Do you think ICS has been solved adequately?

[Zeiter]

First of all, adding settlers to already established cities in order to rack up the population is just dumb, and should be disabled. Also, I don't see any need for artificial size limits on cities. Let the natural difficulties of managing a large city keep city sizes in check. In this sense I agree with the happiness model. Big cities do tend to make more unhappy citizens. However, where big cities excel is with their huge production capacity made possible by economies of scale. This is where the exponential function needs to be implemented. A size 20 city "harvesting" 30 shields should be able to produce over 50 shields worth of stuff due to the utilization of economies of scale. Here's an example: Is is cheaper to produce 500 cars in a huge factory or to produce 500 cars in 500 separate backwater villages? The big city factory has vastly greater production power in real life, and Civ4 should model this.

Using an exponent in the function could accomplish this. And maybe determine the degree of the exponent by the city size (size 1 city: ^1.01, size 2 city: ^1.02 and so on so a size 30 city gets its production ^1.30 (for instance, 40 shields ^1.3 = a whopping 121 shields!!!!!! But such a city should be almost impossible to manage due to massive rioting and general discontent. Discontented citizens (drones in SMAC) should get exponentially more difficult to quell as a city gets bigger, so that such a size 30 city would have to divert 50 shields or something each turn just to pacify its citizens, leaving it still with 71 shields per turn. I dunno, I'm just throwing ideas out here. I don't even own Civ3, but I am very familiar with the general problems concerning ICS from my SMAC playing.)

I think Civ4 needs to make the jump from a resource-gathering-oriented game to something...more nuanced. What that is I don't know yet.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rasputin
it is a civilasition game, make your empires. if citys just pop up then you are no longer in control

Building an empire != building a collection of cities.

Originally posted by Rasputin
if we add extra formulaes for calculating city growth the game will become less fun and too micromanagment (parts of it already are)

The population model stays beneath the surface and a player doesn't interact with it.

Originally posted by Rasputin
The simple solution is to restrict how close citys can be, a one line change in the code will possibly be done, all this other stuff will probably mean no change in civ4.

Your solution is neither realistic nor satisfactory. It's not good the first time you proposed it. There's no need for a second time.

[Enigma_Nova]

U R:
Inevitably, if there's a hidden process in a complex formula
whose evaluation increases your chance to win by 0.01%,
people will invariably crack that formula and crunch numbers.

We're obcessive like that; protect the game from needing MAPLE 9 in order to calculate your next move. :/

[OPD]

Originally posted by Dauphin
20 size 1 cities use 40 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food all cities will double in 10 turns.
1 size 20 city uses only 21 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food the city will double in over 200 turns.

That is the difference in power. Even those settlers cost two pop points in Civ3 the city they build only uses one population point worth of food, compared to two population points of food in their original city from which they were built.

Dauphin has hit the nail on the head here, the real ICS problem in civ3 is not about many smaller cities being more productive than 1 big one, as that is simply not the case due to corruption and particularily the way that similar levels of corruption hurts smaller cities more, I'm not sure of the numbers but I'd guess that 25% corruption does take the 2nd sheild?
The real reason why REXing is so important in civ3 is that each additional city grows as quickly as the last, all things being equal 10 size 1 cities will give overall growth that is ten times!! that of 1 size 10 city. Within 10 turns the 10 small cities will be working almost twice!! the number of tiles that the 1 big city is working.

Is it time for corruption to effect food? I guess no one would really like that. Like others have been saying, rather than penalizing one course of action, it would be better to make the alternatives more attractive. Although it should be noted that you can still expand very quickly having only 1 or 2 cities dedicated to settlers.

[Enigma_Nova]

It wouldn't be too bad if corruption affected food.
It would just be another factor to micromanage, that's all.

[Dauphin]

Maybe have the excess food per turn amount multiply by the population size of the city to get the extra food stored per turn. This is effectively identical to making larger cities require less extra food in the food box to grow - a flip on the current system where the food box gets bigger for cities and metropolises.

Alternatively a more complex system which has growth as an exponential function could be implemented. Each turn the population of a city grows by a percentage amount based on a function of health, happiness and food, with food being a limiting factor aswell.

Given the drive for simplicity that Firaxis has, a simple mathematical expression is needed to encompass a simple feedback principle.

And if I see a population growth models that produces sigmoid curves I will be a happy person.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Dauphin
And if I see a population growth models that produces sigmoid curves I will be a happy person.

Just the word "sigmoid" gives me chills.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Building an empire != building a collection of cities.

Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

The population model stays beneath the surface and a player doesn't interact with it.

you are suggesting adding other thing sto the pop calcualtion, therefore the human player has to know what these things are so he can optimise his growth, therefore increased time spent micromanaging a city to get that pop growth.

Your solution is neither realistic nor satisfactory. It's not good the first time you proposed it. There's no need for a second time.

If i wanted total realism i would become a world leader. i want the game to remain fun and not become too real ,which would impact the game badly.

If you go back to the suggestios people made when going from civ2 to civ3, the very complicated ones didnt get in. Why, Firaxis wanted to keep it as a game , not a simulator. My suggestion is as real as the current "cant build citys adjacent to each other"

you can all debate this till the cows come home, but a simple answer will be added to the game, a complicated one will mean the game remains as is.

ICS has not changed since civ2, it still the best response to the AI beneifits.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

!= means not equal to.
FWIW though, I agree that building cities is one of the main functions of an empire. In Civilization games, at the least.

Hello Sigmoid curve.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

/me slaps Rasputin around a bit with a large trout
Skanky's correct on this one.

If i wanted total realism i would become a world leader.

That's not exactly possible, Ras.
Games exist because most of us aren't prepared to kill everything in sight with an M16, but would enjoy doing so.

Oh, and fix the typos - poorly presented arguments are regarded as irrelevant, even if you know what you're on about.

[Drachasor]

[SIZE=1] That's not exactly possible, Ras.
Games exist because most of us aren't prepared to kill everything in sight with an M16, but would enjoy doing so.

For me, at least, you left out a "nor."

Anyhow, the game is unrealistic on many respects, and unless you want to devote years or decades playing a very difficult and hard to manage game, you won't get too realistic. The real world is a tricky place, full of uncertainties on many fronts, and smart leaders must deal with these and other details carefully. Conquerers must be even more careful.

Realism has its place, in terms of giving the game a nice feel. Remember though, in the early game your wars take centuries and your troops aren't even crawling to their destinations. There is no good way to solve this either. This is a game, not a simulation.

-Drachasor

[Dauphin]

What the gameplay factor should come back to is that TBS games should be considered as board games but with the calculations, tabulations, computations and lots of other -ations are taken care of by the computer.

Civ is not first and foremost a game about realism, its a board game in which you don't have to worry about losing the pieces and scorecards for.

Realism is of course important, but I see it as tilting the balance on the choices rather than objectives.

[Enigma_Nova]

Dauphin: That's how a TBS works.
I don't see how WarCraft III, RoN or Zero Hour can be easily transmuted into a board game.

[Dauphin]

You've never played board games at my house.

[Enigma_Nova]

A real-time board game.
That would be priceless.

But how would you solve the problem of units clumping together, since people wouldn't have the time to move them all?

At least people don't ICS in RTS because they don't have the time to managet that many bases.
...
Just make cIV a RTS and problem solved! j/k