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Do you think ICS has been solved adequately?

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  • #16
    As it is now, having 1 worker in 10 cities generates the same commerce as 10 in 1.


    Other benefits to ICS include:
  • Not putting all your eggs in one basket
    Who cares if someone just nuked one of your size 2 bases? You have hundreds more where that came from, and not much invested in that particular city. Someone nuking my size 15 city with many improvements, on the other hand...

  • Having multiple build queues
    With 10 size 1 cities, I can build 10 cheap units each turn with rushing. With 1 size 10 city, I can never produce more than one unit a turn.

  • Interconnected defence
    Placing cities that close together means that any city under thread can get reinforcements from multiple cities close by. Cities reaching higher sizes by necessity need more room so will not have as many cities close by.

  • Less wasted shields
    Using SMAC as an example, up to 10 excess shields get carried over to the next project. With small cities, they rarely produce more than 10 excess shields so waste at the end of producing stuff is minimal. Larger cities will have command of more shields, making it much more likely that their full production will not be utilized. If they produce 50 shields and only need 20 to finish the current build, 20 shields are wasted. Decreasing the amount of shields carried over to the next build exacerbates the problem.

    Civ 3 attempts to curb ICS
  • 2-cost settlers just delay the building of cities. As shown by REX, masses of cities still get built.
  • Corruption/waste becomes a disincentive to build any cities after a certain point, regardless of their spacing from other cities.
  • Culture means that a few cities might need to be recaptured over the course of the game. See point 1 regarding the worth of these cities.

    What it comes down to though is the phrase I quoted initially. If one size 10 city can outproduce ten size 1 cities then ICS will be less powerful from a pure gameplay point of view, hence will not be used.
I'm building a wagon! On some other part of the internets, obviously (but not that other site).

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  • #17
    The easiest answer would be that you won't have a worker on your center-tile automaticly.

    Besides that cities should grow in tile-size as well over time, big cities can merge and create metropoles that spaw several tiles.

    Further I think it might be a good idea to let people who live in very crowded areas (much cities) are less happy. They need green and parks and hapyness. Not cities as far as the eye can see.
    Formerly known as "CyberShy"
    Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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    • #18
      simply adjust the minimum distance between citys, instead of one tile make it 3-4
      GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71

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      • #19
        Nah, that sucks. Sometimes I just want to build cities close to each other.
        Formerly known as "CyberShy"
        Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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        • #20
          But then as per your suggestion they would join together.
          I'm building a wagon! On some other part of the internets, obviously (but not that other site).

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          • #21
            Indeed.
            Or if the citizen of both cities would not like to join, they can continue as two seperated though totally connected cities.

            We have plenty of those overhere in The Netherlands
            Formerly known as "CyberShy"
            Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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            • #22
              The simpliest way to elimate ICS is to eliminate the ability to start cities willy-nilly. Sure, that will require a complete redesign of the underlying population model and growth mechanics, but it's something that's long* overdue.


              * Ever since Civ came out
              (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
              (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
              (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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              • #23
                How would that work? Have set sites on the map where cities are allowed to be built?
                I'm building a wagon! On some other part of the internets, obviously (but not that other site).

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                • #24
                  i prefr my very simple solution
                  GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71

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                  • #25
                    I think Clash of Civilizations has the same model.

                    Put it simply, each grid square (or hex) has some people in it - empty space is not truly empty. How many depends on the local food situation, possibility of trade, water, and existence of special resources, etc. Once you seed the map with population, grow the population each turn. Once you have enough people in an area, a city forms by itself.

                    In other words, cities appear by the underlying population model.
                    (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
                    (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
                    (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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                    • #26
                      You can also put a population requirement on city improvements.
                      (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
                      (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
                      (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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                      • #27
                        You don't build improvements when using ICS. A pop requirement for city improvements is irrelevant where ICS is concerned.
                        I'm building a wagon! On some other part of the internets, obviously (but not that other site).

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                        • #28
                          Originally posted by Urban Ranger
                          You can also put a population requirement on city improvements.
                          Like the employment model in MOO3?
                          "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." -- JFK Inaugural, 1961
                          "Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice." -- Barry Goldwater, 1964 GOP Nomination acceptance speech (not George W. Bush 40 years later...)
                          2004 Presidential Candidate
                          2008 Presidential Candidate (for what its worth)

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                          • #29
                            If one is unwilling to go down the 'no-control-over-founding-cities' route, then ultimately fighting ICS boils down to helping economies of scale, and preventing crowding.

                            The first one basically means that a size 20 city produces more than twice as much as a size 10 city. This can be done in several ways - the idea of only allowing factories, libraries, markets etc. above a certain size certainly works in this way, up to the minimum sized city able to build all useful improvements.

                            Another way to achieve the same effect is to have the output (in shields or gold) of a city not be a linear function of its input. As a crazy example, say that the no. of shields produced by a city went as (sum of shields produced by individual tiles) squared. A city working 5 tiles, each producing one shield, would have an output of 5*5 = 25 shields. This is obviously roo extreme, but the function used can easily be fine-tuned (raised to power 1.2 instead of 2, to give almost no difference for small cities, but a reasonable difference for bigger cities - by the time you get to 30 raw shields, the output of a big city doubles that to 60 (30^1.2 = 59.2).

                            This does the same job as the minimum size limits for city improvements, but on a continuous scale. It isn't necessarily any better.

                            Another factor is reducing crowding. Arguably, this already achieves that, since you need room for the big cities. This doesn't address Ralphing though. That can be combatted by either making settlers cost more (in population, shields, or whatever) so they can't be thrown around like confetti, or introducing some kind of penalty based on the number of cities within 3 tiles (or whatever) of any city. That way, plonking a military camp down next to a city can penalise the original city to a greater degree than the camp can make up for - so camps never boost the overall national output, only lower it.

                            That way, there is an incentive to stick to some kind of OCP (non-overlapping city radii) placement, or something close to it (maybe it can be worth cramping cities slightly to trade off the better early game state vs a weaker empire in the later game, other things being equal).

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                            • #30
                              Originally posted by Rasputin
                              i prefr my very simple solution
                              Too artificial. There are lots of real examples where cities are close to each other.
                              (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
                              (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
                              (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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