Civ III A Tighter Straitjacket?

[gaikokujin]

Originally posted by yin26
Ah, but so many 'experts' tell me "ICS is fixed!"

And when I say that the AI has only made the city mess even worse, they booed and hissed at me. Go figure.

Well, the INFINITE city slease _ economic exploit_ has basically disappeared from Civ III, with one small exception mentioned below. What is being complained about (with some justice) is _not_ ICS, which has a very precise definition that directly relates to 1) a free city square production bonus and indirectly to 2) the ability of a 1 pop city to spawn a settler when it hits 2. Although the ICS effect of 2) is indirect, over the long run it exponentially drives the direct effect of 1). ICS was damaging because it shortcircuited the bulk -almost all - of the build functionality of the game, while it promoted a tedious micromanagement of a huge ugly sprawl of cities.

The exception is the production bonus gotten by commercial or industrious civs, which is in effect a (small) city square production bonus. Thus these civs have a small ICS leak.

Which will slam into the onerous currption rules - but corruption is an _extraenous_ factor to ICS, and is left out of the discussion here, to not confuse the issue. Especially as it is a whole 'nother can of worms.

Flattening the pop growth curve for small cities does not reintroduce "ICS" through the backdoor. It fuels the problem people are complaining about, but the problem IS NOT ICS. Anybody who played CivI or II extensively should know this by now, and is performing a disservice by using the already defined ICS acronym to point to a _different_ problem.

So, with that off my chest, what to call the new problem? I propose TCS, "Territorial City Slease". The strategy is not economic - to compound returns on the city square bonus - but territorial: to grab space and deny it to others. Resource control are another issue and should be put aside here to focus on the general case (and if colonies were more than marginally useful, would be moot to the main point here). The territory you grabbed might be relatively economically useless to yourself, but you can deny it to another, closer, civ to whom it might be much more useful.

Unfortuantely, I believe this problem cuts to the core structure of the Civ series: its' "city-centricity". Productive force and military logistics are tied to the city like a ball and chain. The introduction of the Culture feature/functionality has actually accentuated city-centricity by adding a new dimension of power that is entirely dependent on the existence of a city (and the core wealth - or quantity of lumberjacking workers, just to mention another exploit - to fully realize it).

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by yin26
Ah, but so many 'experts' tell me "ICS is fixed!"

And when I say that the AI has only made the city mess even worse, they booed and hissed at me. Go figure.

Yin, are you aware that we now have the Pop Rush?

It´s ICS on steroids.

Build lots and lots of cities, use Forced Labour to mass-produce units.

Combined with over-powered fast units and weakened walls (50% instead of 200) this means: Use ICS/Forced Labour to conquer the World in the Ancient Era and gain 10.000 points.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by gamma
Civ3's AI engine is not the problem here; it's that Civ3's rules encourage too few strategies.

Ouch; right on target.

And they didn´t realize this, because they didn´t properly playtest the game.

In fact, Firaxis didn´t do any playtesting at all.

Look into the manual, under 'Credits'.

You will find that Infogrames did employ a few playtesters, but Firaxis employed none. That´s right: None.

Or the playtesters would have been mentioned in the Credits.

Unprofessionality driven to new heights.

[yin26]

Yes. Good clarification on the ICS issue. But I don't mean to say that it's the SAME kind of problem but a WORSE one in a different way.

Sad.

[korn469]

Ah, but so many 'experts' tell me "ICS is fixed!"
And when I say that the AI has only made the city mess even worse, they booed and hissed at me. Go figure.

but people would have booed and hissed at you no matter what you said Yin

[EnochF]

I hate powergamers. Partly because I'm jealous. They can casually defeat Civ 2 at Deity, they're playing Civ 3 at the higher levels, and they could probably kick my ass at Quake with a blindfold and using only one finger to work the mouse and keyboard. But I also hate powergamers because they've made the "easy" levels too hard for a lot of games these days.

Look, it's a different philosophy we're dealing with here. Powergamers want a "challenge." I want fun. For me, playing against a challenging opponent is a nice change of pace, but it's not something I want to do every time. I never intended to play Civ 3 on Deity. Difficult games bore me.

In a Civ game, I'm trying to build up a civilization, explore the world, research up the tech tree, build magnificent cities. I'll defend myself against unprovoked attacks, but I won't launch an attack of my own against there's absolutely no reasonable chance of failure.

As it currently stands, the "easiest" level of gameplay on Civ III still forces me into a dull powergamer strategy just to keep up. I'll admit right up front: I'm not a good Civ player. But dammit, when I play at Chieftain, I shouldn't bloody well have to be! I should be able to blunder my way through a peaceful expansionist game, awing the world with my ancient temples and wonders.

Oh, well. I'm 26 years old now. Maybe my gaming days are over.

(Last time I played Civ 3 was the weekend before last)

[yin26]

but people would have booed and hissed at you no matter what you said Yin

LOL! Well, I didn't want to sound paranoid, but now that you metnion it...

EnochF: Very well said. Might I suggest some other games? Europa Universalis (I haven't played the new one yet, but I hear it's much better) (once you get past learning the mechanics of it) really does reward long-term planning and political saavy. And since you can choose the country to play, you can determine how much of a challenge you want that way and not by having an AI spew settlers on top of you. It's really a thinking man's Civ and not this penny arcade garbage.

Seriously: EU is like staring at a world map and making the decisions of a king. Civ is like a bad etcha-sketch pad you are trying to completely feel with little blotches to kill a few hours.

[EnochF]

Yeah, I might look into Europa Universalis. It sounds fascinating. And I recently heard someone describe the game as "too easy," so it definitely sounds like my style.