AI team should eventually
      conquer the 2-player AI team.  When that happens, the
      4-player AI team will turns its attention to you.

5) set "startunits cx" - i.e. one explorer and one settler.  Having
   one settler instead of two helps slow down the AIs rapid early
   game expansion.

6) set "cityfactor 100" - no need to limit the number of AI cities via
   unhappiness penalties because citymindist combined with the small
   map does that.

7) "unhappysize 2" - limits the size of AIs' cities to ~3 until they
   build at least a temple.


    That's all.  These settings used to provide me with a decent
challenge while not demanding lots of micromanagement.

    I say "used to" because some of those server cmds may be
obsolete by now.  It has been 3 months or more since I last finished
a game of FC.  Those server settings worked back then.  But my
script file (which the above cmds are part of) is incompatible with
the 2.0.0 Beta 2 version.

    Since then the developers have done a lot of work improving FC.
In the process many of the server cmds and ruleset options have
changed (e.g. "size" replaced "xsize" and "ysize"; "startunits"
replaced "settlers" and "explorers").


    Still, even when these settings all work, the resulting game is
a compromise.  Building military units and conquering other players,
while sometimes necessary, is not the kind of FC game that I really
want to play.

    The FC game that I really want to play is a race - be the first
player to build a wonder, then another, and another.  Then,
ultimately, be the first player to land a space ship on Alpha
Centauri.  Alas, the last time I played a CVS version of FC, the AI
didn't even have sufficient attention span to build a single WoW,
let alone build a space ship.

    Instead the AI kept starting to build a wonder, then a few turns
later, it would stop.  So racing the AI to build a WoW was
pointless.  The AI wasn't likely to finish building *any* wonder
before I'd finished a half dozen (or more) of them.

    Maybe the AI has improved since then.  Based on the msgs I've
read in AI mailing list, the developers have fixed many AI bugs over
the last few months.  In addition, they've made many under-the-hood
improvements that make FC more customizable.

    The developers have a tough job because FC is many different
games in one.  For me, FC is single-player, turn based game.
For others, FC is multiplayer, real-time game.  The developers are
trying to make FC work for both types of players.

    I hope my post has been helpful to someone.  If anyone else has
suggestions on how to make FC more enjoyable while managing just a
handful of cities, please post them.  Thanks.

Eddie