Are they finally gonna fix

[Odin]

I think the best way to cure ICS is to make a few large cities better than many tiny cities. I like the way CtP2 does it with expanding city radii, which encourages you to space out your cities so they can grow. I also like Diplo's idea of tech-based Max-city #.

[TechWins]

Originally posted by The diplomat


The problem with that is how much corruption should the game have? If you have too little, then the limit really does not do that much because players won't be hurt that much if they go over. So players can still ICS and they won't care because it won't hurt them very much. On other hand, if corruption is set too high, then you cripple the game because anytime you go over the limit, corruption will kill your production.

So, in essence what will happen is that players will ICS anyway and not care about the effects of corruption because having a gazillion cities will overrule any penalties from corruption.

I was thinking along the lines of adding minor corruption already to CtP2's idea of increasing unhappiness. The two combined ought to do the trick. Then again I've never played a game where there was a rule of limiting cities by deterrance or restricting new cities from being built.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by TechWins


I like this idea more than what Diplomat describes with RoN's restrictive factor. An increase of corruption throughout the empire might be a nice touch when a Civ exceeds its government city limit. When a 21st, per se, city is initialized in Republic via conquest does that also increase unhappiness in CtP2? Also, how does the AI respond to all of this?

Of course, it doesn´t matter how you get the cities that exceed the limit, be it that you use our settlers to found them, or gain them through conquest or diplomacy, all that matters is the number of cities within the empire.
How much effect it has I don´t know, I think each city within the empire [maybe above a certain size] one unhappy citizen per city above the limit (I rarely exceed the limit and if I do it it´s just by 1-2 cities [which normally doesn´t have too much effect, as I try to keep my citizens happy, through buildings but also through good working conditions]).
How the AI reacts to this? Well, I have never seen the AI exceed the city limit. But I don´t know if it is programmed to strictly keep its number of cities within the limit or if, within the unmodded game, it just isn´t smart enough to get more cities going
As I now have started to play mods of CtP2 which have an improved AI, I might encounter the AI going nearer to the limit (or even exceedding it. for example through conquest [although the AI within the CtC-Mod seems to like razing the cities it conquers rather than keeping them])

[TechWins]

Proteus, thanks for the explanation. As long as the AI is willing to exceed the overlimit through conquest then everything should be fine with it, IMO.

Once that AoM game becomes available on Apolyton for download I might order Ctp2; it's only $15 new or ~$8-$10 used on Amazon plus $3.95 in shipping. That'll probably be around summer time being more fitting for my schedule.

[realpolitic]

Charging 2 pop for every settler made conquest so much better than ICS, when the enemy was nearby, but if you don't consider that a fix, charge 3 people for every settler.

[shimmin]

The ICS works because a size 1 city works 2 squares. You can try to counteract this through additional unhappy people, corruption etc., but these are irritating kludges. Make a city work no more tiles than its population, at least in the early game, and building upwards vs. outwards are brought back into balance.

[DrSpike]

By itself that's not very well thought out.

You get the free 2 food (and other resources) so that your city can grow and you can 'build upwards' at all. If you didn't get them squares would have to give at least 3 food.

[shimmin]

That's the feature, not the bug. Without infrastructure, most land allows not-particularly-technologically-advanced peoples to live at little better than subsistance level. If it means the only viable starting positions are near grasslands or rivers, then start the civs on grasslands and rivers, and get those workers irrigating!

[DrSpike]

Yes you are correct.

However that is not the point in game terms. To be doomed unless you start near a river is just stupid. Yeah you can search for one, or survive as a small civ for years until you get butchered by advanced races that were lucky enough to start with better terrain. More realistic, and more silly.

I empathise with some realism arguments, but most of the time you have to consider the effect on gameplay first. Your suggestions would make the game unplayable without restarting for a plum spot, then the AIs you'd face without the plum spots would be even more of a pushover than usual.

I just don't think you've thought things through. Your 'fix' fixes ICS in a way, by breaking the game. You threw the baby out with the bathwater.

[shimmin]

You didn't read carefully enough. If there are only a few good starting positions, then the map generator should start all civs in those positions. It already does this, in fact; it would just have to be more stringent about what is good.

Still, the entire basis of the ICS is that each city gets one free tile's worth of production. Three size one cities are 50% more productive than one size three city. One tile's worth of free production is too much. If there has to be free production to make the game playable, then it should be small, possibly say one food and one trade per city.

[DrSpike]

Ok so everyone starts on a river, with no bonus. You've proposed no other changes to the rules. As things stand in Civ1 - Civ3 (and if memory serves SMAC) you don't get the benefit from irrigation in despotism *unless* the tile originally gives 3 food, which is then reduced to 2 because of despotism, and then increases back to 3 when you irrigate (you can of course go from 1 on plains to 2, but that doesn't help here). If it starts at 2 (all grassland squares) irrigation increases it to 3 where it gets put back to 2. Therefore with no bonus your civ cannot grow at all from size 1 unless you start on a special. So we have to fix it so all civs get specials? Ok now they can grow (slowly, 20 turns up to size 6 (for Civ3 - differs slightly for others) when the food box size changes.

Then when they want to found city number 2 they have to find another special, or that can't grow either. Sounds pretty silly to me in game terms.

Maybe they could get Monarchy? Well without any changes to the rules that's going to take a long time given that you only have 6 pop in one city after 100 turns!

It needs to be thought through more.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by shimmin
Still, the entire basis of the ICS is that each city gets one free tile's worth of production. Three size one cities are 50% more productive than one size three city. One tile's worth of free production is too much. If there has to be free production to make the game playable, then it should be small, possibly say one food and one trade per city.

But if the bonus is one, then you haven't really changed the relative merits of expansion versus building up. You've nerfed ICS *and* building up. ICS is still the best early on, just less effective in overall terms. All you've done is slow the game down for no gain.

[DrSpike]

I'm going to be crass and quote my own post, just to make sure you saw it. That at least gives you the opportunity to poke at my position instead of just defending yours, which is difficult.

Originally posted by DrSpike
ICS is already fixed, it's just the AI.

In Civ2 there is a nice balance between ICS and a smaller more technologically advanced empire (at least in the short term before the ICSer WLTKDs). This comes out in MP more, but even in SP the earliest landings are for a 10 city empire, because the long run is usually (not always though - shows balance) too long for an ICS approach to catch up. ICS is only powerful because the AI will give you anything in Civ2 if you have a lot of cities, and wont attack you.

In Civ3 there is essentially a city cap because of corruption. Sure you have to expand quickly to begin with, but it's hardly infinite if you expand to circa 20 cities or so. You should have to expand quickly early to set yourself up: the strategic choice you have to make based on the game is whether to do it peacefully or militarily.

ICS is fine.

I think 'fixing ICS' threads are very damaging to Civ, and should be ceased immediately. Or who knows what the next 'corruption' will be?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Your suggestions would make the game unplayable without restarting for a plum spot, then the AIs you'd face without the plum spots would be even more of a pushover than usual.

If only you knew how many dozens of times everytime I start a new game with PTW that I restart, just to find a reasonable starting location.

Almost two years ago, I got so frustrated in doing this everytime I start a new game, that I just uninstalled it, and haven't played it since.


But now, I think I might go back and reinstall the game because I enjoy the game so much with the exception of having to restart because they plop me in the midst of plains, mountains, jungle, or desert.

This love-and-hate thing is too much sometimes.

[EscapedGoat]

Civ 3 fixed ICS pretty good with settlers costing 2 pop.

The subtler fix in Civ3 is that one pop costs 20 food for each town size up to 6, such that smaller towns don't grow faster than a little bigger ones(but cities do grow slower)

But still, if you build another city in Civ 3 you are effectively doubling your growth, because, assuming normal 2 food squares, you are getting another +2 food surplus. Building a settler is then essentially like building a granary if you think about it, only it's cheaper and gets you more territory That's still a problem IMO that needs to be balanced a bit better.