SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

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3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

I'll leave it as ideas then, because I'm very unlikely to be around that long (but who knows). Can improvements have negative upkeep? That could serve as a makeshift solution. I was also thinking hard for a long time about an alternative effect for the Great Library, to make Libraries and Schools free of upkeep with it, to it not being op, because science production already rises very quickly early on, but also not make it irrelevant.
cazfi
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by cazfi »

3plus4i wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:41 pmI'm very unlikely to be around that long (but who knows).
"I'll just submit one quick patch" - cazfi, October 1997 ;-)
cazfi
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by cazfi »

cazfi wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:03 pmcazfi, October 1997 ;-)
God damn it, hadn't realized it before writing that - I've got my quarter century freeciv development birthday in a couple of days!
3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

3plus4i wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:41 pm Can improvements have negative upkeep?
Nope. It flows over to 255 upkeep. Also it just took me 2 hours to test this, because I couldn't resist playing.

Well then, what am I going to do with the Great Library?
cazfi
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by cazfi »

3plus4i wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:41 pman alternative effect for the Great Library
Alternative to what? Which ruleset your ruleset was based on?
3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

Classic, mostly. I took rulesets I could find for additional inspiration, especially Multiplayer, but I actually have no idea yet if I want to take the whole ruleset in that direction or just for my private version. Civilization 2's concept of great wonders is a bit of a mixed bag. They are important and make them interesting because of their impact, but they also threaten the balance. Finishing a wonder gives you an advantage and makes it easier to complete more wonders before anyone else, potentially leading to a runaway effect. That's why I'm not sure yet how exactly I want to handle them. Though actually I'm thinking more about my private goals atm, where wonders depending on other players have not much use.
3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

I forgot for a while why I was looking into effects of wonders in the first place. Reading about interesting variants in the multiplayer set and why they were changed might have kickstarted it. Making one unit per city free of upkeep with the Eiffeltower was something I immediately adapted. The realization of the balancing implications from the uniqueness of wonders came more recently, when I started to concern myself with the balancing of the science improvements I want to add. This is the self-reinforcing effect I was addressing in the previous post. My basic idea of the ruleset was to make science more of a challenge, a focus you need to work for hard (well, more or less). Effects like tech parasite or Darwin would work against this and be even more of an issue with this concept.

I see basically two possible ways to solve this: Either nerf their effect/impact somehow or make them small wonders, so at least every player can get the effect. Making the effect available to all doesn't necessarily solve the issue though, if the effect is still too powerful or science boosts clump too much, making progress too fast in some time period. I noticed for example that research starts slow at the very beginning of the game, but then skyrockets, despite the increase in bulb cost, because trade production climbs fast with city foundations, fast growing cities (especially relative), government improvements and several science boosts early on. Keeping research cost and science production somehow balanced is what is bothering me the most at the moment.

I'm not actually sure how unbalanced specific effects are, because I don't have that much playing experience. But it's something worth talking about.
3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

Alright, we're closing in on the part of the tree where it became much more difficult to figure it out, especially the postmodern part, where I had to wing it hard.

One thing that bothered me about the Civ 2 tree is that it is very heavily focused on military and political-economical development. Social development besides religion is de facto nonexistent. Labor Union is literally the only other one I can find and it seems pretty randomly picked for it's use. That being said, my attempt to change this wasn't exactly super successful. My vision of what social development could encompass being pretty nebulous might have played a big role in that, although at that point I also was more focused on getting the tree done, before getting bogged down in too many details. So here is my meager result.

Age of Enlightenment kinda falls in this area, as the key shift from religion and the focus on the afterlife to natural science and it's use to improve living conditions in this life. Something I just realized. Together with Industrialization it branches off to Human Rights, which is a much better fit for the United Nations. The next step is Emancipation, becoming available with Conscription. It's not limited to woman's rights but they are the focus in this step, so Women's Suffrage will naturally be moved here. I really like the definition from Wiktionary
The state of being thus set free; liberation (used, for example, of slaves from bondage, of a person from prejudices, of the mind from superstition, of a nation from tyranny or subjugation).
It also shows why it's difficult to fit social development into the tree. It's not like a discovery or invention you need to make once and then the technology is available. It's an ongoing process that isn't even linear. If you wonder why it depends on Conscription: the contribution of women to the war effort during WWI was what sparked the movement, so it seemed a good fit and also a rare opportunity to connect my additions with the military part of the tree.

The next step is even more vague. Social Liberation stands for the continuation more in the second half of the 20th century, like the peace movement, sexual revolution or anti-authoritarianism. It can be researched from Emancipation and Computers. After this point it basically merges with the environmentalism branch. Since that part dominates I'll continue there.

I have two buildings associated with this branch, which seemed very fitting for buildings improving happiness, but I'll talk about those separately.
3plus4i
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by 3plus4i »

Before I move on to the environmentalism branch, I want to lay out some differentiation I added to the IT part of the old tree. Both branches have in common that they were oversimplified, likely because in the early 90s, their fundamental meaning and impact wasn't realized yet, although for somewhat different reasons.

Digital technology is basically only represented by Computers and Robotics in the Classic tech tree. My wish to add something there wasn't actually born from the feeling, that it was too little, but fitting technologies that I wanted for different purposes, that happened to connect nicely to a gradual development of modern (and postmodern) digital technology. First is Digital Communication, which requires Computers and Space Flight. Having computers doesn't mean you can automatically simply connect them, especially over long distance. This fit perfectly with the redefined S.E.T.I. Program and another small wonder I have in mind. When I discovered that it was replaced with the Internet in some rulesets, it was a nobrainer for me to adopt this change. For one thing because the S.E.T.I. Program was really a rather odd choice for this wonder, for another thing because the internet fits so perfectly with the effect. I did redefine it again though, because while the internet seems like the obvious choice, it also seemed really generic and corny to me. Besides, there is something that's more well defined, that's more reasonable to be built as one project, that was built for the exact purpose of the wonder's effect (help research by connecting university computer networks) and is considered the birthplace of the internet: ARPANET! The reason to make Space Flight the second requirement isn't a logical one, but because of the second building enabled by this tech, the Satellite Network. It takes over the effect of revealing the map from the Apollo Program. It will also be the first small wonder that will have an upkeep, at least the first I have been talking about. Can't get that shit for free, since we have a gold surplus from other changes that needs to be compensated for. Also requires the player to actually have sufficient money to get the effect. Digital Communication also replaces Computers as requirement for Robotics.

With Digital Communication you can research Data Science next. Originally I intended this tech to upgrade the Satellite Network, to also reveal units, but I'm not sure if this is possible to implement. It mainly serves as a step to the next big tech, Artificial Intelligence. It unlocks a science boosting improvement, the Datacenter and also works as a launchpad for future techs. As an alternative I could move the Datacenter to Data Science and give it a boost with Artificial Intelligence.

I have images for neither the Satellite Network, nor the Datacenter yet. Especially the latter will be tricky, since the building would give no indication for it's purpose, you can't see from the outside that it contains a datacenter.
Last edited by 3plus4i on Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
XYZ
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Re: SlowScience ruleset ideas and plans

Post by XYZ »

cazfi wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:06 pm
cazfi wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:03 pmcazfi, October 1997 ;-)
God damn it, hadn't realized it before writing that - I've got my quarter century freeciv development birthday in a couple of days!
Congrats! :D
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