What kind of changes does LT40 have

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Corbeau
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by Corbeau »

Well, citymindist needs to be, at most, minimum city range +1. I think it's obvious why, I can explain if it isn't.

Governments... Technically, all post-MiddleAges governments have a history of relative stability on larger scales. NOT Despotism. No, I don't think the governments are the issue. It's the internal organisation, the executive decisions, the policy. Wonders are unique and can't be removed and are thus irreversible, so maybe...

Would it be possible to have a city improvement (let's call it X) have a global effect, with more Xs in more cities not meaning anything, so they do NOT accumulate/add? So, basically, same as wonders, only they CAN be sold?

Actually, if accumulation from multiple improvements can't be solved, then make Palace a prerequisute for such improvements so they can only be built in one citsy - capital. Yes, very much an attack bait, but still.

Then those improvements can be used as "sub-government", giving both social bonuses and penalties, allowing multiple combinations of political and economic systems.

Yes, maybe the upcoming games are coming too soon to test all this, but maybe dedicate one game to testing something like this?

As for making global conquest less likely, whenever there is a problem like that, I say: look at reality. And the reality is, permanent wars are costly, they simply require too much logistics to be possible. So, basically, make the MAINTENANCE cost of units larger, especially the late ones. What we have, in effect, is that a local gang of rabble (Warriors) has the same maintenance cost as a Howitzer. Not realistic at all. VERY unrealistic.

What conquers continents here are Armour floods and Howitzer floods and they happen because, with a city size 20, factory and a plant, the city has production 50 and can maintain 20 Armour and Howitzer units without a hiccup, can still build any improvement in less than 5 turns and a Freight every 2nd turn. Well, there's your problem.
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wieder
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by wieder »

I've now changed the citymindist to 5 so that it's minimum city range (3) + 1 + 1. It's now the same as it was in LT38. With the difference that the cities can grow the work area at a later time.

Mass transit is now available with rails, adds sqr(9) to city working area. Resource agency adds now sqr(9) instead of sqr(18). Need to test if 9+9 is sqr(18) and not sqr(9) + sqr(9) :D Anyway, the city working radius now grows is 2 steps.

The city improvements could work as gov changing tools but this would definitely look like a gludge and wouldn't be that elegant solution. I proposed something like that in the past and the feedback wasn't that good :P In any case we can test something like that. How about setting federation as a "big" gov for LT40 and with some penalties for not making it too easy?

The upkeep is indeed the same for all units. Unfortunately there is no way around this. At least not one I'm aware of. Setting high maintenance would kill the early game or in the late game it has very little effect. Hard to say what to do with it.
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Corbeau
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

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wieder wrote:I've now changed the citymindist to 5 so that it's minimum city range (3) + 1 + 1. It's now the same as it was in LT38. With the difference that the cities can grow the work area at a later time.
If you do this, then there is no way that "build A B C, when A and C grow, disband B" is going to happen. Which would be bad because that is the true dynamics of a civilization: cities grow and merge. With such minimum distance, when yuo build a city, that's it.
Mass transit is now available with rails, adds sqr(9) to city working area. Resource agency adds now sqr(9) instead of sqr(18). Need to test if 9+9 is sqr(18) and not sqr(9) + sqr(9) :D Anyway, the city working radius now grows is 2 steps.
What does the code look like?

And no, Mass Transit with Railroad is not good. The difference is at least 100 years.

What's wrong with more steps for a city radius growth and what's wrong with some of the steps being triggered by a tech, not necessarily a city improvement?
The city improvements could work as gov changing tools but this would definitely look like a gludge and wouldn't be that elegant solution.
I don't see why. Ok, if a number of people don't like it, that's a pointer, but I still think it's worth a try. For example, keep government a political thing (Despotism, Republic, Monarchy, Dictatorsihp, Democracy) and economy a matter of "Projects" (Market economy, Planned economy, Green economy, Mutualism...) to be built in the capital.
I proposed something like that in the past and the feedback wasn't that good :P In any case we can test something like that. How about setting federation as a "big" gov for LT40 and with some penalties for not making it too easy?
Well, the problem is that Civilization doesn't distinguish political system and economic system. Federation doesn't have double trade as Democracy and Republic which makes it very handicapped in mid-to-late game. (And the government itself doesn't make sense: a Federation can be Communist, Democratic, Republican... But yeah, that's for a later discussion.)
But keeping in mind taht this is a temporary patch, let's see.

If it's Federation, then corruption/waste increase with distance from the centre doesn't make sense. Federation is supposed to be decentralised. I'm not saying decrease it, I'm saying eliminate it. There would still be base corruption/waste to play with.

If it's a Federation, trade should be a-boomin'. But since giving it +1 trade per tile as Republic/Democracy would make it too strong, let's try:
- max tax/sci: 60%, maybe even 50% (less control by the central government)
- cheaper building upkeep, whatever, percentage, amount, just make it meaningful (because part of the funds is being spent by local authorities on local matters - this also explains no +1 trade; actually, there IS +1 trade, but "it doesn't reach the government, but instead stays in local communities so you don't see it")
- more bulbs, say, from libraries; mechanical reason: to further compensate for "no +1 trade"; in-game reason, say, local culture(s) make an effort to keep their part of the federation modern and not lag behind others
- more unhappiness when military units leave territory
Maybe some other things, too.
The upkeep is indeed the same for all units. Unfortunately there is no way around this. At least not one I'm aware of. Setting high maintenance would kill the early game or in the late game it has very little effect. Hard to say what to do with it.
Excuse me?
[unit_armor]
name = _("Armor")
class = "Big Land"
tech_req = "Mobile Warfare"
obsolete_by = "None"
graphic = "u.armor"
graphic_alt = "-"
sound_move = "m_armor"
sound_move_alt = "m_generic"
sound_fight = "f_armor"
sound_fight_alt = "f_generic"
build_cost = 90
pop_cost = 0
attack = 10
defense = 5
hitpoints = 30
firepower = 1
move_rate = 6
vision_radius_sq = 2
transport_cap = 0
fuel = 0
uk_happy = 1
uk_shield = 1
uk_food = 1
uk_gold = 1

flags = ""
roles = "DefendOk", "AttackFast", "Hunter"
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by wieder »

Why wouldn't A+B+C = A+C happen with citymindist 5? Or why couldn't it happen?

Don't know about the code. Easier to check with local test game about the sqr(9)+sqr(9).

Mass transit / rails. Both have been evolving for a long time and rails is kind of one implementation of mass transit systems. I'd say it's correct enough while not really accurate. Also depends on what one means with mass transit. With rails it's obviously something different but should allow people to be transported to do work further away.

We may try improvement system for economy but that's for another game, yeah. Too much planning is involved for LT40.

The government with lots of cities should have some serious penalties. I'm sure some people could win the game even now by switching to anarchy after getting 25 cities. Definitely no trade penalty. I'm fairly sure federation is already too powerful if it can easily have more than 22-29 cities

Excuse... Oops :) Yes there apparently is. I've seen that so many times and still can't remember it's there. Now the hard part. Planning the costs for each unit. It's lots of work to make it balanced. Probably also not for LT40. Unfortunately. But there will be next "more experimental" game.
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Corbeau
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

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wieder wrote:Don't know about the code. Easier to check with local test game about the sqr(9)+sqr(9).
What do you mean "you don't know about the code"? Well who made it?

C'mon, man, I'm trying to steal some code and ideas here, can't an honest thief have some help?

Oh, did you think that I asked about the CODE code? no, I mean the ruleset code where you adjusted city radius.
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by Corbeau »

Oh, just realised I'm due some answers.
wieder wrote:Why wouldn't A+B+C = A+C happen with citymindist 5? Or why couldn't it happen?
Because, with sqr(18), this would mean that there would be a lot of unused space between A and C which would mean disbanding B unfeasible.
Mass transit / rails. Both have been evolving for a long time and rails is kind of one implementation of mass transit systems. I'd say it's correct enough while not really accurate. Also depends on what one means with mass transit. With rails it's obviously something different but should allow people to be transported to do work further away.
I'm sorry, but what did you just write here?

Let's try again.

I said "in human history, invention of railroad (technical invention) came at least 100 years before the utilization of mass transit (organisation of transport)".

Now you :)
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by wieder »

Yeah, the code code :)

I need to test how it works. Didn't do that yet. Was today in the woods doing... stuff :)

With citymindist 5 and extended working are it may be a good idea to disband some cities. Or maybe not. That remains to be seen.

Mass transit as moving people... Mass transit building could also be called something else or it could be maybe added with electricity. In any case from gaming point of view it should be added around that time. Automobile would be too late. Maybe industrialization could also work?
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by wieder »

City trading is now off for LT40. Probably better that way anyway. While it's a nice feature with lots of uses, it also allows "kind of" exploits that may unbalance the game.
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by Corbeau »

It's probably for the best.

As for revolution and governments, the most straightforward solution would be to have revolutions with *no* period of anarchy, meaning, instant, as if everybody had the Eiffel Tower. Then it's the same for everybody, regardless of whether they do it at TC or in the middle of the turn.

Just a suggestion.
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Re: What kind of changes does LT40 have

Post by wieder »

Yeah, having no anarchy at all might work but it would also remove the one tc penalty you get when switching.

Maybe the Eiffel Tower could be added with a reasonable price but for a short period of time only. Something like Railroad - Combustion. It might be more like a gimmick but might be fun. Then again, maybe not for LT40 but for the next semi-experimental game :)
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