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Freeciv without city smallpox

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Smallpox is the unofficial term used to describe the most prevalent strategy used in Freeciv today. To seasoned CivII players, it is known as ICS — Infinite City Sprawl/Sleaze. It refers to the practice of building lots of small cities, normally no bigger than size 2 or 3, often close together, with only one space in between. It is wildly popular because it enjoys several distinct advantages over other civ building strategies, especially at the early stages of the game. These advantages include, but are not limited to:

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Smallpox is the unofficial term used to describe the most prevalent strategy used in Freeciv today. To seasoned CivII players, it is known as ICS — Infinite City Sprawl/Sleaze. It refers to the practice of building lots of small cities, normally no bigger than size 2 or 3, often close together, with only one space in between. It is wildly popular because it enjoys several distinct advantages over other civ building strategies, especially at the early stages of the game. These advantages include, but are not limited to: * since the city center is worked for free, and also gets free roads and irrigation, a size 1 city can work 2 tiles, while a size 2 city can work only 3, therefore it makes sense to build a settler at the expense of 1 citizen (1 used tile) and got 2 used tiles in a new city rather than trying to grow the city to a bigger size. * small cities grow faster than bigger ones due to their smaller foodbox, therefore you can grow faster by founding new cities than trying to grow your cities to a bigger size. * small cities do not suffer from unhappiness, therefore there is no need for temples or luxury. * because most of the land is covered by cities, there is little need for terrain improvement except for short roads to connect the cities, so the effort can be concentrated on building new cities and military units. * because there is no need for city improvements, there is no upkeep to pay. * because the cities are close together, there is less corruption. Due to these reasons, this is practically the only way to win a Freeciv game as it is now. If you don't follow suit, you are dead meat. IMHO, this makes the game very boring, because it reduces the game to an ICS slugfest. Some people do not consider this to be a problem, but many others do wish it could be fixed. There have been many suggestions on how to solve this problem. But I think most of them wouldn't work because they all address the symptoms rather than the cause. To me, smallpox is an indication of a much bigger problem: there is no constraint on expansion. And since smallpox is by far the most effective way to expand, it makes all other strategies obsolete. In order to cure smallpox, first you have to curb expansion. As an added benefit, it brings balance back into the game. I think the real solution lies in the way happiness is handled. Under current default rules, happiness almost never enters into the equation. As a game feature, it has long been neglected, and considered a mere nuisance by many. I happen to believe that it is an essential game balancing feature, and only a few simple changes of the rules is needed to cure smallpox.