Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Web version of freeciv. Please mention the site you're using, if speaking things other than general freeciv-web codebase.
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MikeDuk
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:58 pm

Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Post by MikeDuk »

Hi.

I am playing a game on the web. I have two neighbouring cities, let's call them A and B. I wanted to give B to one of my allies (in fact, the two of us are in a 3-member team), so I opened the Nations tab, Meet Player, Add Clause, Cities, B.

Before giving city B, I redistributed the worked tiles in A and B, so that I had the best possible output for the city I was going to keep (A) and, after that, the best possible output for city B with the available/remaining tiles. Both cities had positive surplus (food, production, trade) before I gave the city away.

When I gave B to my ally, I was in for a surprise: the worked tiles in A and B were automatically changed, and I got a worse deal for my city A.

I don't know whether this is the desired behaviour or this is a bug, but I think the worked tiles in each city should remain unchanged after giving one city.

I have given several cities to my team members. Sometimes this weird behaviour has happened, sometimes it hasn't.

What do you think?

Thanks.
Ignatus
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Re: Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Post by Ignatus »

Borders resolution doesn't depend on currently worked tiles of the cities. In some radius (depending on the ruleset), cities claim a tile just because they have claimed it first, and a city that changes hands forgets all such claims and will have only what other surrounding cities leave to it. Out of this radius, cities compete with functions of their size and distance, and this competition may be also lost to a city that is closer to the tile and/or bigger. Some more details on the wiki.
MikeDuk
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:58 pm

Re: Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Post by MikeDuk »

Thank you for the explanation. After reading the wiki, I find it nearly impossible to know a priori which tiles will be assigned to each city.

If I founded both cities, I should go back to game saves to see which tiles were assigned to which city. And that is quite difficult if you don't save the game frequently.

If one or two of the cities were founded by an enemy or ally and I conquered them, then it is impossible to know which tiles were assigned to the city or cities.

And then there is the math, the radius, etc.

So the summary for me is that the outcome is random-ish, meaning that you cross your fingers, give the city, and hope that the city that you keep gets good tiles.

The article about Borders on the wiki says something about bases. Which kind of bases? Would building a fortress or airbase in one of the tiles I want to keep for my city A increase the chances of keeping the tile after I give city B?
Ignatus
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Re: Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Post by Ignatus »

What bases do claim territory and in what radius is defined by the ruleset you play. Read the ingame help of the bases, it will say "Extends national borders of the building nation" if a base does it. Note that bases can't overclaim cities save for their own tile. So you can save tiles from transferring with a city by building a claiming base on each of them.
MikeDuk
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:58 pm

Re: Unexpected behaviour while giving one city

Post by MikeDuk »

So you can save tiles from transferring with a city by building a claiming base on each of them.
Just what I thought after reading the docs.

Thank you, Ignatus.
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