The empire sizes (proposal)

[wieder]

This is only a draft, but it could be something like this:

Despotism 25 cities
Tribalism 28 cities
Democracy 30 cities
Monarchy 35 cities
Fundamentalism 30 cities
Federation 34 cities
Republic 32 cities
Communism 30 cities
Nationalism 28 cities

The empire_size_step will be 1, meaning that every new city after the base empire_size will result with a new unhappy citizen.

The idea for all this is to let most players to reach the end of the game and see how they rank in the in-game scores. It's also about winning the space race. Conquest victory will be possible but it's not as easy or likely as it has been in the past games.

[fran]

Despotism 25 cities
Tribalism 28 cities
Democracy 30 cities
Monarchy 35 cities
Fundamentalism 30 cities
Federation 34 cities
Republic 32 cities
Communism 30 cities
Nationalism 28 cities

I'm not experienced enough to judge on that, but it sounds reasonable. Shouldn't be more IMO.
How many tiles per player do you plan?

The empire_size_step will be 1, ...

I'm strongly in favor of step 1, to have maximum impact in the first game of that kind.
In general, it also will prevent the "I have infinite number of empty size 1 cities bc I had such a lucky start" strategy.

It's also about winning the space race.

You might have recognized the Ainu flag shows a space ship on it's journey to alpha centauri.
Serious, I don't think it will be easy, therefor the cost of spaceship parts should be reduced to pre-LT37
numbers for LT40.

[wieder]

Maybe 900 tiles / player. Standard games usually have about 450 tiles / player. The idea is that there should be enough room for everyone and this wouldn't be a game about building all the cities you can fit on the map.

Actually nationalism could have as few as 20 cities but you could build early tanks and maybe early fighters before getting the techs. Fighters could be built with combustion and tanks with automobile. Those units could also be possible with monarchy.

Also, maybe we could add early caravels with with physics if you are on republic or federation.

Despotism could get early knights with feudalism.

With communism, if you switch to communism, you could build early destroyers.

All the early units will be slightly less powerful compared to actual units. Maybe just less moves. For early destroyer maybe 15 moves instead of 18 and for knights 5 moves instead of 6.

What do you think about gov specific early units? The idea is to make switching between governments more interesting and allowing new strategies.

To make government changes more interesting, the duration of anarchy would be just one turn instead of the usual two turns.

And yeah, the cost of the space ship will be reduced. Makes sense if the idea is to end the game with space race, if possible.

Tech trading is also something that's going to be there but maybe in a for of allowing stealing. The chance of stealing a tech could be something like 50% and the base chance of succeeding with a diplo/spy could be 50%. To spice this there could be a 10% chance for the original owner of losing the tech.

All this will only apply to LT40 and LT39 will remain as more traditional LT game. Just repeating this message so that people who want to play more traditional game know that there will be a more traditional game

[Marduk]

I really like the idea of big map with high citymindist. Not sure about gov specific units though, could unbalance the game. You could also set empire_size_step to a really high value (like 3), and then let the number of cities before unhappy citizens appear depend strongly on the government. Then staying in Monarchy means you'll keep a small kingdom, while steadily upgrading your government is necessary to get a big territory. Kind of realistic in historical terms too. Why several dozens of cities? Less cities means more premium on being able to grow (very) large cities.

For example:
despotism: 5 cities
monarchy: 8 cities
republic: 12 cities
communism / democracy: 15 cities

This way there will likely be lots of empty nature left between different players, which creates interesting tactical challenges (attacking requires good movement planning, but fog of war can make it possible to sneak up unseen).

[wieder]

Without overlapping one city takes about 50 tiles but people usually build the cities as close to each other as possible. With 900 tiles and without overlapping the players could each fit about 18 cities if the map was land only. With the shores that's about 25 cities without overlapping. With citymindist 6 I would imagine there would be room for about 30-35 cities / player. Maybe even 40 if there are few idlers. With city limits from 25 up to 35 there should be lots of empty space. If people really want to have more empty land, maybe the city limits could be between 20-30? The empire_size_step probably needs to be 1 because after Shakespeare's that's no longer a hard limit but more like a serious trouble for those who want to get too many cities.

The governments on civ2civ3 are maybe designed to be used at any time of the game and there is usually no real need to switch because of empire size limitations. Maybe once because of that. In this setup there is actually even less need to switch because of empire size but for other reasons. Tribalism and Monarchy should be quite good for those who want to wage war and also research without really pushing that. Fundamentalism is the same as with LT38and it's great for economy and war but reasonably bad for research. I would imagine switching to that in mid game would work for most people, allowing them to play the conquest game while also becoming rich like the Spanish did when they went after the gold of the far away lands. The theme for LT40 is kind of switching between governments and with 1 turn anarchy it should be reasonably easy. In theory

I might do something like tribalism - monarchy - fundamentalism - democracy/communism. Or republic if there is no wars close to me but I bet there will be

I'm also not 100% sure about the early units, but that's also an attempt to implement the "Golden Age" of the commercial Civ games. Needs to be tested but the idea is that you get a bonus if you are able to use specific government when that gov is reaching the days of glory. Not sure if I make sense about this In any case, the early units are not planned to appear too early. Everything should be there one or two steps early and it should be possible to build only a modest number of those units before the others (without the gov in use) are able to reach the actual tech usually needed for the units. Really needs testing...

Something special would be needed for Democracy but no yet idea what that might be. Maybe something peaceful? Not sure really.

[fran]

[...]

For example:
despotism: 5 cities
monarchy: 8 cities
republic: 12 cities
communism / democracy: 15 cities

[...]

I disagree. Following such a path is quite "normal" anyway, so no need to set in stone.
That would be boring.
I'm in favor of the original proposal of wieder.

[Marduk]

[...]

For example:
despotism: 5 cities
monarchy: 8 cities
republic: 12 cities
communism / democracy: 15 cities

[...]

I disagree. Following such a path is quite "normal" anyway, so no need to set in stone.
That would be boring.
I'm in favor of the original proposal of wieder.

To be fair, most players don't follow such a path in the games I've seen. Rather they build a dozen cities in despotism, and then just one or two more in advanced governments. Building more cities is currently not an important reason for changing government.

I know it's a radical idea. Let's just generate lots of out of the box ideas and then see which ones we want to include in the experiment.

[wieder]

Very good to hear bout new ideas. It's also very good if we know what people like or do not like

[wieder]

Nationalism:

- can use max 3 military units for martial law
- 28 cities
- 3 free units / city
- additional units will cost 3 gold
- gets the same trade bonus as republic, democracy and fundamentalism
- corruption / waste pretty much same as with tribalism
- max rate for tax, sci and lux is 50%
- no incite for units or cities

Is this ok, too powerful or too weak? If it's too powerful we could change the ax tax/sci/lux rate to 40%.

[Marduk]

Nationalism:

- can use max 3 military units for martial law
- 28 cities
- 3 free units / city
- additional units will cost 3 gold
- gets the same trade bonus as republic, democracy and fundamentalism
- corruption / waste pretty much same as with tribalism
- max rate for tax, sci and lux is 50%
- no incite for units or cities

Is this ok, too powerful or too weak? If it's too powerful we could change the ax tax/sci/lux rate to 40%.

I like it, nice for warfare. But maybe slightly weak? How big would the corruption/waste be compared to republic? If it costs a lot of shields then that would make it less attractive for warfare (warriors may not care much for trade, but they care about production -> waste).

With low waste this gov would be a production powerhouse.

[Marduk]

A further thought: would it be possible to have an advanced gov totally geared towards gold income? For example: no waste, free upkeep for buildings that normally cost 1 gold per turn (like Adam Smith), extra trade bonus, difficult to maintain happiness, 40/50 max tax, no free unit upkeep, penalty on warfare, maybe some kind of penalty on research if it's possible to set that. I think Sid Meier had in mind to make the Economic track one of the key ways to play the game besides science and warfare, in the civ boardgames this is also partly implemented. But in freeciv there are hardly any players that really focus on gold income instead of warfare or science.

[wieder]

The corruption and waste is the same as with tribalism and that is 30. With republic it's 25.

Nationalism has a waste of 15 and republic has a waste of 20. With tribalism waste is 0.

[wieder]

Democracy kind of already is that kind of government. It has a super high tas rate with 90% max tax and it can easily compensate the upkeep of the buildings because it gets almost 30-50% trade bonus compared to, for example, communism. There is only one free unit but there is no penalty on research.

Have you checked the governments with the trade bonus? In LT38 those are Democracy, Republic and Fundamentalism. LT40 will also have Nationalism. All those can be used for building a nation that's focused on econmy. All of them also have a very different approact to it.

Fundamentalism is relatively nice with 70% max tax, 3 free units and with fully free special units (crusaders and fanatics) but there is a catch with sci. You get a 50% penalty on research. Units can be incited but not cities. Extra units cost gold. Very nice if you focus on gold in the mid game. Special feature is that you can use units for keeping the citizens content.

Democracy has 90% max tax and units or cities can't be bribed. You can really rush science or tax if you need to. Only one free unit. Extra units cost gold. Not that good gov for early wars but very robust war machine in late game. Can't keep the citizens content with military units.

Republic has 80% max tax. Quite nice for a peaceful player but only one free unit and extra units cost shields. Cities can be incited but units can't be bribed. Not that good for late game when cities are poisoned to size 1 and incited. Can't keep the citizens content with the military units.

Nationalism (planned) has 50% max tax but there is no penalty for sci like there is with fundamentalism. 3 free units and extra units cost 3 gold. Special feature is that you can keep up to 3 citizens content with military units. It's like republic combined with communism. Kind of

All these get the almost 30-50% trade bonus compared to other governents.

I'll check if I could fugure out something that would be different to those and focus on gold. Do you have any ideas what kind of real government it might resemble?

[fran]

With unhapiness starting to surge with 25-35 cities according to gov, probably not all players will run into the threshold.
Of course one could argue that they shouldn't.
I'm still thinking the threshold for the govs could be reduced globally by 10, if that's too much by 5 cities.
My argument as always is, if we test a feature, we should ensure it takes effect.
The goal of all this IMO is playability and fun. It's playable if it doesn't get to big, and it's fun if it's not to unbalanced.

[wieder]

Well I guess we could have a smaller map with smaller empires. Maybe something like this with maybe about 5 reduced from the original proposal:

Despotism 22 cities
Tribalism 24 cities
Democracy 25 cities
Monarchy 28 cities
Fundamentalism 26 cities
Federation 29 cities
Republic 26 cities
Communism 25 cities
Nationalism 23 cities

I also slightly adjusted the relative sizes. What do you think?

[fran]

Well I guess we could have a smaller map with smaller empires. Maybe something like this with maybe about 5 reduced from the original proposal:

Despotism 22 cities
Tribalism 24 cities
Democracy 25 cities
Monarchy 28 cities
Fundamentalism 26 cities
Federation 29 cities
Republic 26 cities
Communism 25 cities
Nationalism 23 cities

I also slightly adjusted the relative sizes. What do you think?

Perfect!

[Corbeau]

Actually...

There would be nothing wrong with a bit steeper curve for unhapiness due to size, but then it would be nice to have a series of not too cheap wonders (200-400) that decrease unhapiness by one citizen each. So that you can have a large empire, but you need to put an effort to maintain it. Hell, I'd go for a new unhappy citizen every five cities (starting from ~20), as long as you can spend something to counter it. It's called "having problems, but being able to manage them".

[wieder]

Let's consider that for LT42. For LT42 assuming that the games with even numbers could be more experimental ones and ones with odd numbers more traditional ones.

The happiness wonders would need to be planned on right spots of the tech tree and the cost would need to be right. 200-400 could be it in a regular game, but in a LT40 type game the cities could be bigger and the cost of the growth wonders might also be higher. Hard to say how high really.

[Corbeau]

(Continued from Another Place)

It's been one unhappy for each city but I guess we could try with 3?

Well, why not do some modelling. Let's take Democracy. Unhapiness due to size starts at 25. So, with +1 unhappy / +1 city, you get a drastically steep curve that basically cuts off any growth at 30. End of story. Thou shalt not grow. Period. The Iron Condom of Doom. Like I said, you get a bunch of nations with 20-30 cities each and, it may be a fun experiment, but it seems rather monotonous.

However, if you make +1 unhappy / +5 city, that makes it possible for nations to grow, but at a cost. If a democracy wants to double its number of cities, it ends up with five additional unhappy citizens in every city. That's not "five unhappy citizens", that is "five ADDITIONAL unhappy citizens" on top of everything before that. I think it is significant enough to make it very difficult, but not impossible.

Also, in games so far, this step was, what, 15 to 25, depending on government, correct? Cutting it to 1 immediately seems like a drastic cutoff. Maybe experiment with something more smooth for a start? You don't want to repeat the tech mistake from SG1, do you?

Further thoughts: maybe the initial sizes can be decreased further. As far as I'm concerned, it can start at 15, but that's just me. Also, unhappiness due to size shouldn't be a means to suppress conflict (you shouldn't tell people how to play because then it's possible that they won't play at all), but to make one manage his nation more carefully. Generally, if people want conflict, they will have conflict. If nothing else, they will do raids.

And, to reiterate once more: I think that +1/1 is a too steep cutoff and cutoffs are generally bad. No flexibility, no variation, too much uniformity. At maximum size you simply lose the option of growing more. With a more gentle cutoff you get to climb and make different decisions on every step of the way.

[wieder]

The problem is that the city limit with happiness issues is the main reason for the LT40 not becoming a conquest parade like the traditional LT games have been. If there is one more unhappy for every 5 cities, you can have a 50 city empire with 5 additional unhappy. With the Shakespeare and with big cities that's not that big deal even while an annoyance. This is why I would go maybe with max 3 if 1 is really too much. It's about how big empires are reasonable to have in this game. The city working areas are bigger and with citymindist 6 it's kind of zoomed in game with effectively 2x moves and more production for each city.

With Shakespeare's one entertainer will make 2 additional citizens content while you can keep only 1 content without it.

There is no room for everyone to build the max number of cities and that should give us some fight over the best locations and for more land. The city limits should restrictive enough to make building super big empires not that interesting but instead trying to win the game by other means than just killing off everyone else. And if you really want to kill everyone else, it's still possible if you are willing to play with anarchy. Anarchy has not been changed. It's just really hard with anarchy.

Would be best if there could be two kinds of size_steps. no unhappy from 1-16. then one unhappy for each 8 cities until you reach 24 cities. Then one unhappy for each 4 cities until you reach 40 cities. Then 2 for each new city until you have 60 cities. Then one for each new city. Or something like that.

[Corbeau]

citymindist 6

Please no.

As for "50 cities with 5 additional unhappy citizens", that's three more than before. Did people build Shakespeare before? If they did, then, well, it's not enough to calm down the three additional unhappy citizens.

And with a maximum of 30 cities, that's a very limited number of techs player A can get from player B. That's actually not real "tech trade".

[fran]

The problem is that the city limit with happiness issues is the main reason for the LT40 not becoming a conquest parade like the traditional LT games have been.

[...]

There is no room for everyone to build the max number of cities [...]

Tell it, brother, tell it. Don't listen to the evil whisperings. Withstand.

As stock market wisdom goes, "the trend is your friend". That rule is very obvious in freeciv, and purpose of the city
limit is to mitigate that rule a little bit. That means less monotony and more variation.

Oh, and for have-been pacifists and lone civilization farmers that converted to militarism and discovered there love
for team play, now totally ignoring their former advocacy, I can tell even more Good News(TM): There will be LT39.

[Corbeau]

Actually, if "there is no room for everyone to build the max number of cities", why not start unhappiness at 10 and then increase it at every 5th city? If there will be so little room, most people won't even feel this and it will be a dead feature, designed to curb one type of play.

I'm not an aggressive player and I usually don't attack others (never did, actually), but this will really make it a farmville.

[wieder]

To illustrate the difference we could have cities working on 4 tiles away with citymindist 6 and with 3x moves or cities working on 2 tiles away with citymindist 3 and with 2x moves. The current cities on LT40 can work on more tiles than the cities on LT38.

The happiness issues are there to make the game something else than just war simulator. What else than powerful enough city limits could prevent too probable conquest victory?

The actual limits for the land has not been set but the idea is to have enough land for everyone to have - on average - about 70% of the max cities. With 10 cities it could be set to 7 cities and with 30 cities to 21 cities. Now with about 25 cities there could be space for something like 19-20 cities. This could also be 60% or more or less.

In normal games the happiness limits are barely hit. In lots of cases they are never hit. With this kind of setup you could do pretty much anything as you would do in a regular game, except becoming so big you could eat everyone. And you could even do that but with very very a heavy price.

[wieder]

Diplomats can steal once / city. In the early game there is less need for stealing since the average cost for a tech stolen is 120 bulbs with a diplomat. Or more if it's set to a higher cost. Also in the early game the tech leakage will be really powerful reducing the need to steal.

In the later game spies can steal multiple times from each city.

Now the actual question is, how expensive it should be to steal? I feel that the cost equaling 120 bulbs with a diplomat is cheat and 200 bulbs with a spy is really too cheap. Unfortunately the cost is kind of fixed for voluntary trades and can't become higher as tech advance.