Longturn Forum

To play LT34 you will need to use Freeciv 2.3 because the server is 2.3 and you can't connect with Freeciv 2.4, 2.2 or 2.5. Installing 2.3 doesn't prevent you from using some other version. At least not on Windows.

Once you have downloaded and installed 2.3 (I'm using 2.3.4 on Windows) you will need to click "Connect to Network Game" and there enter lt34.longturn.org as host and 5034 on the port.


Here you have the winning conditions and the changes to the rules. This is not a complete list of the rules. Please check the game help for details or browse the ruleset on github. The files there contain everything that has been configured.

As with every game, there may be some bugs or features we are not aware at the moment.

WINNING

For every 7 players there will be one more winner. Since LT34 has 42-48 players we can have 1-6 winners.

We are limiting the number of those players who are not winners but are not destroyed. The game can’t end with any winners if it's not ended with a space race victory and there are more than max allowed number of survivors alive.

However we can have have max 3 survivors if there is one winner less in the winning team.

- max 6 winners and max 1 player left alive
- or max 5 winners and max 3 players left alive

A winner can be replaced with a survivor meaning that there can be for example 3 winners and max 5 survivors in this case.

If the game is won without space race victory, a winning post must be made on the forum by one of the winners. The post must include who won and that a victory is claimed. The winners need to be allied in the end and the possible remaining alive players who are not in the winning alliance will need to make a post and accept the defeat. This is done with a reply to the winning post on the forum. The message will need to contain the following on the first line of the message: “I accept defeat on LT34 and will not claim victory.” The message may contain more lines. If all the remaining alive players who were not included in the winning post did not accept defeat, the game will continue.

If the game ends with a space race victory, there will be only one winner and everyone else remaining will become those who didn’t win but survived. This means that any alliance bigger than 1 player can’t claim the victory. The winner of the space race victory must make the winning post in one week after the ship has reached the target. However in the unlikely event with more than one space ships arriving on the same turn, we will have as many winners as there are space ships arriving at the same turn.

The game can end with a tie if all players have either accepted defeat or they agree to give up. Thos must be done on the forum. If the game can’t be continued because of some technical reason for 90 days, it will be a tie for everyone.


THE RULES

LT34 is based on LT33, based on LT32, based on LT31 based on civ2civ3 ruleset. This will include explanation of the most important server settings and a list of changes compared to the previous game.

The best way to understand the rules is to open the game and check the wonders and what building different things cost. Check the small wonders! Some of those are really important!

The server settings explained:

No barbarians
Islands map
40% of the map is land
There are no pole areas
the map has about 400 tiles / player and not all of those are on the starting island
The map is wrapped from x and y

The minimum distance between cities is 5 (needs 4 tiles between the cities, in any direction)
There is no rapture growth
restrict infra is enabled = all roads on enemy territory will be treated as there were no roads
Revolution will always take 2 turns
Space race is enabled and only the space race winner will win the game. The allies are not included
The start units: 4 settlers, 2 workers and one explorer
An unreachable unit does not protect the rest (for example airplane on the same tile with land units doesn't prevent the land units from being attacked)
Unhomed units are not slowly killed
Tech trading is not allowed between players
You can not steal techs
You can not get techs by conquering
The techs will became cheaper when someone else researches them (With 50 players *every* player researching a tech will make that tech 2% cheaper to the others)
An airport can receive an unlimited number of units but send only one
City improvements have a 10% chance of being destroyed if the city is captured

The diplomats have a 40% base chance of succeeding
25% of the gold given by one player to another will be lost on the way
Diplomacy is allowed between human players only. if an AI player is born there is no diplomacy.
Science is 20% cheaper compared to a standard game
Trade routes are completely disabled, you can use caravans pretty much only to build wonders and small wonders
There are no AI units in the beginning but if someone faces a civil war, one will be born
The turns are 23 hours
The unitwaittime is 10 hours meaning that if you moved 5 hours before the turn change you can move that particular unit again only 5 hours after the turn change


Changes

World wonders

A.Smith's Trading co. will cost 700 instead of 300
Darwin's voyage will cost 1500 instead of 300
Great library will cost 400 instead of 600
Isaac Newton's college will cost 600 instead of 800
Manhattan Project will cost 1500 instead of 6000
Changed the cost of Shakespere's Theatre from 600 to 300

Small wonders

Copernicus costing 100 instead of 300
Mausoleum of Mausolos costing 180 instead of 300 and obsoleted by combustion instead of explosives
Statue of Zeus costing 150 instead of 250
Pyramids costing 100 instead of 200
Colossus will cost 80 instead of 200
Hanging gardens will cost 90 instead of 300
J.S. Bach's Cathedral will cost 300 instead of 600
Marco Polo will cost 800 instead of 1000
Temple of Artemis will cost 90 instead of 200

Added Magellan's expedition: Changed cost from 400 to 800.
Added Lighthouse: changed the cost from 200 to 100.


City improvements

Coastal defense costing 40 instead of 60
Mfg. Plant costing 180 instead of 220
Port facilities will become available with electricity
SDI defense will cost 240 instead of 140
University will cost 100 instead of 120
City walls now have an upkeep of 1 and also prevent losing population if a land unit kills a defening unit
The city improvements now have a 10% probability of being destroyed if the city is conquered. This used to be 20%.
Units

Units

Elephants will cost 25 to build instead of 30
Crusaders will cost 30 to build instead of 40
Cannons will have the same 100% bonus against cities as there is with artillery and howizers
Fighter will cost 50 instead of 60
Bomber will cost 90 instead of 100
Trireme will cost 30 instead of 40
Frigates will cost 50 instead of 60
Destroyers will cost 70 instead of 80
Battleship will have a defense of 18 and attack of 18
Submarines will have a defense of 4 instead of 5
Carriers will have a defense of 18 instead of 9
Cruise missiles will have a move rate of 9 instead of 18 and they will cost 40 instead of 50
cruise missiles have 18 moves after the invention of advanced flight
Spies will have an upkeep of 1 (gold/shield) but no upkeep for diplomats
The base chance for diplos and spies to succeed is now 40% instead of 50%
Restrictinfra is enabled meaning that you can't use roads on enemy territory
Using the allied airports is allowed and the receiving end can receive an unlimited number of units
Catapults, cannons, artilleries and howizers are no longer capturable. This had very little effect on LT33 anyway
Catapult has an attack value of 5 and is now a citybuster just like any other siege unit. They will get 100% boost when attacking
The siege units (cataputls, cannons etc...) can't be built as veterans. This is how it was in LT33 but no change here.
The siege units (from catapults to howizers) can now move without roads on desert, grassland, hills, plains, and tundra. Was not possible on LT33
Changed the defense value of a cruiser from 6 to 8 and the attack value from 6 to 4. Help updated: The Cruiser is a strong defensive boat unit

Space race

Space race is enabled possibly for the first time on LT
Space component will cost 1600 instead of 160
Space module will cost 3200 instead of 320
Space structural will cost 1000 instead of 100

Scientific

; 2 - Technology cost is reduced depending on the number of all players
; (human, AI and barbarians) which already know the tech.
Tech trading is disabled by setting the receiver to always lose the transferred tech
tech trading is disabled
Not sure if this is enough in order to prevent all player2player transfer of techs. Still investigating.

Other

Restored the original terraforming and terrain alteration options for the workers
Pre-forts no longer change the ownership of the tile
City walls. Help updated about not losing population when a defending unit dies
terraforming ocean to land will cost 24 instead of 36
Production and trade improvements (markets, banks, factories, etc) giving +50% bonus instead of just 25%
Tired attack is ON. Meaning that if you have 2/3 moves left when attacking you get only 2/3 of the attack power your unit normally has
workers gain experience at a considerably slower rate: veteran_work_raise_chance = 8, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 0 meaning that a green one has 8% change of getting a promotion, a v worker has a 5% chance and so on
You can do terraforming with Engineers (explosives) meaning that you can turn ocean into land, the other way around or make several other changes to the terrain with the engineers
You can capture workers, settlers and migrant. If the help says that the current unit can capture a capturable unit, you will gain the control of the capturable unit instead of destroying it
Building fanatics no longer takes population. Fanatics is a reasonably powerful unit that can be only built by a fundamental nation

Good luck and stuff!

For reference. * Corruption by Distance is increased by 1 until The Corporation is researched by the player.
** Waste by Distance is increased by 1 until Trade is researched by the player.
# This penalty is negated by The Pyramids wonder, and the penalty dissapears for everybody when The Pyramids become obsolete.
+ Partisans appear in conquered cities (democratic or communist) if Guerrilla Warfare has been researched by any player.
- Added Fundamentalism (available with Theology), Tribal (available at start) and Federation (available with Democracy).
- "Base Corruption/Waste": Modern governments cause less Trade Corruption, but more Wasted Production. The total % lost (Waste + Corruption) is equal for all governments.
- "Unit Upkeep": Tribal and Communism use the standard unit upkeep by Shields, while the other governments use Gold upkeep (x2 gold per unit for modern governments). Republic uses both gold and shield upkeep.
If a city supports more units with gold upkeep than its population size, each extra unit will waste one food. If the population shrinks due to starvation, one of those extra units will be disbanded.
- "Empire Size": Modern governments have double size limit than his ancient counterpart, to minimize this non linear effect. Empire Base Size is equal to Empire Step Size for every government.
- The bonus "+1 Trade" under Republic and Democracy does not affect oceanic tiles. This way, oceanic tiles are more even to land tiles under any government.
- Republic receives Revolution_When_Unhappy and Unbribable_Units, Federation receives Has_senate and No_Incite (Democracy receives all them).
- Under Tribal government, every military land unit gains an additional movement point. They are tribal warriors, maintained with Shields instead of Gold.
- Under Communism you do not pay upkeep for buildings that cost 1 Gold. Communism cancels the bonus from Mysticism and Theology (to Temples and Cathedrals).
- Under Fundamentalism you receive extra Gold from Tithes, but -50% to Science.
- The Bonus to production at Palace (under Despotism and Monarchy) switched from Shields to Gold.
- Most governments are affected by military unhappiness due to units out of national borders (same than Republic in default ruleset).
- "Free Units" means units free of gold/shield upkeep and also free of military unhappiness. By default 2 free units per city (upkeep and unhappiness), and 2 additional free units at cities with Pop >= 8. Republic and Democracy do not receive units free of gold upkeep, just 1 unit free of mil unhappiness per city (2 if Pop >= 8 ).
TIP: If a city is not paying any unit upkeep (showed in city panel), it can not suffer military unhappiness.
TIP: There is some hurry to get Monarchy or Republic (or to build Pyramids), in order to avoid the initial penalty to output per tile. However, the Corruption and Waste are evened for all governments, so there are no big differences, and every government could be used at any technological age. The choice depends on the role of your civilization.
FOODBOX = Foodbox size at that city level. (In brackets = Granary size).
SETTLER = Food needed to recover the population if you create a settler at that city size. (In brackets = The same but with granary).
NEW = This Ruleset. OLD = Default ruleset
TIP: In order to keep max growth, you should build the Granary before city grows larger than Pop 4 (same that Aqueduct at Pop 8, and Sewer System at Pop 16).
TIP: Optimal production of settlers occurs at any city with Pop <= 4, or cities with granary and Pop <= 6.

I have discovered just now that each city can use all the tiles that are at (Euclidean) distance <4, instead of <3 as usual.
I am quite surprised because this fact wasn't mentioned in the list of rules, and moreover it wasn't like this in the pre-test game we have played 4 days ago....

"I have discovered just now that each city can use all the tiles that are at (Euclidean) distance <4, instead of <3 as usual."

It has been like that probably for about 30 games in Longturn. This is why I didn't list it as it's not really a change compared to previous games. Then again it's of course a difference compared to vanilla Freeciv.

"I am quite surprised because this fact wasn't mentioned in the list of rules, and moreover it wasn't like this in the pre-test game we have played 4 days ago...."

I'm quite sure it was like that on the test games since nothing that kind of settings were not changed. Are you sure you were not able to access tiles further away? You need to have units in the city or nearby to see the further away tiles. If you don't see the tiles, you can't use them.

The cities on LT34 have a smaller vision compared to units and this is another reason why it's a good idea to have units in the cities.

wieder wrote:I'm quite sure it was like that on the test games since nothing that kind of settings were not changed. Are you sure you were not able to access tiles further away? You need to have units in the city or nearby to see the further away tiles. If you don't see the tiles, you can't use them.

So what if there is a unit in the city and a forest 3 tiles away is being used. Then the unit leaves the city making it empty. What happens to the tile? Is it still being used?

"So what if there is a unit in the city and a forest 3 tiles away is being used. Then the unit leaves the city making it empty. What happens to the tile? Is it still being used?"

The tile will be used if some other unit provides a vision to it.

If you can't see the tile, it can't be used. This is how it has been in Longturn for years and it was like that in LT33.

Corbeau wrote:

wieder wrote:I'm quite sure it was like that on the test games since nothing that kind of settings were not changed. Are you sure you were not able to access tiles further away? You need to have units in the city or nearby to see the further away tiles. If you don't see the tiles, you can't use them.

So what if there is a unit in the city and a forest 3 tiles away is being used. Then the unit leaves the city making it empty. What happens to the tile? Is it still being used?

Yes the tile is still been used, unless you click on the city centre or activate the city governor or something like that.

wieder wrote:"So what if there is a unit in the city and a forest 3 tiles away is being used. Then the unit leaves the city making it empty. What happens to the tile? Is it still being used?"

The tile will be used if some other unit provides a vision to it.

If you can't see the tile, it can't be used. This is how it has been in Longturn for years and it was like that in LT33.

Well, it hasn't been that way for so long. I think it started to be this way from lt30, the first one using freeciv 2.3. Before 2.3 version of freeciv, the cities could only use 2 tiles. It was a new setting then and it has never been changed again.

Some players have placed their cities in non-optimal positions because the didn't know a rule which is quite recent (see previous post) and was not listed in this summary, although it is a very important rule. This is not very fair: having 4 cities placed in the wrong positions is a big handicap on the long term, so that the game will be unbalanced. This is bad also for people that actually knew that rule, because an unbalanced game is less fun.
Therefore I propose to restart the game from the beginning of T0, mantaining the original map and positions. This may also be the good occasion for erasing the idlers or replacing them with people in the waiting list, that in this way will be able to start from T0! (Of course length of T0 can be of 23 hours instead of 80).
I think that loosing 2 days in repeating T0 and T1 is way better than playing for months an unbalanced game.

"Some players have placed their cities in non-optimal positions because the didn't know a rule which is quite recent (see previous post) and was not listed in this summary,"

What rule? You mean the cities able to use resources more than 2 tiles away? I'm sure that option was available on the test game.

From the opening post on this thread

"The minimum distance between cities is 5 (needs 4 tiles between the cities, in any direction)"

It has been like this at least since LT30 and that game started in January 2012. I really don't understand how it could have been different with the test games.

Restarting the game has not been a tradition on LT even if there were some bugs with the ruleset. Restarting the game would allow people to use the current knowledge they have about the map and make better plans for building the cities. However if someone didn't pay attention to the land he or she had exposed this turn, a restart would put those players into a bad position and would be unfair to them.

We currently have 2 idlers and one person on the waiting list. And one maybe for the second spot.

Did you experience some overlapping with tiles or did you manage to make some tiles unavailable to you? Overlapping is almost always happening at least with some tiles since the citymindist = 5.

wieder wrote:"
From the opening post on this thread
"The minimum distance between cities is 5 (needs 4 tiles between the cities, in any direction)".

This is a different rule, of course citymindist=5 does not imply that the city can use all those tiles.

wieder wrote:"Did you experience some overlapping with tiles or did you manage to make some tiles unavailable to you? .

This is not the point; it's just that I would have chosen positions differently if I knew that the radius was bigger.

All players have the right know the rules of the game, even those who didn't play LT30-33 and didn't play the test pre-game (which was indeed very short).

Freeciv is a beautiful game (especially in its longturn version) and would deserve to be played by thousands of people; but the fact that rules are continuosly changing and are not clearly listed anywhere is strongly limiting his diffusion, so that potential new players are discouraged and the game is always played by the same few people.

I understand what you are saying but, and here comes the but, the problem is that even while we have tried to make all the rules available and explained as well as possible, we lack the resources for having as well crafted instructions we would like to have. I'm not even myself 100% sure about all the changes there has been to the ruleset. I usually know how all of this works because I have played the game but since I haven't really been playing with the standard ruleset for years, it's sometimes impossible to remember the differences between the vanilla Freeciv and the LT flavor.

The number of the tiles cities use is obviously a really big change, just like the 3x moves are. For getting used to something like that the rulesets are available on the github and there has been some test games. This is not really perfect but the best we had resources for.

I can ask the opinion from others, but it's not really that easy to restart even while it's only turn 2. Someone else might find another undocumented feature and this might go on like that for a long time.

We have really been trying to make this easier for the new players but the process is not yest quite there we would like it to be. With this thread I found out a new feature previously unknown to me. It was StratThinker's remark about using the city tiles when they are not really visible to the player "Yes the tile is still been used, unless you click on the city centre or activate the city governor or something like that."

I agree with Wieder there is no reason to restart the game. It has been the lt game best documented I have taken part in. It is very hard to keep a track of all the changes, not only from lt 33 to lt34, but also former games.
The changes are unavoidable, as freeciv isn't a "balanced" game to play it as we are doing it here, with so many human players and 1 day turns.
There has been a test game where all the players has been able to experiment. Also, those players who haven't played lt games before or have played them a long time ago, should try to look into the settings of the game and the best way to do it is to read the ruleset files. It is a hard task, but it is the only way to be sure about all the settings, even for regular players.

I have never seen a summary like the first post of this thread before. You have always had to get an idea of the actual settings of the games reading the rulesets and reading the discussions in the forum.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind to restart if 100% of the players agree.

Luca wrote:

wieder wrote:"
From the opening post on this thread
"The minimum distance between cities is 5 (needs 4 tiles between the cities, in any direction)".

This is a different rule, of course citymindist=5 does not imply that the city can use all those tiles.

If you have been aware that minimum distance is 5, but wasn't aware that radius is 3 (thought it is 2), then I don't see the problem. You didn't lose anything. Extra radius is only a bonus, no?

Corbeau wrote:" then I don't see the problem. You didn't lose anything. Extra radius is only a bonus, no?"

No, maximising the number of resources contained in four 5x5 squares or in four 7x7 squares are different problems which lead to different solutions.

Anyway, since it has become impossible for me to play competitively, I will take this game as a sort of test game for learning the rules and being more prepared for the start of LT 35

LT35 will probably have a different ruleset since it's very likely to be a 2.5 game. Possibly a team game with a ruleset more like LT33 had. This is speculation of course but also an educated guess However if it's a team game, it's highly likely that I won't be the admin for that one and the rules will become different also because of that.

While the initial city placement is important, teaming up and learning about diplomacy is usually even more important than that. If you haven't been playing on LT for a while, there will probably be some surprises on that area too since lots has changed since the early days of LT. Or so was I told. Someone else may be able to tell more about that.

As usual with human players, you may have nice neighbours or some really nasty ones. Knowing about the reputation they have is one thing. It's worth asking the others about that if chatting is something you are comfortable with.

There also may be one best strategy for this game but I don't know what it was. One objective for the ruleset was to make it next to impossible to know the ultimate strategy beforehand. My best guess is expanding as much as possible and then maybe attacking those who have overextended. Or the other way around.

The rules are adjusted between games so that the games remain interesting and the too obvious winning strategies no longer are so powerful. One example of this is making it impossible to build veteran catapults, cannons, artilleries or howizers on LT34 while all those units get a 100% bonus when attacking cities. This should make early wars more rewarding and late wards slightly harder.

I'm telling this because someone might be interested about why the rules keep changing

Corbeau wrote:... but wasn't aware that radius is 3 (thought it is 2) ...

Actually, it is 15

Luca: I have two suggestions for you.

1st, from the client's View menu, set "City Outlines" on to see the city radius drawn on map. With this setting on, you will also see the radius of a planned-to-be city when your settler is in the position.

2nd, you might want to consider relocating one or two of your ill-placed cities. Now that you've thrown away all hope for victory there's really no risk, is there? :p

"2nd, you might want to consider relocating one or two of your ill-placed cities. Now that you've thrown away all hope for victory there's really no risk, is there?"

This is usually a very bad idea Just saying if someone took that seriously

Freeciv isn't rocket science. If it was, it would be so much easier since rockets were invented long before this game

HanduMan wrote:

Corbeau wrote:... but wasn't aware that radius is 3 (thought it is 2) ...

Actually, it is 15

Er... What!?

Corbeau wrote:

HanduMan wrote:

Corbeau wrote:... but wasn't aware that radius is 3 (thought it is 2) ...

Actually, it is 15

Er... What!?

game.ruleset wrote:; Square of initially city radius
init_city_radius_sq = 15

Well, OK then ... it's actually 3,872983346207417. :rolleyes:

Does this think what I think it means? If you set it to 13, you can get the shape of 5x5 square plus four additional tiles at the centres of the square sides? Or, at 6 to 8, a clear 5x5 square, including corners?

Value 9 gives the shape of 5x5 square plus four additional tiles at the centres of the square sides.
Value 8 gives a clear 5x5 square, including corners.

wieder wrote:"2nd, you might want to consider relocating one or two of your ill-placed cities. Now that you've thrown away all hope for victory there's really no risk, is there?"

This is usually a very bad idea

Usually but not always. If the needed adjustment is within settler's move points the city will be out of production for only one turn (if even that, not tested). And if one has researched pottery the relocated city can be grown back to size 2 during the same turn by launching a migrant from some overgrowing city nearby.

The techs will became cheaper when someone else researches them (With 50 players *every* player researching a tech will make that tech 2% cheaper to the others)

Ouch. I've thought that the techs becoming cheaper is not really a big deal as if EVERY player has researched a tech it makes it only 2% cheaper. But now I was told that if every other player has researched a tech, you may get it for (almost) free. But as I read that quoted sentence, that means that the maximum "discount" is only 2%, in a case that EVERYBODY has researched it.

Should that word *every* be *each*?

Yeah, that should be each. Finglish. My bad.