What is ics?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Sava
it seems like they might have gone to an extreme to get rid of ICS

Well... the corruption in Civ3 has a dual cost, CIV will have something similar. The example above is artificial, if you would have one fixed cost depending on distance, and one number-of-cities factor like Civ3 had, I'm sure the numbers aren't quite so steep once you're settling your 50th city on a large map. Also, later on you conquer cities which are already large, they kind of pay for themselves. If that 11th city above generated 11 gpt from the start, all expenses are paid.

DeepO

[Freddz]

Ok, another question then:

What is a democracy game?

Haven't been on civ-forums enough it seems...

[Solver]

Democracy game is an evil, evil thing invented and started by people like Trip.

[Freddz]

Now I have some more clues...

[Harovan]

Democracy games exist in 2 versions:

1) Singleplayer democracy game, played by dozens or even hundreds of individuals playing one faction in correspondence, endlessly arguing about important facts like if the next city should be named Muh, Meh or Maff.

2) Multiplayer democracy games, having several teams playing one single Play By Email game. Involves trash talking in the public fora, and valuable discussions in the private team forum, like if the next city should be named Muh, Meh or Maff.

Both types of democracy game are a valuable source of post counts and havens of all sorts of unpunished spam!

[Freddz]

Sir Ralph,

LOL! This was even worse than I expected (I suspected it was some kind of co-op game).

[snoopy369]

I liked ICS

[q=solver]Democracy game is an evil, evil thing invented and started by people like Trip.[/q]

And to think we were going to invite you to be a Voxian ...

[snoopy369]

Democracy games are not as bad as SR and Solver would have you believe

SP games have many variants, but ultimately they involve a bunch of people playing a SP game together, debating how to best play it. They're pretty good for learning strategy - as you debate such strategy endlessly. Not just how to name a city , but where to put said city, whether to attack the Romans or the Greeks next, etc.

MP games are indeed team PBEM games. They are much more complex, involve huge amounts of diplomacy and such, and tend to be very involved. They can get out of hand sometimes but overall are quite fun, as long as you don't take the roleplaying too far They're a great opportunity to bond with other Civvers, also - the teams tend to become close-knit groups.

[Mace]

Originally posted by Solver
Likewise, in Civ4 you can colonize new lands if you have the economy for it.

That's the way it should be.

...plus, if you need a resource or lux that is by your colony, that makes the colony even more useful...even if it's a net drain on your gold (because of maintenance)...it makes up for it by providing you with that resource...

I frequently ran colonies in Civ3 that were so distant that they were of little productive value...but they had oil or uranium or whatever that was essential.

[Krill]

Democracy games are teh Bomb. I got about 3000 posts from Demogames and PBEMs. And you can make many new friends in them.

[Brizey]

For the newer players, ICS was really an exploit of the game mathematical model. Basically adding a size one city resulted in twice as much production as allowing a city to grow one population point. In other words, two size one cities in the early game produce as much as one size three city. So it was pretty much always better to just pump out settlers and get as many cities as early as possible. Ideally you would have every inch of land covered with size one cities before you started to grow since that would result in the most efficient early production.

The extra production comes from the city square. So a size one city has one "field" producer and one city producer. So two size one cities have two city producers and two field producers, whereas a size two city has only one city producer and two field producers.

I think the game developers did this to make sure that the AI and beginner players were capable of growing.

Civ 3 tried to address this by making settlers cost two population points, but it was not enough. They also made it so that every city square was a "good" square regardless of the terrain it was on, which helps ICS.

The general feeling was that this was an exploit of the mathematical model and ruined the atmosphere of the early game.

{edited for my idiotic arithmetic error}

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Krill
Democracy games are teh Bomb. I got about 3000 posts from Demogames and PBEMs. And you can make many new friends in them.

Why would one think post count is important?

[Krill]

No reason. But each post gave me something to think about and consider, and that helped me to learn more about the game. And some of the discussions that I have taken part in are quite challenging to understand, never mind participate in. it's just fun.

[Freddz]

Ok, that's makes sense, though I doubt democracy game is my thing. I may lack the patience..

[animaster]

Offcourse post count isnt important.
Would be as stupid as comparing Civ score .

Postcount shows in some ways how dedicated you are to a community. Offcourse someone just contribute spam.