Getting Rid of ICS - No free centre square

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Austin
Personally I find it about as fun as ICS is. Eliminates any challenge from the game, since you just spew spew spew, and then rush rush rush.

I'll grant you that the early land grab is perhaps not for everyone; some players might like to be able to build up a few cities before expanding further, while currently it is just better to expand until the entire land mass is claimed.

What I disagree with is your comment that the early land grab takes all challenge out of the game. When I first played Civ3, this was the major source of challenge for me. I was getting my behind handed to me on Regent because I wasn't smart enough about early expansion (the AI was wonderfully coded in this regard). I was forced to develop strategies to counter my opponent's expansion and further my own. This was a lot of fun for me, largely because it was challenging. I'm willing to bet you had the same experience, although apparently you did not enjoy it.

I play on Emperor level now, and the most nail-biting part of the game is the early land grab. Do attack that Warrior guarding a Settler to prevent losing a great city site to another civ, risking a possibly devastating counter-attack? Do I expand towards the great food-producing regions, or in concentric circles to minimize corruption early on? Do I exclusively build roads to my future city sites with my Workers, or do I spend some time improving some important tiles (Flood Plains come to mind here)? Do I expand toward the Japanese, in hopes of denying them sources of Iron, or toward the Babylonians, so that their culture powerhouse doesn't get out of hand?

I hope you're tired of reading this list of questions (and trust me, I could go on): it just proves that the early land grab is strategically interesting, and, if on the right difficulty level, challenging. Sitting back and building Granaries in my few core cities is certainly less challenging, if it were the "right play" every time.


Dominae

[Austin]

Originally posted by Dominae


I'll grant you that the early land grab is perhaps not for everyone; some players might like to be able to build up a few cities before expanding further, while currently it is just better to expand until the entire land mass is claimed.

That's the part I hate. It's pretty boring to spend much of the game in settler cranking mode.

What I disagree with is your comment that the early land grab takes all challenge out of the game. When I first played Civ3, this was the major source of challenge for me. I was getting my behind handed to me on Regent because I wasn't smart enough about early expansion (the AI was wonderfully coded in this regard). I was forced to develop strategies to counter my opponent's expansion and further my own. This was a lot of fun for me, largely because it was challenging. I'm willing to bet you had the same experience, although apparently you did not enjoy it.

I didn't enjoy it because I knew from the start that you would have to do this. There were some early wrinkles with corruption and such, but I figured that the key was staking out as much land early on as possible.

I play on Emperor level now, and the most nail-biting part of the game is the early land grab. Do attack that Warrior guarding a Settler to prevent losing a great city site to another civ, risking a possibly devastating counter-attack? Do I expand towards the great food-producing regions, or in concentric circles to minimize corruption early on? Do I exclusively build roads to my future city sites with my Workers, or do I spend some time improving some important tiles (Flood Plains come to mind here)? Do I expand toward the Japanese, in hopes of denying them sources of Iron, or toward the Babylonians, so that their culture powerhouse doesn't get out of hand?

The main reason that Emperor is more challenging in the landgrab phase is that the AI gets a bunch more units than you at the very beggining, where their effect is greatest. The mechanics stay exactly the same; spew spew spew, it's just that the AI gets to start one generation ahead on the spew ladder.

I hope you're tired of reading this list of questions (and trust me, I could go on): it just proves that the early land grab is strategically interesting, and, if on the right difficulty level, challenging. Sitting back and building Granaries in my few core cities is certainly less challenging, if it were the "right play" every time.


Dominae

The type of changes I'm looking for would not be to skew the game the other way, just to make both strategies more viable. As it stands now spew spew spew is clearly the way to go. You can try handicapping (like a higher difficulty level) but this is like trying to make a footrace more interesting by wearing lead shoes.

Austin

[Dominae]

Austin, I can see now precisely where we disagree. You see the early land grab phase as "spew spew spew", meaning that your build queue consists only of Warriors and Settlers until the land mass is filled. My build queue is the same, but I see the land grab as "spew and position": what you do with those Settlers (i.e. where you place them and why) is strategically interesting (to me at least). I agree that if I had a big continent to myself I would be pretty bored of just settling it a my leisure. The fact that the AI (numberous civs) is present to thward your attempts at expansion (by expanding themselves) makes the early game difficult.

If you find it boring to get boxed in by the AI because it is able to expand more efficiently than you (no, I'm not forgetting the AI cheats), then that's a different issue altogether. If you find it boring because you are expanding without resistance, try a harder difficulty level. If you find it boring to have to "play the game" (expand at all costs), remind yourself that it only really lasts about 20 minutes to half and hour of game time (depending on map size). I thought expansion was lot more boring in Civ2, to tell you the truth, simply because the AI was so bad at it.


Dominae

[Austin]

Originally posted by Dominae
Austin, I can see now precisely where we disagree. You see the early land grab phase as "spew spew spew", meaning that your build queue consists only of Warriors and Settlers until the land mass is filled. My build queue is the same, but I see the land grab as "spew and position": what you do with those Settlers (i.e. where you place them and why) is strategically interesting (to me at least). I agree that if I had a big continent to myself I would be pretty bored of just settling it a my leisure. The fact that the AI (numberous civs) is present to thward your attempts at expansion (by expanding themselves) makes the early game difficult.

I don't find the AI's efforts all that difficult, since you are ALL using more or less the same strategy; minimax your production of workers and settlers in such a way that you maximise the amount of land and resources that wind up on your side of the cultural fence. I rarely find hard choices to make, except occasionally when I have only one settler, two nice city sites, and I know that the AI will beat me to whichever one I don't get. Even then a basic valuation usually tells you which site to pick.

I could probably put the game on automatic pilot, and the land grab phase would look pretty similar whether I directed it or not, unless I decided to warrior rush somebody.

What I would like to see is some variety in the opening game. As it stands now, unless you want to run with lead shoes there is little variety.

If you find it boring to get boxed in by the AI because it is able to expand more efficiently than you (no, I'm not forgetting the AI cheats), then that's a different issue altogether. If you find it boring because you are expanding without resistance, try a harder difficulty level. If you find it boring to have to "play the game" (expand at all costs), remind yourself that it only really lasts about 20 minutes to half and hour of game time (depending on map size). I thought expansion was lot more boring in Civ2, to tell you the truth, simply because the AI was so bad at it.

Dominae

The thing is that the "expand at all costs" phase then leads to the "everything taken" phase, which leads to the "buildup and mass warfare stage". As predictable as a May Day speech.

Austin

[Dominae]

Austin, I'm going to make a final comment (on my side) because we're going to have to agree to disagree. The fact of the matter is, there are goods strategies, and there are mediocre ones (let's forget about the bad ones).

A good strategy in Civ3 (in all such games) is to have a lot of cities. This will always be true; more stuff means more options means more fun. "More stuff" does not mean more city improvements, because city improvements are static and boring (especially since the city view leaves much to be desired).

For this very reason (cities are fun), the designers made the game in such a way that having more cities is desirable (if cities are fun, then more cities are more fun). Since more cities is desirable (from the game mechanics perspective), the AI designers created algorithms that would exploit this fact. Thus we have the early land grab phase.

As a side note, I posted a thread a while back about interference and AI city placement, which was basically a strategy for the early game land grab. It wasn't a very popular thread, but it sure demonstrates that you don't have to be on "auto pilot" during the land grab phase (IMO, you'll do better if you're not).


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


Although this may solve some problems with ICS in Civ3, somehow I don't think players will very much enjoy the idea that cities that are already almost "useless" can't even help themselves in the simple and obvious way (creating Workers to improve the land and pop rush some key imrovements). I pop rush all my Temples, but this is especially important for corrupt cities because they are usually on the edge of my empire where I want my borders to expand. With the outcries of the severity of corruption in Civ3, I can't imagine many players learning that corrupt cities are going to be even more "worthless".

I happen to be among those who are seriously annoyed at the level of corruption in Civ 3. But from my perspective, the loopholes in that corruption actually make the situation more annoying. The builder in me is offended by the idea of cities that are just fine for churning out workers in Monarchy, Republic, or Democracy, but that are essentially useless at building up their own infrastructure. And my sense of reality is deeply offended by cities that have considerably more production potential under Despotism, the most primitive of governments, than they do under any more advanced government except Communism.

If players are really so annoyed at the corruption levels, reducing the effects of corruption across the board would be a MUCH better answer than leaving loopholes that can be exploited only by making what ought by rights to be bad choices. No civ in its right mind should want to stay in Despotism when more advanced governments are available, and the idea of a civ that changes into and back out of Despotism briefly every forty turns is ludicrous. Yet the current rules reward such behavior.

Given that, I'm not sure that preventing very corrupt cities from doing the things you mentioned would even disable ICS. The "loophole" isn't the pop rushing, it's the efficiency of production centers (no matter how corrupt).

If a corrupt city can produce 42 shields in 42 turns, or can build normally in 40 of those turns and pop rush a cost 30 unit in the last two, that's a production increase of almost 75%. That is more than enough to take ICS from a potentially interesting but reasonably balanced strategy into something completely unbalanced.

Also note that I do NOT regard building or acquiring lots of cities in and of itself as ICS; at least not in the bad sense of the term. Civilizations should want to expand to fill all reasonably available space, and should be rewarded for doing so. The only problem, in my view, comes when the game starts rewarding players for packing their cities together in unnaturally dense patterns.

I don't see this as a problem. As a avid fan of the Japanese civ, I often conquer half the world, then rush a lot of cultural improvements to put me over the top, rank-wise. Again, the problem is the efficiency of production centers (and consequently the benefit of having more than fewer).

I have no problem with the idea that a civ with more, bigger cities should have more production. My objection comes when the game system rewards players unreasonably for having a bunch of tiny cities instead of fewer, bigger ones. And the situation is far more annoying when that tilting is done in a way that favors the earliest, most primitive form of government over more modern ones.

Domination is the most difficult victory type (I suppose Conquest is equally difficult). Early conquest is the most difficult part of the game, IMO. Giving the highest rewards to these achievements seems natural. It would have been interesting to have a game where peaceful victories were just as difficult as aggressive ones, but Civ3 isn't that game. "Interesting" here does not mean "fun"; I think all civ games should have a bit of conquest in them, otherwise you're playing SimCity.

"More difficult" and "good strategy" are not synonymous. On the contrary, strategy is the art of achieving one's goals with a minimum of cost and difficulty. So in my view, Civ 3's scoring system often rewards players for making what are in reality poor long-term strategic choices.

That would be fine if the choices that are poor in the long term were clearly superior in the short term. But is a large civ that constantly lags behind in technology and that has relatively poor culture really a better civ than one that is smaller but scientificaly and culturally advanced? Why is conquering early and developing science and culture late inherently better than doing it the other way around?

As for whether or not scientific victories are challenging, it is amazing how much more challenging trying to get that starship launched as early as possible is than just trying to beat out the other civs. (You wouldn't believe how many CTP games I played in a quest to finish the Alien Life Project by 1600 AD.) I'll grant that strictly in won/lost terms, domination and conquest victories are probably the toughest, but trying to excel in size and economic strength and science and culture is a whole lot tougher than just trying to control lots of land and have lots of happy and content people. Top scores should require excelling in as many areas as possible, not just in one or two.

Nathan

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I've been playing almost strictly huge maps with tons of islands. It limits the total number of cities each civ has. Unfortunately, altho I've seen small AI incursions, the largest invasion consisted of 6 cossacks. By the time they crossed the ocean i had mech inf and can we say slaughter....

I'd love to be able to build just 6-10 megacities spaced out 6-8 tiles apart and not worry that if i dont expand into an area fast enough, the AI will plop a city smack into the middle of my core cities. IMO, if the AIs didnt have the see map cheat, AI expansion would be tolerable. But its disgusting when every civ rushes towards the tiniest open are deep within my borders even tho i've never traded maps nore have they sent units in to see for themselves. I wonder if the see map cheat was a response to the people that explore a map, then restart so they already know to everything is.

[Austin]

Originally posted by nbarclay


I happen to be among those who are seriously annoyed at the level of corruption in Civ 3. But from my perspective, the loopholes in that corruption actually make the situation more annoying. The builder in me is offended by the idea of cities that are just fine for churning out workers in Monarchy, Republic, or Democracy, but that are essentially useless at building up their own infrastructure. And my sense of reality is deeply offended by cities that have considerably more production potential under Despotism, the most primitive of governments, than they do under any more advanced government except Communism.

I THINK that the corruption idea was an attempt to limit both ICS and IUS, but the way it's implemented is problematic, especially with respect to the pop building thing.

I have no problem with the idea that a civ with more, bigger cities should have more production. My objection comes when the game system rewards players unreasonably for having a bunch of tiny cities instead of fewer, bigger ones. And the situation is far more annoying when that tilting is done in a way that favors the earliest, most primitive form of government over more modern ones.

This is the whole reason I started this thread. In reality a megacentre (until it hits diminshing returns) like say the auto industry around Detroit should effortlessly outproduce a bunch of smaller centres. In Civ you get the opposite effect, especially if you are in a Communist or Despot government.

Ironically under the Civ III model the Soviet Union should have completely crushed the free world during the Cold War.

Drastically limiting the ability to found cities everywhere when you are in a more primitive social/government/technology model would go a long way. And if your society regresses, a lot of those cities should start coming apart and your economy should seriously tank (again, see Soviet Union, or the Roman Empire post Constantine, or Nazi Germany).

"More difficult" and "good strategy" are not synonymous. On the contrary, strategy is the art of achieving one's goals with a minimum of cost and difficulty. So in my view, Civ 3's scoring system often rewards players for making what are in reality poor long-term strategic choices.

That would be fine if the choices that are poor in the long term were clearly superior in the short term. But is a large civ that constantly lags behind in technology and that has relatively poor culture really a better civ than one that is smaller but scientificaly and culturally advanced? Why is conquering early and developing science and culture late inherently better than doing it the other way around?

It isn't. Who where the dominate players for most of the age of exploration? The large land mass powers of China, Russia, Austria? Or the smaller but far more sophisticated centres of Portugal, Spain, Holland and England?

Hell for a while Portugal and then Holland were total superpowers, and they didn't do it by having lots of small cities spread out all over, they did it by having a small but intensely developed core (and a bunch of what in Civ terms would be colonies). On a standard world map the historical Dutch Republic would be one or at most two cities.

Russia, which was a classic textbook IUS civilization for most of it's history was a backwards nation that had it's hands full just dealing with tartars and Poles (who sacked Moscow several times during the 1500). Heck the Russians got slapped around severely by Sweden, which would be another one city civ. It wasn't till fairly late in the game that it finally became a power on the world stage.

In Civ a IUS civilization is a powerhouse from the word go, which is totally wrong.

As for whether or not scientific victories are challenging, it is amazing how much more challenging trying to get that starship launched as early as possible is than just trying to beat out the other civs. (You wouldn't believe how many CTP games I played in a quest to finish the Alien Life Project by 1600 AD.) I'll grant that strictly in won/lost terms, domination and conquest victories are probably the toughest, but trying to excel in size and economic strength and science and culture is a whole lot tougher than just trying to control lots of land and have lots of happy and content people. Top scores should require excelling in as many areas as possible, not just in one or two.

Nathan

I agree

Austin

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The builder in me is offended by the idea of cities that are just fine for churning out workers in Monarchy, Republic, or Democracy, but that are essentially useless at building up their own infrastructure.

For the most part I agree. In my games, however, very corrupt cities do much better under Democracy (less so in Monarchy and Republic) than Despotism. It's not entirely accurate to say that the production potential under Despotism is zounds better. The city still loses population, still becomes unhappy: eventually you find yourself killing off pop to keep the future ones happy. The issue of having such cities generate culture for their pop-rushed improvements is another matter.

Originally posted by nbarclay
No civ in its right mind should want to stay in Despotism when more advanced governments are available, and the idea of a civ that changes into and back out of Despotism briefly every forty turns is ludicrous. Yet the current rules reward such behavior.

This brings me to another related issue. The reason why Despots are as powerful as Presidents in Civ3 is, IMO, the tech system. The fact that you can remain in Despotism until 500AD, pop-rushing and producing no science whatsoever is fine. The fact that another civ can switch to Republic ASAP, build their improvements normally and generate a ton of science is fine. However, when those civs clash, the backward one will buy all relevant techs from the advanced one, creating parity. The whole point of pop-rushing and Despotism is that you'll get the job done, but at the expense of the future health of your empire (economic power, through citizens). As it is, a Despot can catch up from their evil ways too quickly. This isn't a problem with pop rushing.

Originally posted by nbarclay
If a corrupt city can produce 42 shields in 42 turns, or can build normally in 40 of those turns and pop rush a cost 30 unit in the last two, that's a production increase of almost 75%. That is more than enough to take ICS from a potentially interesting but reasonably balanced strategy into something completely unbalanced.

Again, the problem with ICS isn't with pop-rushing (although they complement each other very well). The problem is with the fact that two production centers are always better than one (at least until you reach size 7 or more). Aeson was mentioning that rush-buying improvements with Gold is also doable in ICS, with the same effects.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Also note that I do NOT regard building or acquiring lots of cities in and of itself as ICS; at least not in the bad sense of the term. Civilizations should want to expand to fill all reasonably available space, and should be rewarded for doing so. The only problem, in my view, comes when the game starts rewarding players for packing their cities together in unnaturally dense patterns.

Complete agreement here! Perhaps you should take my position in the early land grab debate between me and Austin!

Originally posted by nbarclay
I have no problem with the idea that a civ with more, bigger cities should have more production. My objection comes when the game system rewards players unreasonably for having a bunch of tiny cities instead of fewer, bigger ones.

Again, agreed. Personally I don't mind the corruption system in Civ3. Sure it's annoying to have cities that are essentially useless (pop-rushing improvements or not), but it focuses the power of your empire in your core cities, which I believe is what most of you players want to do in the first place. Once you get used to the fact that some cities you're going to found/conquer are to far away to be any good, I think you'll change your strategies and find the game a lot more fun.

Originally posted by nbarclay
"More difficult" and "good strategy" are not synonymous. On the contrary, strategy is the art of achieving one's goals with a minimum of cost and difficulty. So in my view, Civ 3's scoring system often rewards players for making what are in reality poor long-term strategic choices.

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. By "poor long-term strategic choices" you're referring to pop-rushing and staying in Depotism, right? If so, I mentioned above that the current science paradigm makes these early "poor" choices irrelevent (you can just buy what you need eventually). However, I think this is completely unrelated to strategy. If my goals are to conquer the entire continent in a Pangea game, you'll be sure I'll stay in Despotism for quite a while. I think this would strategically be the best move, and grant me the best chance at success. It may "cost" me a lot, but I'll succeed; if I played a Builer game (going for Republic), I would be more conservative (my "costs" would be lower), but I probably wouldn't win (especially on Emperor and Deity). The fact that Despotism is powerful even though it shouldn't be (historically) doesn't mean it isn't a powerful strategy.

Originally posted by nbarclay
But is a large civ that constantly lags behind in technology and that has relatively poor culture really a better civ than one that is smaller but scientificaly and culturally advanced?

Yes. In case ICS hasn't proved it for you yet, in Civ3 (as in all civ games), more cities = better civ. Your goal in Civ3 should be to grab as many cities as possible in order to eventually gain a tech lead (to grab more cities, or win the Space Race), not the other way around. It would be nice to have a game that would reward early research and cultural development, but Civ3 isn't it.

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'll grant that strictly in won/lost terms, domination and conquest victories are probably the toughest, but trying to excel in size and economic strength and science and culture is a whole lot tougher than just trying to control lots of land and have lots of happy and content people.

As I said above, size is the only factor that matters in Civ3 (from a game mechanics perspective). Size leads to economic strength which leads to science and culture. Handing out awards for each of these categories wouldn't make much sense, because 9 times out of 10 the civ that wins in the 'Size' category wins in all others.

To sum up my opinion on this thread (I feel like I've been rambling), I think the rules of Civ3 are overall quite good. In particular, I don't think Corruption and pop-rushing need to be changed. However, I don't like ICS. The simplest way that I can come up with of eliminating ICS and leaving the rest of the game intact is to put a (reasonable) cap on the number of cities a civ can found. I explained this idea a few posts up, and I still believe it's a good solution.


Dominae

[mbelleroff]

Another idea

Okay, I know this long long conversation has gotten somewhat way from the idea of getting rid of center tiles, but I'll throw out an alternative anyway: get rid of free workers. Have every civ start with a settler and a warrior.

Then, make the discovery of some tech, like bornze working, a requirement for building workers (what are they ploughing and mining with if they don't have metals anyway??). This would slow down production, make units move slower, and increase corruption (no roads!) in the very early game, and move things along at a SMAC-like pace.

Another idea: why not rule that under despotism any given city can only work the tiles immediately bordering the city. Only with a more advanced goverment would your workable city radius become the familiar one.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


For the most part I agree. In my games, however, very corrupt cities do much better under Democracy (less so in Monarchy and Republic) than Despotism. It's not entirely accurate to say that the production potential under Despotism is zounds better. The city still loses population, still becomes unhappy: eventually you find yourself killing off pop to keep the future ones happy. The issue of having such cities generate culture for their pop-rushed improvements is another matter.

It's the totally corrupt cities - the ones that will never produce more than one shield and one gold - that ICS/despotism strategies give such a boost to. If cities have even a spark of life under Despotism, they'll probably do pretty well in Democracy.

This brings me to another related issue. The reason why Despots are as powerful as Presidents in Civ3 is, IMO, the tech system. The fact that you can remain in Despotism until 500AD, pop-rushing and producing no science whatsoever is fine. The fact that another civ can switch to Republic ASAP, build their improvements normally and generate a ton of science is fine. However, when those civs clash, the backward one will buy all relevant techs from the advanced one, creating parity. The whole point of pop-rushing and Despotism is that you'll get the job done, but at the expense of the future health of your empire (economic power, through citizens). As it is, a Despot can catch up from their evil ways too quickly. This isn't a problem with pop rushing.

Just to make it clear, I'm not inherently against Despotism pop rushing. What I object to is the ability to get full value out of it in cities that are otherwise essentially worthless, in which case the loss of laborers does not impose a future economic loss the way it's supposed to.. And Aeson's trick of using a religious civ to use a modern government for all but a couple trurns out of each 40 and still get the benefit of pop rushing makes the situation a lot worse. (Maybe there needs to be a limit on how often religious civs can change governments and still get the shortened anarchy.)

I do agree that it's a bit ridiculous how much technology you can get in a single turn. That's especially true in regard to getting a tech and then another one it's a prerequisite for all at once.

Again, the problem with ICS isn't with pop-rushing (although they complement each other very well). The problem is with the fact that two production centers are always better than one (at least until you reach size 7 or more). Aeson was mentioning that rush-buying improvements with Gold is also doable in ICS, with the same effects.

When you rush buy with gold, you give up something that could provide clear and significant value elsewhere in your empire. Rush buying with population units that produce no extra gold or shields due to corruption does not impose the same constraint.

Yes, two cities are better than one early on, but there are trade-offs that keep it from being as imbalancing as it could be. (1) You lose the 30 shields' production to build the extra settler. (2) The extra tiles opened up are your less valuable ones (although that may be offset if different tiles are valuable for different purposes). (3) Any city improvements built in the extra city are lost if you disband it, devaluing the building of improvements or making the city do without. For example, either you waste more time on a barracks or your extra town is just producing regular unites instead of veterans. (4) The increased number of towns increases corruption in some of the ones you intend to keep.

I haven't done any testing to see how good a job those factors do in providing a counterbalancing effect, and I'm sure the denser packing can be especially useful in situations where it's the only way to get a reasonable number of cities in your core (especially on higher levels). But the situation certainly isn't as bad as it could be.

Complete agreement here! Perhaps you should take my position in the early land grab debate between me and Austin!

The debate was on my mind when I wrote what I did, but I preferred to state it in a way that would have less of a "one side against the other" tone.

Again, agreed. Personally I don't mind the corruption system in Civ3. Sure it's annoying to have cities that are essentially useless (pop-rushing improvements or not), but it focuses the power of your empire in your core cities, which I believe is what most of you players want to do in the first place. Once you get used to the fact that some cities you're going to found/conquer are to far away to be any good, I think you'll change your strategies and find the game a lot more fun.

I've played enough to get used to taking corruption into consideration in my planning. But the only thing I especially like about the system is that it reduces the motivation for warmongering, and even that effect is heavily undermined by a scoring system focused almost exclusively on the benefits of conquest. Having cities that produce essentially no gold and no shields make such a big difference in score is really annoying.

Then again, I'm willing to tolerate rather high levels of micromanagement in the name of making my empires better. Others might view the reduced need to manage overseas holding as more of a benefit.

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. By "poor long-term strategic choices" you're referring to pop-rushing and staying in Depotism, right? If so, I mentioned above that the current science paradigm makes these early "poor" choices irrelevent (you can just buy what you need eventually). However, I think this is completely unrelated to strategy. If my goals are to conquer the entire continent in a Pangea game, you'll be sure I'll stay in Despotism for quite a while. I think this would strategically be the best move, and grant me the best chance at success. It may "cost" me a lot, but I'll succeed; if I played a Builer game (going for Republic), I would be more conservative (my "costs" would be lower), but I probably wouldn't win (especially on Emperor and Deity). The fact that Despotism is powerful even though it shouldn't be (historically) doesn't mean it isn't a powerful strategy.

I was thinking more in terms of decisions such as, "Do I attack with knights now, or wait until I have cavalry and can take the enemy out a lot more quickly with considerably fewer losses?" (This assumes the player has, or can get, Military Tradition significantly earlier than the target nation or nations.) Strategically, waiting a few techs can be a VERY good move, and the time can be spent well on city improvements to make the existing cities more prosperous. But in terms of score, attacking earlier with knights gets the capture of cities, and thus the building up of score, going earlier.

Yes. In case ICS hasn't proved it for you yet, in Civ3 (as in all civ games), more cities = better civ. Your goal in Civ3 should be to grab as many cities as possible in order to eventually gain a tech lead (to grab more cities, or win the Space Race), not the other way around. It would be nice to have a game that would reward early research and cultural development, but Civ3 isn't it.

I'm a firm believer in timing my wars to try to hold the bloodshed down to a reasonable level if I can get enough of an advantage to have the opportunity. I like getting my core cities fully developed, and that's hard to do while fighting long, bloody slugfests.

As I said above, size is the only factor that matters in Civ3 (from a game mechanics perspective). Size leads to economic strength which leads to science and culture. Handing out awards for each of these categories wouldn't make much sense, because 9 times out of 10 the civ that wins in the 'Size' category wins in all others.

The F8 and F11 screens do a reasonable job of showing how well a civ is doing in different areas, but if Firaxis is going to call a single number "score," I think the number really ought to reflect a civ's success in all areas, not just land area and happy/content/specialist population. And while yes, the nation that leads in size is likely to lead in other areas, there can be huge differences in the scientific and cultural achievements of civilizations that are the same size. Shouldn't a player that does no better militarily but a lot better scientificially and culturally get a higher score?

To sum up my opinion on this thread (I feel like I've been rambling), I think the rules of Civ3 are overall quite good. In particular, I don't think Corruption and pop-rushing need to be changed. However, I don't like ICS. The simplest way that I can come up with of eliminating ICS and leaving the rest of the game intact is to put a (reasonable) cap on the number of cities a civ can found. I explained this idea a few posts up, and I still believe it's a good solution.

My realism detector flashes red flags, red lights, and warning sirens all over the place at the idea of being able to (say) rule a hundred-city empire through conquest but only build 30 cities of your own (if I remember the concept correctly; I made up the numbers). And I most emphatically do NOT like the Call to Power approach of limiting total numbers overall; it's a reasonable early-game limitation, but a game where you're supposed to conquer the world but can't do it without exceeding a "too many cities" threshold is just plain ridiculous.

The corruption system actually achieves a lot of the same goal, but in a much less crippling way. You can build or capture all the cities you want to; you just can't expect them all to be productive as the numbers keep growing.

Nor am I convinced that a firm limit on number of cities would solve the ICS problem. After all, if you're hemmed in so you can only build up to your maximum number of cities by using ICS, you still have an incentive to use it, right?

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
And I most emphatically do NOT like the Call to Power approach of limiting total numbers overall; it's a reasonable early-game limitation, but a game where you're supposed to conquer the world but can't do it without exceeding a "too many cities" threshold is just plain ridiculous.

My proposal isn't to limit the number of cities you can have in your empire, only the number cities you can actually build yourself. Thus you can still gain cities through conquest (although they'll usually be hopelessly corrupt for a long time, as they should be).

Nor am I convinced that a firm limit on number of cities would solve the ICS problem. After all, if you're hemmed in so you can only build up to your maximum number of cities by using ICS, you still have an incentive to use it, right?

It would definitely solve the problem. As I understand it, ICS is at its best (worst!) when used to backfill your empire: essentially, you expand to get a sizeable chunk of land within your borders, then fill in all the gaps between cities, packing them as tightly as they'll go (2 tiles, I think). With a limit on the number of cities you can have, you could do the expansion thing, but not the backfill thing. Obviously, building a bunch of cities in a small area just to simulate ICS would be silly. And if you end up hemmed in to a small area, I see nothing wrong with packing your cities in an ICS manner, because then you're forced into it.

As regards to the whole corruption and effectiveness of pop rushing thing, the 1.21f patch is addressing some of those issues. Primarily, your first pop point can is only worth 20 Shields, as opposed to 40. This will seriously impede the Despotic Whip, but certainly not eliminate it.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


My proposal isn't to limit the number of cities you can have in your empire, only the number cities you can actually build yourself. Thus you can still gain cities through conquest (although they'll usually be hopelessly corrupt for a long time, as they should be).

Your approach was the one I was referring to as not working from a realism perspective. A rule that lets you conquer several times as many cities as you can build yourself seems completely contrived and artificial; I can't find any remotely rational reason why things ought to work that way. The CTP approach works better from a realism perspective - at least it's consistent - but the way it's implemented just plain doesn't fit world conquest on the largest map sizes.

It would definitely solve the problem. As I understand it, ICS is at its best (worst!) when used to backfill your empire: essentially, you expand to get a sizeable chunk of land within your borders, then fill in all the gaps between cities, packing them as tightly as they'll go (2 tiles, I think). With a limit on the number of cities you can have, you could do the expansion thing, but not the backfill thing. Obviously, building a bunch of cities in a small area just to simulate ICS would be silly. And if you end up hemmed in to a small area, I see nothing wrong with packing your cities in an ICS manner, because then you're forced into it.

A limit would prevent the most extreme backfilling strategies, but it would still allow backfilling up to whatever the limit is. That's why I say it wouldn't completely eliminate ICS. A player who gets stuck with half the land area could compensate by packing cities together twice as densely.

I don't mind the idea of limiting Despotism that way, as long as the total cities limit applies to conquered cities as well as native ones. That way you don't penalize people for expanding peacefully instead of through conquest.

Another possibility that just occurred to me for limiting ICS would be to limit the average density of cities. For example, players might be required to average thirteen tiles of total city radius space per city (so the average city could grow to size twelve plus the city square). The only down side I see off the top of my head is that it would take away the option of packing cities tighter if a player gets stuck with a starting position with almost no room to expand.

As regards to the whole corruption and effectiveness of pop rushing thing, the 1.21f patch is addressing some of those issues. Primarily, your first pop point can is only worth 20 Shields, as opposed to 40. This will seriously impede the Despotic Whip, but certainly not eliminate it.

I'm not sure how much difference it will or won't make in totally corrupt cities, since the value of the first pop unit is half as much but the unhappiness effect lasts half as long (back to where it was originally). I'll be interested to see how the rest of the corruption mechanism changes look; I'll probably download the patch and start a new game about as soon as it comes out.

Nathan

[Austin]

Originally posted by Dominae


Again, the problem with ICS isn't with pop-rushing (although they complement each other very well). The problem is with the fact that two production centers are always better than one (at least until you reach size 7 or more). Aeson was mentioning that rush-buying improvements with Gold is also doable in ICS, with the same effects.

This is the problem I want gone. Until relatively late in the game technology wise, a small intensely developed Civ should outperform or at least have parity with a large sprawling less developed one. Russia had masses of population in the age of reason, but the Dutch comfortably outperformed them.

Austin

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by ALPHA WOLF 64
I increased settler to require 3 population. its greatly slowed ICS during the early game.

To me, that sounds very promising, expansion can be too fast when in real life it takes much longer...