The war on ICS

[Ralf]

Originally posted by rah
Damn, Ralf, chill a bit.

Oops! Sorry. It looks like im shouting, but I am not. I was just underlining & emphasizing.

Of course it's built on assumptions, the darn game isn't even out yet. And I'm sure some of the things they've showed us will still be changed before the game is released.

Agree.

That Worker unit everyone is referencing is one that goes out and builds roads and irrigation, not the worker that you place in your city screen.

Well, this is the same mobile worker I was refering to all along. In order to avoid further confusion one should perhaps differ between mobile workers and allocation-workers.

So please cut me some slack while i express my fears.
AND my OPINION that the -2 pop will not be enough to discourage ICSing. The people that I play with are pretty darn smart and will find any loophole in the programming. And I will too. [...]

I would like to know what I said that caused your outburst, I don't believe I insulted anybody. I was just stating opinions.
If I did insult you, I apologize.

No, you didnt insult me. But, its fun then ones replies gets commented, whether its mostly "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". I apologize too, by the way.

[rah]

"Well, this is the same mobile worker I was refering to all along. In order to avoid further confusion one should perhaps differ between mobile workers and allocation-workers. "

Yes there has been some confusion in other threads too.

Thanks for the clarification.

With a free allocation-worker per city might seem to be the same as the extra-allocation workers that you would get with a size 3 city, I still think it's not quite equal since the new cities will grow to size three as fast as the original city will grow to size four. Add that to the original city growing as quickly back to size 3, I still think there will be value in creating the extra cities as fast as possible. Development can wait till all the good land is taken...Except for your core cities. (The new method may stop people from spitting settlers out of their cap once they have another city) I'll have to check the math on any other influences to see how it works.

RAH
I'm glad no hard feelings were generated on either side. I like discussing this stuff regardless of the lack of impact. (since we don't have anything else to do but wait, expect civ2 mp of course )

[polypheus]

I think that one easy way for ICS to be defeated is to program barbarians to attack low-culture, low population villages. This is realistic since the barbarians would see this villages as vulnerable and easy targets for raids.

Thus if one used ICS strategy, one would quickly discover their villages being overrun by barbarians.

OTOH, if a more balanced strategy is used in which cities need to be developed more so they are of some size and have some culture, then barbarians will not attack as ferociously and there is greater chance of survival.

This will encourage more balanced expansion and development and should seriously tone down ICS as it becomes very risky because of tempting ferocious barbarian attacks.

[MORON]

Questions.

1. Why make small cities grow faster?

2. Why not just make big cities worth more.

Oh the 0 culture boarder thing for new cities I heard was to prevent land grabs.

And why does a backward civ with no tech and 2 tiny cities have to be powerful as a bigger rival? BAB may not be too great but its just logical.

[polypheus]

Originally posted by MORON
Questions.

1. Why make small cities grow faster?

2. Why not just make big cities worth more.

Oh the 0 culture boarder thing for new cities I heard was to prevent land grabs.

And why does a backward civ with no tech and 2 tiny cities have to be powerful as a bigger rival? BAB may not be too great but its just logical.

If bigger is always better than how is it that China and India did not dominate the world but medium nations like Spain and England could have empires spanning the whole globe?

The answer is that in real life, nations don't progress linearly and keep on improving but suffer setbacks. (i.e. rise and fall of civilizations). They suffer from technological stagnation/regression, internal disunity and discontent, corruption, administrative inefficiencies, civil wars, rebellions/uprisings, temporary divisions, barbarian attacks, disease outbreaks, etc.

But since in Civ2, progression is linear and evolutionary, then ultimately the key is to expand, expand and expand like crazy in the beginning of the game despite the fact that it is unrealistic, destroys gameplay, and ahistorical.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by MORON
Oh the 0 culture boarder thing for new cities I heard was to prevent land grabs.

Yes - that also. No more SMAC-style instant border-boxing.

In Civ-3 it becomes rather disadvantageous to found a city directly outside established enemy-borders - especially if that newbie city is alone, far away from the motherland. Before a new city have established its own borders, the more mature & established enemy-borders may have expanded - swallowing your tiny newbie-city up. You face a big risk that your newbie-city convert itself to its big empire-neighbor.

And why does a backward civ with no tech and 2 tiny cities have to be powerful as a bigger rival? BAB may not be too great but its just logical.

No, this is a misunderstanding. Also you give us an unlikely and obviously extreme example.

In order to achieve the full extent of the BAB-benefit, your smaller-then-10 cities empire must in return consist of very well-developed cities. Since your not invest so much in pop-detracting settlers, your cities will grow much faster. Also; you will have much more time to furnish your cities well, with all kinds of trade-, science-, food, happiness & culture-boosting city-improvements.

The only added new BAB-feature here, that helps pushing small (but well-developed) empires to be a more viable and much more competitive alternative - is the gradually lower small-empire city-happiness penalty. You still have to build some counteracting happiness-improvements, of course. But small empires with few cities (lets say around 5-10), let your cities grow faster and more freely, without so many city-riots breathing down your neck.

On the other hand: such empire-size happiness-benefit doesnt have to turn into a penalty, effecting bigger and bigger empires, with even harder and harder happiness-penalties (like it does in CTP-2). The happiness-penalty may very well stay flat beyond a certain number of cities. In fact, I would much more prefer increasing economical restraints (due increasingly cost-heavy administration, unit-upkeep & corruption) in order to place some late game ICS-city rubberband-limits.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by polypheus
I think that one easy way for ICS to be defeated is to program barbarians to attack low-culture, low population villages. This is realistic since the barbarians would see this villages as vulnerable and easy targets for raids. [...]

This will encourage more balanced expansion and development and should seriously tone down ICS as it becomes very risky because of tempting ferocious barbarian attacks.

This idea have potential. And it shouldnt be that hard to implement.

The more early pioneer cities you have established, without proper road-connection and guard-unit protection, at any given time - the more the AI dynamically increases the number of barbarian scumbags from surrounding uncovered squares and barbarian huts.

Likewise; the more you choose build roads to expected city-foundations in advance - and the more you accompany settlers with guard-units, enabling immediate protection of cities, the more the AI dynamically decreases the number of barbarians from surrounding uncovered squares & huts.

They STILL going to visit you though - this idea only dynamically tweaks the numbers somewhat, depending on your expanding-style. And sometimes a more risky expanding-style can turn out to be more beneficial also.

[Theben]

I always assumed that the culture rating played a big part in anti-ICS.

Say if a low culture civ placed cities next to a high culture civ, you run the risk of having the low culture cities rebel to neutral or join the other civ.

I think the "free worker" is the settler in civ2 that never settles, just keeps building improvements. Which means that the worker idea may only slightly hinder ICS by making city settlement less opportunistic (you have to plan ahead to settle).

Also I see one of Rah's points, that smaller food boxes fill up quicker. Thus cities that build settlers will grow back to their original size quicker than anticipated. Unless settlers also cost more food (for the 2 pop points)?

[rah]

I agree polypheus, that may be the best way to combat ics without making other drastic changes. As long as it didn't kill the first 10000 years, when you wouldn't have much anyway.

RAH

[TechWins]

When Firaxis was trying to fix the idea that bigger is always better, I hope they also still made it possible to have bigger is always better still have the ability to hold true. Except this time it would be bigger is sometimes better. Meaning that they can't take away the wanting to have a big nation because of the severe disadvantages of having a big nation to just counter part the fact that bigger is always better in Civ2.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by TechWins
When Firaxis was trying to fix the idea that bigger is always better, I hope they also still made it possible to have bigger is always better still have the ability to hold true. Except this time it would be bigger is sometimes better. Meaning that they can't take away the wanting to have a big nation because of the severe disadvantages of having a big nation to just counter part the fact that bigger is always better in Civ2.

Yes - the idea is that both the huge empire approach and the small empire approach should (roughly) be equally attractrive & viable alternatives. Although not in the same areas.

A really huge communistic or nationalistic (but still well-managed) empire should give you an undeniable advantage in some areas (perhaps mass-production capacity, strong combat-morale and very effective uprising/happiness control). A small republic/democratic (but still very well-managed) empire should give you an unbeatable advantage in the economical/trade area (cities can grow uniquely huge with comparibly less happiness-problem - giving you a huge tax-base, but with less total amount of costly city-improvements/ combat-units needed).
Also in science, these well-managed democratic mini-empires can keep reasonably even steps, because of their proportionally bigger city-populations.

At the end of the day, however: If you create a huge & well-managed democratic empire; that should give you the final edge in most areas. But, yet again - only so much, and definitely not in each and every areas. In each and every empire-size + government combination, there should both be an unquestionable advantage and an sensitive "Archilles heel" wrapped together. This is why the BAB-problem is a rather tricky one.

The democratic government-type for example, shouldnt - on top of everything else - also be viable counquer-the-world alternative (as it in fact often could be in Civ-2). Defending ones motherland (or helping a democratic ally, being attacked) is one thing - but if you want to invade (and assimilate) other cultures forever; you MUST choose a more warprone & dictatorial government-type. I dont care about real-life "maybe in future" arguments. Democracy shouldnt be the best possible solution in every area - its a question of game-balance, if nothing else.

[Alexander's Horse]

Why is everyone so against ICS?

You will never stop them.

[Rasputin]

whatever system they come up with, some one wil lfind a loophole to exploit and make the game less fun for everyone else... I love developing my civ, builsing all the damn city improivments and conencting al lby rai land builsing farms,, i love building lots of citys too... but when you play MP you tend to not do as much as you need to keep up with the damn ICSers who IMHO arent so much fun to paly with...

[Father Beast]

Horse, Rasputin, I disagree.

The basis of ICS advantage is that for one pop point settler, you get two allocation-workers (dang, that's a lot of typing, just call them aw's). that means that although the pop of a new city was listed as 1, the actual production was for 2.
in the glorious new world, we will be paying 2 pop for every 2 pop starting city. what it says the pop of the starting city is doesn't matter, except in one case. when you disband a city size2 into a settler, you are actually paying 3 AW's for that privilege.
I wish they would have the game notation conform with reality, so as to eliminate that imbalance.

in the old ICS, you could pay 1AW for a 2AW city, which was the basis of the grand ICS advantage.

RAH, I'm aware of the building settlers before your capitol reaches size2 trick. If they can't make that obsolete, I will be VERY surprised. I think it already doesn't work with one of the versions I use.

Moron, you made a good point about the culture radius making it so that massive city planting doesn't mean the land grabbing you thought it would. That will also discourage the bigger is better mentality.

I just read a post where some ICSer (think it was scouse gits) says they don't have cities, just hundreds of villages.

between the culture radius and the 2pop settler, I don't think any artificial barrier to growth is neccesary. If you can sprawl across the land, it will be because you have built the infrastructure neccesary to do so. more power to you.

Of course we will break the game eventually, it just won't be by ICS. don't forget, we also broke the game by the OCC. tell me the designers thought that would happen.
we'll get it, and suggest fixes for the next gamebreaker in the civ4 suggestion list

[Father Beast]

Rasputin, I just read your post again and I agree with you after all. I thought you were saying that ICS will come back, no matter what . sorry