Do you think ICS has been solved adequately?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
FWIW though, I agree that building cities is one of the main functions of an empire. In Civilization games, at the least.

I agree with that.

Though building up cities is not the same thing as building cities.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova

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



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.

not interested in presenting a wel ltyped up argument. i just think that people have lost track of what civilisation is about.

it is not a world simulator, im sure there are other software that provide that avenue. If we remove city building and developing from the game it becomses just a war game. too many sessions end like that already without removing the only alternative to war, which is develop culture and larger citys

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I agree with that.

Though building up cities is not the same thing as building cities.

In current Civ games, you have peaceful horizontal expansion (building new cities), vertical expansion (improving already built cities) or hostile horizontal expansion (taking other people's cities).

If you remove the player's ability to build cities, then a full 3rd of player options are suddenly taken away. The only choice they can make in each city is to build military or to build improvements.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Rasputin
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.

I think its possible to be a world leader and to have fun. I'm working on both right now.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
If you remove the player's ability to build cities, then a full 3rd of player options are suddenly taken away. The only choice they can make in each city is to build military or to build improvements.

Instead, they can enact policies and take actions that foster cities to come into existence. This also helps with the feeling of Civ playing more like a nation building game instead of mucking with a collection of cities.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


In current Civ games, you have peaceful horizontal expansion (building new cities), vertical expansion (improving already built cities) or hostile horizontal expansion (taking other people's cities).

If you remove the player's ability to build cities, then a full 3rd of player options are suddenly taken away. The only choice they can make in each city is to build military or to build improvements.

I agree with you. And if that's not good enough for you, Sid Meier also agrees with you. Here is what he has to say about the first Civ prototype:

The first prototype of Civilization that I did was a real-time game like SimCity, in that you placed cities and moved things around, but cities grew without you. You basically seeded the world in a kind of SimCity-esque way. Instead of zoning, you seeded things, and you said I want a city over there, and why don't you do some farming over here. What I didn't like in that version of Civilization is that you did a lot more watching than you did playing.

[Vince278]

If you take away control of the cities then you may as well be playing Empire, a spiritual ancestor of Civ.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Vince278
If you take away control of the cities then you may as well be playing Empire, a spiritual ancestor of Civ.

Taking away the ability to found cities wherever and whenever you feel like is not the same as taking control of cities away.

Besides, cities don't grow in Empire.

[Robert]

To make cIV more an empire building-game then a build-a-bunch-of-cities game the player should not only get benefits for the cities he has, but also for what the cities combined add to the empire. The empire should be more then the sum of the cities.

ie. some cities might grow out as cities of study. (culturally, by some random change, and of course by some influence the player can have on it)
Other ideas might be: commerce, war, seafaring, argiculture, etc. etc.

Building certain improvements might higher the change of a city to gain these special skills. (wonders!! )
But pherhaps as well things like make your citizen work specific tiles, or pherhaps don't let them work at all but keep them in home to study the arts....

A city of science might build a university complex, and that university works like a palace, but only for science.
And all cities within a certain radius will benefit from the scientific city.

If your empire grows, you need more of these cities.

[Drachasor]

I agree in general with Cybershy that in order to feel like an Empire, there need to be more ways cities directly interact with each other. The more an individual city doesn't replicate a small nation, the closer you are to feeling like your collection of cities feels like a nation.

The best way to handle this is to allow cities to influence other cities more. Trade is part of that, but imho production and food should be transferrable between cities (basically you have a national storage of these two items, and cities can add to and draw from it, with some limit/turn for each city based on population). Right now cities are just too independent and that leads one to feel you just have a collection of cities and not a state.
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Now, some things that would curb ICS (many of these have been suggested):

1. Give cities realistic growth values so long as they are supplied with adequate food. That is, a city with 100,000 individuals vs. four cities with 25,000 each would all grow at the same rate, given the same amount of food. This lessens ICS because those Settlers you send out *cost* population and won't be reproducing while they are in settler form. Since growth rates should be exponential, you'll have a bigger benefit from building less cities and letting them grow more.

2. Increase the distance cities need to be from each other to two or three squares. Sure, this is an arbitrary amount, but so is the current distance requirement.

3. Make high population *count*. Give cities with high populations extra bonuses. That size 20 city has much more than twice as many citizens as the size 10 neighbor, even if it doesn't have more population points. Have that extra population give the city some bonuses. Then going ICS early on will be painful in the long run. Perhaps let size 20+ cities easily ship off extra population to low population cities.

4. Along the lines of 3, perhaps there should be some empire-wise benefit for having a high average city size. Hence having 50 cities of size 10 wouldn't be as good as having 25 cities of size 20. Better yet, use the median city size. As you might recall from math class, the median is the number you get if you line up all the numbers in order from highest to lowest and take the middle number (if you two are in the middle, you average). So if you have cities of sizes 1, 1, 1, 4, 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, and 11, then your median size is 10. This makes it so you won't be penalized for a few new cities now and then. (the average here is 7).

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As for the idea of getting rid of city-building, I don't see how it would effectively different. What is going to stop people from forcing cities to form near each other, and the proceeding along happily with ICS? If you impose some artificial restriction, how is that different from increasing the distance cities have to be from each other? Seems to me manually deciding where your cities are will be more fun, and have less hassle, with the same effect.

-Drachasor

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Drachasor
Trade is part of that, but imho production and food should be transferrable between cities (basically you have a national storage of these two items, and cities can add to and draw from it, with some limit/turn for each city based on population).

My idea is merchants (invisible to the players) perform this function automatically. For example, they will buy food from an area with surplus food and sell it in an area with a food shortage. This of course drives up food price in that latter area and decreases quality of life.

Originally posted by Drachasor
As for the idea of getting rid of city-building, I don't see how it would effectively different. What is going to stop people from forcing cities to form near each other, and the proceeding along happily with ICS?

Because you can't. If there's an existing city, it acts as a magnet for the people in the countryside due to higher quality of life (culture, education, wage levels, etc.) in the city.

If you have two cities close to each other, the better city is going to suck people away from the lesser one.

[Robert]

Pherhaps that should be possible to happen when people build two cities too close to each other, the culture of city A might 'suck' the people from city B within it's walls, and city B will be a ruin wasting a good resource tile for ages.

A little bit as with culture between two nations.

And a big cultural city will always grow because of people from other cities who join it.
Thus every city should have:

population: 40.000

new population last turn/year: 1028 people

new from food: 532 people
food from worked tiles: 456 people
food from other cities (UR idea): 76 people

from other cities: 496 people (per year/turn)
From Napels: 269 people
from Rome: 149 people
From Citya: 32 people
from Cityb: 19 people

lost population: 495 people

died: 215 people
old age: 151 people
disease: 22 people
crime: 18 people
war: 18 people

to other cities:
Citya: 90
Cityb: 76
Cityc: 54
Cityd: 40
citye: 20

If you know for what reason people are leaving a city you want to grow (bc of the good production area ie) you can investigate on what to do.
Should I invest more in shopping area's so the people won't leave?
Should I prevent diseases more?

how can I attract more people?
etc.etc.

I see some: "Too much micromanagement" answers.
And yes: I like that

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


My idea is merchants (invisible to the players) perform this function automatically. For example, they will buy food from an area with surplus food and sell it in an area with a food shortage. This of course drives up food price in that latter area and decreases quality of life.

Food shortages don't decrease the standard of living if merchant trading to make up the shortfall is taken as given. There are, and have been in the past, many areas that do not grow enough food to support themselves and import the necessary shortfall from another part of the country/empire without batting an eyelid.

If you are talking famine or disruption to trade then that would be a variable in quality of life.

[Arrian]

I say leave the system basically as-is, but include some pop requirements for buildings and also increase the bonuses that come with large cities. Temples, barracks, libraries, markets, cathedrals, universities, banks, stock exchanges, and wonders (not that you would build a wonder in a size1 city anyway) spring to mind for the buildings that would require certain levels of pop. The bonuses... well, maybe give +2s/+2c (or 3, even) to the city tile every time the city hits a new size bracket. Towns (which, IMO, should start at size 2 or 3, with size1s being villages) could get +50%, cities (starting around size 8) could get 100%, and metros (starting around 14) could get 150% and some sort of guerilla militia.

Another possibility would be to have the game calculate your empire's city density - how many total tiles are in your borders, and how many cities do you have? This could be then tied to empire-wide happiness. Too much density = happiness penalty. Lots of open space = happiness bonus. Moderation = neither. Of course, I imagine we all have different opinions as to what density is "just right."

-Arrian

[Max Sinister]

It's a possibility, but is it realistic? Are the Canadians and the Russians and the Australians so much happier than Americans (let's not even talk about Europeans and Japanese!) because they have so much more space per citizen?

If Civ would simulate how big the houses / apartments of the people are, that would be different...