How many cities max?

[Seeker]

I'm really thinking more of big scenarios, like a Ultimate, Grand World War II on a huge scale with lots of cities.

No more 'the Neutrals' but Germany, USSR, UK, USA, Japan, KMT China, Communist China, Spain, Turkey, Finland, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc.

Imagine trying to do cities for the British Empire on a true gigamap, an empire with Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, tons of islands, UK, etc etc.

Obviously I am simply assuming simultaneous turn resolution which I have argued for from the start. (for practical reasons)

[Kc7mxo]

I think that there should be no theoretical limit to your cities, (something on teh order of a 1000 oought to cover it). This would allow you to build to your hearts content.

But there should be cultural, domestic, and foreign reasons you woudln't do this.

And while i'm at it, i'll say that i'd like there to be no theoretical limit to the number of enemy civs. A turn based game really should have one. A starting number of say 16 would make me happy, as long as there was unlmiited numbers of split off cultures.

And I don't give a damn if they all have the same stupid herald. I have that damn thing turned off even when i play on my gigahertz thunderbird. Its a waste of programming.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
I think that there should be no theoretical limit to your cities, (something on teh order of a 1000 oought to cover it).

If you have followed the game-update news latelely, and then try lay 2 and 2 together, you should realize that Civ-3 is going to be a very different game in above respect. And believe me: There ARE both theoretical and practical software/hardware limits when designing civ-style computer-games.

And while i'm at it, i'll say that i'd like there to be no theoretical limit to the number of enemy civs. A turn based game really should have one.

Your reference to "turn-based game" as an huge city/civ-numbers argument, clearly demonstrates that you really dont have the foggiest clue about the implications & problems with artificial intelligence programming. You just dont seems to understand the problems involved.

when i play on my gigahertz thunderbird. Its a waste of programming.

Check out this poll: Your expected CPU-power around christmas 2001.
Firaxis just cannot design a game that works optimally for 1 Ghz computer-users only. That would be commercial suicide. And even if they nevertheless did; your puny 1 Ghz machine wouldnt be enough, by a longshot, in order to meet up with your unrealistic city/civ-number expectations.

[Kc7mxo]

First of all, I was not reffering to what is actualy in the game. I was reffering to what i would like. Currently I doubt anyone at firaxis really gives a damn about any of the debates on this forum (if they ever really did).

Secondly, I do know a little something about AI programming. And depending on the level of strategic thought required, it can be proccessor intensive, but it does not need to be.

Consider, if a 286 can run civ 1, with 6 ai civilizations, and barbarians in a reasonable amount of time during the turn, with a reasonable level of intelligence. While i was yougner when I first played it, I never considered the AI to be at the level of a moron.

Consider, if a 486 can play civ 2, with 6 ai civilizations and barbariansin a reasonable amoutn of time during the turn, with a reasonable level of intelligence. While the AI is not very imaginitive, its still good enough to beat the average game player. This excludes vertually everyone in this entire forum because we've all probably had more hours playing civ games then anyone ever spent programming the damn things (EACH!).

Now, bump up the level of user computer to the average level and consider. How intelligent is this oh so spectacular game going to be that it can't handle any #%)*#%^#)* more civlizations??

Do you think firaxis is aiming this game at people still playing with 286s? I don't #$%^@#% think so.

They may not be aiming at the computers that black and white did, but they are damn well expecting you to keep up with the times.

Commercial suicide? That would be desiging a game for all of us arrogant and self important people at apolyton. There is not enough people here to design a game for. Firaxis is designing a game they think will make them money.


Perhaps I lost my top a bit. My point is that I wasn't discussing what civ 3 IS. I'm discussing what I would like civ 3 to BE. The same way I don't vote the way things are. I vote the way I would like things to be.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Wazell
They'll just put the limit to 65535, or more likely 32767 cities

Why would they use signed integers for the city number?

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Commercial suicide? That would be desiging a game for all of us arrogant and self important people at apolyton. There is not enough people here to design a game for. Firaxis is designing a game they think will make them money.

You make a good point above. This is why they had gone for a quality-before-quantity approach this time. Extensive anti-ICS and anti-BAB (bigger-always-better) measures has been confirmed to be high priorities. This most probably means that they, amongst other things, have implemented rubberband in-game limits that makes empires above 35-50 cities very hard, or at least not-worth-the-effort to maintain (because of overwhelming domestic problems). Conquering the world by military means, by the way, should now only be possible indirectly, with help of vassalized allies. At least, thats what I really hope for.

One can only look at the settler -2 pop-cost, together with the -1 pop-cost for workers (and since they are "mobile pop-points" they most probably STILL require food-support - just as in Civ-2) in order to understand that any idea of "several hundreds" of Civ-2 style ICS-spreaded cities all over the map, simply isnt feasible anymore. There simply isnt enough time/ enough turns to achieve something like that.

Above + other confirmed tweaks, is what I mean with "laying two and two together". Also, if Firaxis actually going to let up to 16 civs play simultaneously on the map (and that havent been officially confirmed yet), you can bet that the AI (at best) is going to concentrate most of its efforts on 5-6 AI-civs (with perhaps max 20+ cities each), while the other ones AI-civs becomes 4-8 city mini-empires. The latter is not necessarily bad though, provided that they have implemented smart anti-BAB measures, that gives small mini-empires some limited, but attractive advantages that their bigger counterparts dont have - making them quite competitive nevertheless.

Anyway, I really think that enough update-info have been released so far, in order to understand that old quantity-before-quality ICS-tacticts isnt going to work anymore. And thats a good thing, the way I look at it.

[Rasputin]

city numbers should only be limited by the ability of the leader to maintia nthem all under control, rembering that civ citys are not so much citys as we understand it, but more like mini states , imagine having more than 50 states in one civ, espcecially if they were spread across multiple continents, not likely , too hard to maintain control of