Default3+ Ruleset

Contribute, display and discuss rulesets and modpacks for use in Freeciv here.
NotAnyoneSpecial
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:08 am

Default3+ Ruleset

Post by NotAnyoneSpecial »

FreeCiv much like Civilization 2 faces a problem, the issue with defense bonuses – Civilisation 4 solves this by giving the Tank an enormous 40 Attack points – we don't, we gave the tank a 10 attack and 5 Defense. This results in a major issue relating to balance, the game is frankly skewed – towards defensive warfare. The end result of the game is messy and drawn out, rather than quick and glorious. City after city, of Musketeers and Pikeman being able to seriously damage Armor and losing Cannons against Pikeman on hills/mountains is simply unacceptable as a game mechanic.

I propose a perhaps inelegant but curious solution, essentially the land units in game are divided into three classes "Basic Land", "Gunpowder Land" and "Armored Land" - they indirectly relate to their hitpoints but are in fact technically arbitrary. These land classes are complemented by three new "City Walls", which now only work in large part against units from their own era. City Walls now only provide 3x defense against Basic Land units (10 hitpoints) and 1.5x defense against Gunpowder (20 hitpoints) and no defense bonus for modern armored units (30 hitpoints). Star Forts [Metallurgy] work in similar fashion except, they provide the 3x bonus against both Basic and Gunpowder and 1.5x against Armored. Finally "City Defenses" [Radio] (A vague term, yes needs a better name) provide 3x bonuses against all land units AND including Helicopter units.

In addition, artillery has been buffed in a subtle but significant way Catapults and Cannon now have the "CityBuster" Flag doubling their firepower (how much they hit enemy units by each successful round) by 2x making them twice as powerful when engaging enemy units while they are defending inside cities, to simulate the effect of Artillery on large targets such as cities. Modern Artillery and Howitzers do not receive this bonus as they already have 2 Firepower regardless of whether the enemy is in a city or not. Making Catapults a viable threat against Fortified locations, even in the early era - although Defense play too overpowered still.

In addition, the Eiffel Tower has been buffed now providing 1 free unit of upkeep per city (somewhat useful for democracies/republics) and while costing 300 Shields, still keeping it's almost useless "AI Love" effect.

To install simply extract the folder default3 into the data directory of your Freeciv folder, this was tested and developed for FreeCiv 2.4.0 Beta1 and should work with that.
To run the ruleset simply set your "rulesetdir" to default3, before the game by typing into the console "/rulesetdir default3" and once its been accepted you should be playing the ruleset.

Feedback would be appreciated.

[EDIT: There was an issue relating to the last minute discription of the ruleset and general helptext, hopefully this has been resolved, in addition i have provided a .serv file to make it easier to switch to the ruleset in GUI]
Attachments
default3.zip
(54.35 KiB) Downloaded 476 times
Last edited by NotAnyoneSpecial on Mon Apr 01, 2013 7:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by cazfi »

First comments when I've just unzipped the archive.

- Could you come up with some other name than "default3"? If I'm ever going to setup this installable with freeciv-modpack, having it to list just various "default<x>" doesn't really serve the user trying to decide what (s)he may want to test
- You should provide .serv file with just "/rulesetdir <rulesetname>" command so client would list it in ruleset selection dialog
- Do you really need your own default.lua? Note comment in it:
-- When creating new ruleset, you should copy this file only if you
-- need to override default one. Usually you should implement your
-- own scripts in ruleset specific script.lua. This way maintaining
-- ruleset is easier as you do not need to keep your own copy of
-- default.lua updated when ever it changes in Freeciv distribution.
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by cazfi »

> rulesetdir default3
Ruleset directory set to "default3"
2: Loading rulesets.
2: Missing end of i18n string marking
file "/work/freeciv/modpacks/3rd/S2_4/default3/default3/game.ruleset", line 42, pos 11
looking at: 'AI Love" while its cost has also risen to 300 Shields. This is a mixed'
processing string starting at line 21
You need to escape quotation marks so they won't be interpreted to mark end of th description: \"AI Love\"
User avatar
Alien Valkyrie
Elite
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2013 10:21 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by Alien Valkyrie »

Good work, this makes it even easier for me to overrun my medieval enemies with Helicopters in Island games :D
I might be down-dating this ruleset to 2.3.4 for those who don't want to play on the 2.4.0-beta, if you allow me to(it's your creation, you own the rights).
~ AVL
NotAnyoneSpecial
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:08 am

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by NotAnyoneSpecial »

cazfi:
Ah yes, that annoying escape quotation error - didn't test the ruleset as i was trying to list the changes in my ruleset in the description >.<
Relating to the default.lua, i didn't read the the description so yes its unneccessary - but i might in the future add lua functions. As for the name, hmm i never thought of a good name for it and it really is a placeholder.

Caedo:
Back date it to your hearts content and play around with it, i'll upload one for 2.3.xx as well in the future, i don't see that many changes that will be needed.
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by cazfi »

This ruleset has been part of my autogame (no human players, only AI) testing about three weeks now, and it has run about twice a day for total of ~20*2=~40 games. Not a single crash, not even error message, so at least AI is stable with this ruleset (not that I get many errors from 2.4 with any ruleset any more).
User avatar
Arbogast
Elite
Posts: 412
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:09 am
Location: France

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by Arbogast »

This is great news! The unbalance of powers go back a long time ago and it was frustating to see a pikeman kill an armor in one shot.
Are the little bugs, the:
Ah yes, that annoying escape quotation error
is it a bug or just an annoying thing? I didn't understand that very well :?
as for the name, why not something explicit like Balance or Equality ruleset. (Just throwing a pebble in the marsh)
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by cazfi »

Arbogast wrote:This is great news! The unbalance of powers go back a long time ago and it was frustating to see a pikeman kill an armor in one shot.
Are the little bugs, the:
Ah yes, that annoying escape quotation error
is it a bug or just an annoying thing? I didn't understand that very well :?
It's syntax error in ruleset causing freeciv to refuse loading it.
User avatar
Arbogast
Elite
Posts: 412
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:09 am
Location: France

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by Arbogast »

Allright, so what's the cure? I loaded the Default3 into the 2.4.0 version, and I haven't found anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it's a little tougher... But I go with that.
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Default3+ Ruleset

Post by cazfi »

I guess it was fixed then :-)

The problem was that in game.ruleset the ruleset description had
"AI Love"
where it should have
\"AI Love\"
Post Reply