Return-mail from Chris Pine, lead programmer Civ-3

[Ralf]

I sent a lengthy mail to Chris Pine about the AI problems of Civ-style games, and some general ideas to work around it. Heres what the man responded:

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Thanks for your email!

Many of your suggestions (though I can't say which ones) are already in the game and we will certainly think about the others.

Just so you know, I think we've finally fixed both the ICS problem and the Bigger-is-always-better problem.

Thanks for all of your input and for thinking about the game,

Chris Pine
Lead Programmer
Civilization III
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Here that guys! Both the ICS- and the BAB-problem is now finally squashed!

[Builder]

Halleluya

[The diplomat]

Awesome!

I can't wait to see the civ3 site, they promised.

[Sirotnikov]

A note? from a programmer? actually talking about the game?

THANK YOU!
Ralf, maybe this isn't the time or the place, but - I love you man, thank you very much for the info!

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Sirotnikov on 10-19-2000 10:24 PM THANK YOU! Ralf, maybe this isn't the time or the place, but - I love you man, thank you very much for the info!

Ahh, that was nothing
(is this man being ironic or plain honest )

[UltraSonix]

quote: Just so you know, I think we've finally fixed both the ICS problem and the Bigger-is-always-better problem.

I think a lot of old-timers of this forum will rejoice at this!

And also, did you just email Chris Pine though the email in his profile (cpine@firaxis.com)? Not that I;m going to do anything, of course...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

[Caesar]

ICS?

[Sirotnikov]

I was humorous of course
But I meant every word.

You see, I'm here registered since february and I was lurking a long time before that.
Now, the people that are here for a long enough period of time (me included), rejoice every time there is some new information. We civ3 people know very little about what firaxis is really doing.

Ctp 2 team is beeing very very open and thier part of the site is full of different new facts each week or so.

Civ3 section however changes every 2 months. And the vote seems to me, didn't change now for 3 months or so. *hint hint*
[This message has been edited by Sirotnikov (edited October 20, 2000).]

[Shadowstrike]

Its a good thing that the programmers used our suggestions. It would save them some work on the ideas stage and for us would be a major achievement.

Caesar, ICS a Civilization II strategy which is regarded almost as a "cheat". Basically, you build cities very close together and take advantage of the fact that a size 1 city works 2 squares. Go to the Strategy forum and you'll get a better explaination.

[Ralf]

I cant help wonder how they fixed the BAB problem (Bigger Always Better).

Creating a well-designed empire as huge as possible must have, at least *some*, really desirable points. Perhaps...

- Unmatched ability to gather resource-shields.
- Unmatched ability to conscript/maintain huge armies.

On the other hand; creating a smaller civilized/perfectionist empire must have its own very attractive points as well. Maybe...

- Unmatched ability to ramp up really big cities with much lesser happiness-problems - even though circumstances comparing small-empire city with big-empire city, otherwise are similar.

This unique small-empire advantage makes it easier to compensate in the science-race with more specialized Einsteins. Also; small empires creates unmatched surplus economy (huge number of tax-paying citizens, but much smaller total empire maintainance costs).

Both the government-type and the actual numbers of cities is of course a very important parameter in how big the boost should be.
In theory, one should be able to create a tiny 4-6 city perfectionist "17th century Netherland" type of empires. A few really HUGE cities absolutely brimming with financial surplus and Einstein-figures.

A challenging point is once you have choosen above small empire approach - its *much* harder in modern era end-games, to suddenly change foot and conduct surprising several AI-cities captures per turn invasions. You gradually loose those powerfull small empire city-happiness advantages - and with the added units-away-from-city unhappiness, you are quickly confronted with really daunting domestic unhappiness-problems. Much worse then i Civ-2.

Also; the other way around - if you instead created a huge 25-30+ city-empire, its much easier to produce and maintain really big armies on the march. The smaller empires cities are pretty tough to capture however (good surplus economy + advances in science on pair with the bigger empire-neighbors). Also, *huge* unhappiness problem that ties up *lots* of martial law military units once you captured the city, awaits you.
An alternative could be to "trade" refugees with the invaded empire. Your captured mega-city looses upto half its citizens in a single turn distributed to all the remaining and still resisting cities in that invaded empire. If the invaded empire refuses to take them (food-problems) you can choose to simply kill them off (killing already surrendered civilians however leads to huge, irrepairable damage on your civilization-score, that no last-turn change-everyone-to-Elvis fix-ups can repair).


Perhaps there are loopholes in above idea and maybe Firaxis have a better solution. Anyway; the trick is that *both* the big empire approach *and* the small empire approach should be equally appealing alternatives.
At the end of the day, however; if you create an enormous civilized perfectionist democracy-empire; that should have the final edge. But, yet again - only so much, and definitely not in all and every areas.

This is why the BAB-problem is a rather tricky one.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Shogun Gunner]

Ralf: Thanks for the info. A lot of goods points about BAB. I am anxious to see what Civ III does here.

[I c e d a n]

America is big, just look at how many problems it has.

The bigger you get, the higher your population, the higher the crime is, the more people you have to please, the more land you have to defend. Lots of attributes can be placed in Civ3 to stop the BAB problem.

I never really came across the problem because I am just like Singapore, sit on an island and make it perfect. Whereas a large civilization, that is a very difficult - an almost impossible task.

[UltraSonix]

"The ultimate ICS thread: analysis and solutions" would probably be the mother of all ICS threads... it was where I learnt about the issue. Perhaps that was where Firaxis got their ideas from...

edit:bad html

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...
[This message has been edited by UltraSonix (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

Bigger is always better? Huh? Someone hit AC the other day in 1516 with one city on Deity level... barring ICS, the drive in teching fast has been to build few cities. There was more of a tendency to expand in SMAC because CPs cost only 30 minerals and gave 10 back when you founded a city, but in Civ? Anyone care to enlighten me?

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Simpson II on 10-22-2000 12:01 AM Bigger is always better? Huh? Someone hit AC the other day in 1516 with one city on Deity level...

Perhaps "someone" was talking bull**** - i dont know. Theres a big difference between simply surviving the game with just one city, and actually winning it.
Maybe the game-AI concludes that 1-3 human cities is to insignificant in terms of military threat and orders the AI-civs to fight among themselves instead. This (maybe) allows one to actually accomplish some of the lesser known methods of winning. This little flaw can however easily be fixed simply by tweaking the AI to *always* fight the human player (one way or the other**) no matter how insignificant he is in terms of military might.

** A good Civ-3 rule would be that if the human player becomes to cocky in *any* area - the AI automatically stops all internal AI-civ quarrels. The 2-3 AI-civs closest to the human player join forces and goes to war against him, while the other ones further away concentrates almost fully on growth, science, economy and terrain-improvements - living peacefully side by side, for the time being.

However, this guy´s supposed achievement brings the searchlight on an important subject:
He *must* have nurtured very good logistics for that city (maximal city-area-, city-improvement- and unit-improvement strategies). If the programmers of Civ-3 only could find ways to imitate civilised civ-veteran strategical logistics - when our luck is made.
I they achives that; then i wouldnt mind some erratic AI unit pathfinding problems here and there. I can live with it - thats of less importance.

Finally: Your "try to win the game with as few cities as possible" concept have obvious flaws. What if everone - human player or AI-civ alike, adopted this strategy?
Part of the fun is in *expanding* and share mutual borders with each other. Its not that fun being surrounded with continental-sized uninhabited wastelands for the major part of the game.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 22, 2000).]