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Scouse Git[1]

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Scouse Git[1]

Or are you saying that you don't consider stacked bombers a cheat either. If it's this one, I agree with you. (which is normally a moot point in MP because nukes get developed near the same time.)

if the city you disband is more than 1 screen frome any of your cities, and you haven't discovered many civs, the settler will probably be 'NONE'

quote: Originally posted by My Wife Hates CIV on 03-17-2000 10:42 PM none settlers... I dont see how this is any less of a cheat than bomber stacking.

Think of it as slavery - no food or shield needed, because they don't get fed and nobody bothers to clothe them... Actually, they are referred to as nomads in the game, at least when they come from huts - people who do not depend on cities (or permanent residence) for food or materials.

While NON settlers (and other NON units) might not have been a wise addition to the game, they were definitely intended by the designers. (I'll agree that disbanding cities solely to get NON settlers, allowing one's cities to be conquered solely to get NON partisans, and setting up diplomat NON "recruiting stations" near barb hot spots/cities were not intended.)

I assume the designers wanted to reduce the chance that a hut unit would immediately be disbanded due to lack of shield support, or that a hut nomad would starve some distant border city. These bad consequences of a hut unit (or worse yet a unit you just paid good money for in a bribe) could also include city (or even civ-wide) disorder if you're in a representative government. In all these cases being "far away" from any border city means that the bad consequences can't easily be rectified by disbanding in or joining a nearby city. The designers probably should have had the unit be supported by the nearest of your cities that had enough shields and wouldn't starve or go into disorder.

Bomber stacking is an unfortunate game mechanic side effect of not allowing air units to fly "above" foreign units on the same square. Hopefully Civ3 will allow "international" stacking. Then your air units could fly over a land-based blockade (or run under a squadron of bombers). This would be especially cool for allied nations. An English pikeman could help defend an American catapult.

AkwaticDudeCity & Caligastia,

Your "easy to program" explanation sounds very plausible. I think you're right.

Blaupanzer,

No offense meant! Upon re-reading, my "formula" does sound like a lot of nonsense. While I only vaguely remembered a couple discussions on the game's distance calculation I did remember that none of the proposed answers were a simple counting of squares along a path (counting squares "as the bomber flies" so-to-speak). I guess I was trying to say "Hey. It ain't as easy as countin' squares."

You've gotten me off my lazy butt and I've tracked down an answer from the wonderful Great Library.
../../Forum1/HTML/001678.html?36
This entry is for city bribing, but I think it works for determining closest cities as well. My vaguely remembered rambling was meant to be the 4.32 method.

quote: Way to measure distance between a unit and the capital... 4.31 Imagine Civ2-map turned by 45 degrees. Then you see that map is a simple grid of squares. Then use 4.32 or 4.33 (both are equal). 4.32 Take the "rectangle" defined by the position of the unit and the position of the city (all sides of rectangle are built by squares connected by lines, not by by edges). [comment]comment by me, Edward - I think he means all sides of the rectangle are formed from squares which share a side, not squares that merely touch at a corner.[/comment] distance = (length of longer side of rectangle) + 0.5 * (length of shorter side of rectangle) Only integer part of distance is considered. 4.33 Take the "rhomboid" defined by the position of the unit and the position of the city (two sides of rhomboid are built by squares connected by lines ("straight sides" ), other two sides are built by squares connected by edges ("diagonal sides" ); note: the rhomboid is included in the rectangle that came up in 4.33). distance = (length of straight side of rhomboid) + 1.5 * (length of diagonal side of rhomboid) . Only integer part of distance is considered. 4.35 This method of measuring the distance between two squares is valid for all Civilization.