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

[yin26]

If you take my approach, the solution requires you to take over a city there and then expand on those borders at will. These 'new borders' would not connect to your original cities of course. Think of taking over the city as 'establishing a base of operations.'

If you take SITS's approach, you'd merely need to found your city a few tiles back away from the current civ's borders ... and if his borders are quite large, it means he has quite a bit of power and SHOULDN'T have to tolerate your founding cities so closely on top of him ... and vice versa.

[yavoon]

"plz make the ai less expansionist, cuz I'm afriad if the ai doesn't suck more, I might be forced to play efficiently"

at some point, u guys gotta stop knocking the ai for doing wut is an effective buildup. especially under such lame reasons as "its too effective" or "it disrupts my gameplay" cuz thats really some stanky lame ****.

[CygnusZ]

But the new cities you take over wouldn't necessairly have connected borders. Or they would be connected the to the rival civilization which would be a no-no.

even under Sits system, your newly conquered cities would now be even *MORE* vulnerable to takeover by culture by the civ you are at war with. That's no good...

BTW, I've seen plenty of cultural defection

[yin26]

yavoon: Too bad we don't have MP yet, eh? Needless to say, you'd probably lose.

CygnusZ: Needless to say, ANY city taken over creates its new (if isolated) borders. They don't need to connect. And perhaps it's pushing back the owner civ's borders is a bonus effect of taking over a city.

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by yin26
yavoon: Too bad we don't have MP yet, eh? Needless to say, you'd probably lose.

CygnusZ: Needless to say, ANY city taken over creates its new (if isolated) borders. They don't need to connect. And perhaps it's pushing back the owner civ's borders is a bonus effect of taking over a city.

So we're back to cities not needing to connect? Or only conquered cities don't need to connect?

There are problems with the current system, there are bigger problems with continuous border mechanics. SITS was better, and I think the idea that Nationalism would take over *ANY* civ encompassed by another would be a great permenant fix.

[MxM]

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

Originally posted by yin26

1) "Continguous City Borders" -- CCBs

The idea is simple: You may found a city ONLY if its borders will touch your existing border. Now, if this means we should expand the initial borders a bit, fine. If the borders do NOT touch, you can only build a colony. And taking away the other civ's colony must NOT be considered an act of war. Building a colony should be a risk ... an important gamble to secure far off resources. That is what Firaxis intended, I think, but currently there is NO reason not to simply put cities helter skelter.

Yin, I completely do not understand why do you think that this suggestion has anything related to ICS. All what you achieve here is that the civs becomes more compact. It has nothing to do with advantage to build more cites, and it does not stop AI building cities. It just limits where AI can build those cites.

I think that solutions that you suggest here are for the different problem: how to stop AI to settle lands, which you think are rightfully yours. This is NOT ICS problem.

One of the possible solutions is, for example, to create special unit, which can claim the territory around it as belonging to you, as long as unit stands there. Or it could be not unit, but tile improvement, like special type of fortress or guarding post. Basically anything that can claim the territory.

This claimed territory can be different from you "real" territory. For example AI can still found cites there, but only after war declaration.

Just my 2 cents

[yin26]

So we're back to cities not needing to connect? Or only conquered cities don't need to connect?

I was saying only conquered cities and the first city founded on a new continent do not need to connect.

There are problems with the current system, there are bigger problems with continuous border mechanics. SITS was better, and I think the idea that Nationalism would take over *ANY* civ encompassed by another would be a great permenant fix.

Well, I'd be interested to see how a continguous system plays. It could suck. It could be surprisingly more interesting. I agree that SITS's idea would cause less controversy and be easier to implement.

Yes, that Nationalism fix could really be a fun way to handle it, too.

Yin, I completely do not understand why do you think that this suggestion has anything related to ICS. All what you achieve here is that the civs becomes more compact. It has nothing to do with advantage to build more cites, and it does not stop AI building cities. It just limits where AI can build those cites.

Well, I don't want to lump all my ideas under that concept of 'fixing ICS' actually. You are right to point out that what I'm getting at here is 'Making City Placement a Lot More Strategic, Meaningful and Fun.'

And limiting the building of cities along the lines people are working out here IS the point and, incidentally, part of fixing ICS for if you cannot place cities where ever one wants at will, you are now having to think a bit more carefully ... as it should be.

And I will stress: I do not think this will cripple the AI. I think it could help it actually by not throwing away so many cities in the early game.

[Travathian]

I think you're making way too big a deal for a small problem. As it is now, all civs act like expansionistic ones. The four civs with this quality should expand like mad. The other 12 though are far too aggressive in expansion. What the computer does is NOT ICS Yin, you of all people should know better than this. Its simply overly aggressive expansion.

I do agree somewhat about the border crossing issues. I noticed when I trespass in the computer's territory, the second warning offers me the option of removing my units back to my territory or declaring war against the enemy. Why can't I do this to the computer, that way IT has to declare war on me to move in my area. But frankly, if you can't defend your borders, your problem. If you want to sit back and play city builder, go get Simcity.

Oh, and I play on Monrach, with medium sized continents and between 5 and 10 civs. I always expand to fill my continent, conquering whoever I share it with, and squashing invaders. I keep vigilant watch on my borders, and aggressively defend my territory. Egypt and France are preferred civs.

Lastly, someone mentioned the idea of settlers/workers defecting. This, I think is a great solution. Each turn one of these units spend in your territory, there's a chance they defect. The chance would be based on the comparison between the two civs. This would provide another benefit to having a good culture.

[MxM]

Yin,

I think that by limiting places where you can put the city limits your possible choices, and thus makes you think less, rather than more.

I suggest to look at the root of the problem: you want somehow to stop AI (and potentially human player in MP) building cities at the places that you think should belong to you, even if you do not have cites right now. So, we need somehow to create mechanism of claiming that territory. If several civs claims the same territory, they should be at the state of war.

Your suggestion of "contiguous borders" is ultimate and very restricting solution for territory claiming: you can not settle anywhere except in the direct vicinity of your other cities. I personally do not like it because this is too limiting, though it is quite possible the easiest to implement.

However, I believe there should be other, more elegant ways to solve this problem. One of the suggestions, as I mention, is to create guarding post, which can be build by either settler and/or worker and/or by some other unit. This post will claim territory, which is within some radius (say 2 squares). This is only claimed territory, hence other sivs still can found cites within this territory, but this automatically means declaration of war.

I am sure we can think of other interesting and may be more simple solutions.

[yin26]

What the computer does is NOT ICS Yin, you of all people should know better than this. Its simply overly aggressive expansion.

Well, I have watched the AI times its settlers to pop out at exactly pop 3. What else is it? Sure, the 'free popluation' issue is fixed, but not the SPIRIT of ICS which dictates: More cities the better ... no matter where ... no matter how.

Now, if I could go for just one of the two things I suggested, I'd go with the border one. Be it through Settler Deportation or chances to defect, all I want, really, is a strategic way to deal with the AI's settlers. If I do the work of setting up my border in the right place, and if I scout properly and have the right units on hand, I should be able to respond in a reasonable way.

Now, if you are always conquering the paired-civ you start with, perhaps that is the best solution given the game as is. I know people on Chieftain can peacefully build from the start next to another civ, but Regent and up seems to really crank on these issues.

It's not that I can't beat the AI that does these things. I'm killing India in my game, for example. It's just that it's not very satisfying. I was bored after the first 30 minutes playing land grab and 'watch the AI walk through my territory.'

[Skanky Burns]

The way i see it, you have two problems with the game.

First, settlers ignoring your borders, despite protests and them agreeing to move. Agreed, this is annoying.
A peaceful solution to this would be useful, and your proposed one fits the description. Have the option to kick them out - back to their own territory, or to capture them and risk war.

Second problem: the computer builds cities in any spare scrap of land, despite its apparent worthlessness. Ive yet to experience this (not having Civ 3 yet), but i agree the AI shouldnt put suicidal cities inside your empire, just waiting to be captured culturally, or if it comes to it, by military.
I disagree with your proposed method, though. I can guarantee that if Firaxis had implemented it, I (and many others) would be complaining about this 'unrealistic, expansion-killing rule which destroys the fun'. I would definately prefer SITS variation of this rule, combined with a much greater change of new cities being captured if there is a large difference in the total cultures of the two civs in question.

ps: Yin, you need a new acronym to describe this, since it isnt ICS.

[yin26]

O.K. Use a different word. To me, the spirit is virtually the same.

And you shouldn't guess how I would react. There was a similar problem with Age of Kings in which the enemy Town Center could be 'pushed' on you. One of the proposals then was the line of site building notion. While it wasn't implemented, another fix was: the Town Center was made a lot more costly in terms of stone, a relatively rare resource in the game.

Along side that, however, was a very simple fact: In AoK you *can* scout and you *can* kill forward builders.

Having gone through this thread several times now, I think that's really all I'm asking. If I can have the ability to send the settler packing, I'd be satisfied. I'm fully aware the AI will still sneak some by on boats or whatever. I'm fine with that. Heck, it will add some fun to the scouting effort.

C'mon. That point seems to be agreed by most or all of us. And it shouldn't be too hard to implement I would think.

[Travathian]

Maybe those pokey cities are staging grounds for a future invasion? Someday they'll have airports and barracks and harbors, and the invasion will spring forth wasps from a disturbed nest! Ok, maybe not.

Maybe the AI could be coded to check the corruption rate at a potential site. Factor in current government, potential governments, improvements, etc and if it doesn't meet certain specs the AI wont build actively build a city. Possibly factor in culture to determine chance of the city being assimilated. Then the expansionistic civs would have a lower threshold and more likelyhood of taking a chance on a crappy spot.

I'd much rather have the AI behavior adapted to allow it to fair better then to change the rules of the game.

Oh, there is one good thing about rampant expansionism, it increases the likelyhood of a new resource being in your territory when they become available.

[yin26]

Well, in the meantime, I will streamline my build orders and basically be more aggressive pressing the AI and trying to eat into him with culture points.

Final Comments (as I don't want to beat a dead horse): Overall, I'm much happier (yes, happier) with the early game. Good work, Firaxis! If you can put in a better diplomatic way to deal with trespassers, I'd be happy. If you don't want to, there are workarounds (the warrior wall [physically blocking them with lots of warriors--can't remember who said that one], the culture bomb [Vel's idea--rush building culture stuff and hurriedly adding to the new city placed like a bomb next to the AI]).

That's it for me on this issue. I'm curious to see if Firaxis has anything to say about it.

Goodnight.

[Talenn]

The REAL problem here is that the reward for city sprawling/mad expansion is simply too high vs the cost investment. If it was less cost effective and/or more risky or difficult, players (and programmed AIs....) would do it less.

The trick would be to make it so that rewards for it are somewhat less or the costs, somewhat higher. Even something so simple as making it so that a city must have a pop of at least 4-5(?) before it can build a settler would cure many of the problems. This would cause those little worthlessly placed cities to be effectively dead-ends and would slow up early spreading in favor of building up some cities, which would in turn, encourage some real cultural development to keep those cities functioning properly.

At any rate restricting where you can build limits a lot of strategies IMO and takes a lot out of the decision making in the early game. I'd much rather see a system where it was far harder to colonize instead so that you have to prioritize your locations more and thus, you'd have less worthless placeholder cities.