Proposals to Fix ICS in Civ3: Firaxis, please stop by...

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
I like the idea of needing roads connecting land before you settle a city...

I believe this road-connected newbie-cities idea could be easy to implement as an option. After all; its not that big difference, game-mechanically speaking, if a colony must be road-connected in order to produce any output, compared with a city that must be road-connected in order to produce any output, is it? Of course, the AI must be able to adjust.

A compromize would be: Lets say you could found a city anywhere, but unless its road-connected (or harbour-connected) it wont grow beyond 1 pop.

I think this idea would solve Player3:s argument as well:
"Consider the following situation: you start a game where there are two areas rich in resources separated by a natural barrier of mountains and jungle. Many players would rush to build citys on both sides of the barrier and later link them with roads. This would be impossible with CCBs"

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
I like the idea of needing roads connecting land before you settle a city...

I believe this road-connected newbie-cities idea could be easy to implement as an option. After all; its not that big difference, game-mechanically speaking, if a colony must be road-connected in order to produce any output, compared with a city that must be road-connected in order to produce any output, is it? Of course, the AI must be able to adjust/exploit these rules.

A compromize would be: Lets say you could found a city anywhere, but unless its road-connected (or harbour-connected) it wont grow beyond 1 pop.

I think this idea would solve Player3:s argument as well:
"Consider the following situation: you start a game where there are two areas rich in resources separated by a natural barrier of mountains and jungle. Many players would rush to build citys on both sides of the barrier and later link them with roads. This would be impossible with CCBs"

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
I like the idea of needing roads connecting land before you settle a city...

I believe this road-connected newbie-cities idea could be easy to implement as an option. After all; its not that big difference, game-mechanically speaking, if a colony must be road-connected in order to produce any output, compared with a city that must be road-connected in order to produce any output, is it? Of course, the AI must be able to adjust/exploit these rules.

A compromize would be: Lets say you could found a city anywhere, but unless its road-connected (or harbour-connected) it wont grow beyond 1 pop.

I think this idea would solve Player3:s argument as well:

"Consider the following situation: you start a game where there are two areas rich in resources separated by a natural barrier of mountains and jungle. Many players would rush to build citys on both sides of the barrier and later link them with roads. This would be impossible with CCBs"

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
I like the idea of needing roads connecting land before you settle a city...

I believe this road-connected newbie-cities idea could be easy to implement as an option. After all; its not that big difference, game-mechanically speaking, if a colony must be road-connected in order to produce any output, compared with a city that must be road-connected in order to produce any output, is it? Of course, the AI must be able to adjust/exploit these rules.
A compromize would be: Lets say you could found a city anywhere, but unless its road-connected (or harbour-connected) it wont grow beyond 1 pop.

I think this idea would solve Player3:s argument as well:

"Consider the following situation: you start a game where there are two areas rich in resources separated by a natural barrier of mountains and jungle. Many players would rush to build citys on both sides of the barrier and later link them with roads. This would be impossible with CCBs"

[Ralf]

Arrrgh! This slow server is a nightmare. MarkG - if you read this; delete above copies.

[Drake Tungsten]

Re: one more thing...

Originally posted by Arrian
Simple solution: same thing w/borders. "Supreme leader, such a move will violate the sovereign territory of China, and will lead to a major international incident." 1) Oops. 2) Consequenses Shmonsequences!

This would obviously have to apply to the AI as well as the human player. Thus, borders would act as barriers, unless you are willing to invade.

This is the best idea I've heard so far in this thread. If borders don't act as a barrier to enemy units, then what is the point of borders? It sounds like there should be much tougher penalties for AI units that violate your territory.

[Howling Chip]

Originally posted by yin26
A more flexible solution like SITS mentioned would be better. But I would also add: What are colonies for? As the game stands, they are next to useless when you can so easily just send out cities.

Except when that resource is one or two hexes away from your border. Don't want a city there. I always play (so far) with culture as a prime objective. I colonize, then absorb the resource as my borders grow. Used them for remote parts of the world also, when workers are plentiful and quick/cheap to build vs a colonist.

[Howling Chip]

Originally posted by yin26
A more flexible solution like SITS mentioned would be better. But I would also add: What are colonies for? As the game stands, they are next to useless when you can so easily just send out cities.

Except when that resource is one hex away from your border or in the middle of the mountains or desert. Don't want a city there. I always play (so far) with culture as a prime objective. I colonize, then absorb the resource as my borders grow. Used them for remote parts of the world also, when workers are plentiful and quick/cheap to build vs a colonist.

[HalfLotus]

Since when is ICS a problem in civ3? More cities is not neccessarily better anymore. Corruption makes sure of that. And with the two pop for settler you no longer get a free worked square.
When you found a city, two squares are worked. Since it took two pop to found it, there's not the advantage of a one pop. settler founding a city.
Why do you guys think ICs ia a problem?

[RobC]

Re: Proposals to Fix ICS in Civ3: Firaxis, please stop by...

Originally posted by yin26
ICS = Infinite City Sleaze. Basically the idea is simple: By sending out settlers at the earliest possible moment in all your cities, you can literally grow exponentially.

This isn't ICS. ICS has to do with exploiting the free/extra production that the city square gets so that the citizen in a size-one city is more productive than a citizen working any other square in a bigger city. You should call this something else, like 'AAE - Annoying AI Expansion'

Originally posted by yin26
Frankly, I think there's a better way. I offer the following 'easy' solutions that I think will bring back a huge amount of fun and challenge.

1) "Continguous City Borders" -- CCBs
[snip]
2) "Settler Deporation"
[snip]
I honeslty believe that those two solutions working together will make Civ3 vastly superior. Any thoughts? Thanks for listening.

I think that requiring contiguous city borders would negate the need to deport settlers, wouldn't it? After all, they can't build INSIDE your borders without going to war, and if they walk through your borders to the other side, then a new city wouldn't be contiguous with their other cities.

Personally, I think this isn't really necessary. Although I agree it's annoying, you really can deal with it through war for the impatient like me, or cultural expansion for the really patient folks. In the map you provided, you could eventually grab all those little cities along the eastern coast through eventual cultural assimilation. It's not aesthetically pleasing, and it *is* annoying, but I think it should be an allowable strategy.

[Ray K]

Re: Another solution

Originally posted by libredr
I like these two ideas to prevent ICS. There are other solutions however.

There is an Open Source/Free version of Civ which is called Freeciv (http://www.freeciv.org), which is an excellent clone of civII for Win, Linux, and other OSes. They have also worked on ways to prevent ICS (they call it "smallbox") by increasing the number of unhappiness citizens when the number of cities is too important and/or they are too close. They have completely solved the ICS issue. The whole thing is explained on http://www.freeciv.org/tutorials/nopox.html. However, I like your idea to use borders.

I read this page and it seems little different from the Civ3 solution. You still have a cap on the number of cities, but you are affecting happiness instead of shields. That may be more effective at stopping ICS, but it still does not address the root problem.

THE ROOT PROBLEM:
--The city tile is always worked for free, no matter the city size. This gives a proportional advantage to smaller cities.

Related problems:

--For each point of population, the city "consumes" two food for each population point. Early in the game with no irrigated squares, the city needs that extra tile to grow.

--In addition, the starting Despotic government cannot benefit from the extra food provided by the irrigated squares.

--City tiles are automatically irrigated and laid with roads


How to solve the problem:
-- The city tile is the only tile worked in a size-1 city.
-- The city consumes only 1.5 food for each population
-- Despotic governments can benefit from irrigation
-- Force workers to irrigate and lay roads in the city tiles


What would happen:
If you founded a city on a grassland square, you would produce (after irrigation) 3 food and consume 1.5 for a net of 1.5 food per turn. In the current game, you would net either 1 or 2 depending on the second tile you worked.

With a size-2 city, you would enjoy a food surplus of either 1 or 2 depending on the second tile you work. This is about the same as the current game.

Allowing despotism to benefit from irrigation while reducing consumption to 1.5 per population increases the growth rate of larger cities, offsetting the benefit that small cities get from the smaller food box.

With a free worker at the start of the game, forcing him to work on the city tile is not that big of a deal. Also, this would place a larger premium on a good starting location for cities.


In my opinion, fixing the fundamental causes of ICS would be much better than simply setting a hard limit on the number of cities.

[yin26]

Soren: Thanks for the explanation. But in my game, I kicked the units off. Literally just a few turns later he came back in and ignored me. Could you please help us understand the conditions more clearly?

Thanks.

[Skanky Burns]

Re: Re: Proposals to Fix ICS in Civ3: Firaxis, please stop by...

Originally posted by RobC
This isn't ICS. ICS has to do with exploiting the free/extra production that the city square gets so that the citizen in a size-one city is more productive than a citizen working any other square in a bigger city. You should call this something else, like 'AAE - Annoying AI Expansion'

Lawrence (sp?) has come up with the defacto new acronym for this situation:
REX - Rapid Early eXpansion

Other than that, i dont have much more to add to this converstion, not having the game yet (bloody infogames), but id just like to say @ Ralf... a quadriple post!! Thats a first

[TechWins]

Define "normal".

First I'll tell you what 'normal' isn't. 'Normal' isn't building a ton cities just for the sake of building a ton of cities. Continously expanding to a point where it starts to hurt your Civ is not 'normal'. Having over ten cities with the highest pop size being 2 in the before BC age is over is not 'normal'. Coming into another Civ's borders and placing a city in between all of their great culture when very well the AI should know that the city will assimilate over into the other Civs because of culture is not 'normal'. The list could go on and on but now I will tell you what normal is.

'Normal' is the appropriate manner the AI should perform. This playing manner of the AI should always vary a bit for gameplay purposes. Expand to a point where it will still benefit your empire. Take a little time to build some infastructure and let your cities grow. Trade a little in a reasonable fashion. Strengthen your military, so you don't get taken over. My point is that the AI needs to play in a way that will continously beneift their Civ. Spreading all over the map, for the sake of expansion, and not paying attention to other aspects of your empire is not beneficial. In all reality I find the AI to be much easier and boring than Civ2 because they are predictable, too spread out, and have too low of a culture always. At least in Civ2 I didn't always know that every AI Civ would be completely compiled of mega amounts of useless cities.

Is 'normal' simply sitting there with only two or three cities waiting placidly for another AI or Human player to destroy your civilization? I think not.

I would much rather the AI have two or three extremely powerful cities than them to have ten to twenty weak cities. Now that's now what the AI should do but it is still more efficient for the AI. The AI should play 'normal' (refer to my previous two paragraphs).

'Normal' would be trying to ensure the survival of your civilization by grabbing as much land, and hence resources, as soon as possible.

No, that is not the correct way to ensure survival. In the game I'm playing right now the Romans would have been able to dominate me, but instead they went to any means neccesary to expand and plopped a few cities in the middle of the empire, while neglecting growth and infastructure in all of their cities. Now those few cities have assimilated into my culture and I am much stronger than them with many 6-12 pop cities with very good culture. Where as the Romans have about the same amount of cities but with very little to no infastructure and having their cities at 1-2 pop size. If the Romans would have backed off of expansion, started to build infastructure in their cities, and let their cities grow some then they would be much stronger than, but now it is quite the contrary.

Yes, this does mean that the AI will expand like crazy, which is fine because as a player I expand as fast as possible myself.

Expand yes but don't do it in a crazy way. Do it so in an effective way (refer to 'normal').

All these 'solutions' are very narrow minded.

I fail to see your logic in this comment, sorry.

1. Have a 3 pop cost settler. Say what? So now the expansionistic phase lasts longer?

For this proposal to become effective my second proposal will have to be taken into account as well.

The only problem I have seen is that the AI settles in some of the worst possible places like the middle of a desert or in an area with all tundra, hills & mountians.

Maybe you got a different version of Civ3 than me.

[Jolard]

We cannot have the contiguous solution (only allowed a new city if it is contiguous or close to another). This makes no sense historically (Australia, America anyone) or gameplay wise. Why should you be forced to settle a desert when there is good land on the other side? Think of Australia, you have Perth way out on the other side of the continent, pretty much alone. Or think of the American West, with huge areas that were unpopulated while the West Coast was populated. Gameplay wise this would restrict your options, and the argument so many have is that they feel restricted to having to expand rapidly now!

As far as the units setting a city down in the middle of my civ, I have had this happen in every game, and it is never a problem. Every single time, I just wait long enough and it is absorbed into my civ. Not a problem. If you are impatient, take it quickly and sue for peace. But please don't restrict me in where I can settle. The whole distance/corruption equation already makes that difficult enough, you don't want it to be even worse.

I love this game, and I think a big part of the problem is that it is just different, and different strategies are needed. I loved and was good at civ II, but my first game of civ III was harsh and eye opening, I was dead before 200 AD. My second was on the large world map, and was a long hard slog, where I only won through points, (I consider that a minor victory, major would have been one of the victory conditions). My third game is almost over, random map, medium size, and it has been wonderful! Changing the settlement options is not an option, as they work well now.

However, that said, I can see the value of possible having more of an ability to expel foreign settlers. Unless they have a right of passage, they should have to leave or declare war on me if I ask. I think that is reasonable.