The ultimate ICS thread: analysis and solutions

[Xin Yu]

korn469:

The whole idea is to reduce the growth rate of ICS from geometric to arithmetic. An ICS player cannot afford to keep on building settlers in all of his cities, so probably he will take the following strategy: from 4 cities (A1-A4), build 4 settlers who build 4 more cities (B1-B4), then STOP building settlers in A1-A4 (they must go for megalopolis), but only build settlers in B1-B4 then build C1-C4, etc. The key is, the growth rate is arithmetic. Of course this will beat a player who never build any settlers and only grow A1-A4. Any strategy will beat a player who stops expansion so early.

A megalopolis takes a lot longer time to become a gold mine for your empire (tons of improvements needs to be built in order to get the best from it), so a player may want to grow a megalopolis to its maximum rather than build another one. Further, since a megalopolis needs at least 70 squares, you can only build several, so you need to build them in good places--carefully planned to maximize each megalopolis's potential.

As for the military, think about a duel between 5 crusaders+5 pikemen vs. 1 group crusader+1 group pikemen. The 5 crusaders attack 1 group pikemen: 4 win, the group pikemen still alive; the group crusader attack 5 pikemen 5 times: 1 wins, all gone.

You don't need to discourage people from building more cities in an arithmetic rate.

[OrangeSfwr]

Quote: "Losing tech -- this is a genius idea, so long as there is an advance that will make you immune to it. Otherwise it becomes a false penalty well before you approach the modern."

A good wonder for this would be the "World Wide Web" or "Internet" (whichever). What better way to keep information than with the information superhighway? The Wonder would build an improvement (like a research lab) in every city (similar to SETI, Pyramids, and Great Wall) Then a civ can also build that improvement in cities which would reduce the effect of lack of information. I have no idea what the prereq. should be so feel free to take my idea and add to it.

[Xin Yu]

korn469: ICS does not only mean more cities, but also mean smaller, no-improvement cities. Without improvements the city size is limited. A perfectionest will build improvements and grow his cities, thus if we only allow merge of large cities, an ICS player will start building city improvements and grow the population (rather than keep on building settlers), thus break the ICS cycle.

As for the distance among the cities, we can require a lower limit for the squares allocated for a megalopolis (let's say 70). If the 4 cities overlaps too many squares the total squares will be less than 70 and they cannot merge.

Suppose an ICS player has 40 size 1 cities, and a perfectionist has 4 size 10 cities which merge into 1 megalopolis. The perfectionis is still in disadvantage in working squares: it only has 44 squares, adding the 1/4 bonus will be 55, while the ICS got 80. However each city improvement is more valuable provided that more than two cities have it. 2 marketplaces give 25% more of the total tax/luxury (which already multiplied by 5/4 for megalopolis), 3 gives 50%, 4 doubles the tax/luxury. 2 temples makes 1 contents in each city, 3 makes 2 contents, 4 makes 4 contents. 2 granaries save a quarter of each city's food box, 3 save a half, 4 (or pyramid) save 75%. One megalopolis with 4 marketplaces and 4 banks can produce a lot more than 40 ICS cities! And there is a military advantage--the group unit is 5 times an ordinary unit while only 4 cities are producing it (a bonus of 1/4 as well).

[Youngsun]

The ICS problem comes from the unrealistic population growth mechanism of current civ-style games.

The idea of overcrowding in CTP was good but ill-implemented by affecting only happiness.

Only an overcrowded city should be allowed to build proper settlers which can sucessfully settle.

We may check from our city list about which cities are overcrowded and select one or more cities to build a unit of settler.

Historically, Greeks did advertise among their cities to settle a new colony on specific area.

Not all cities were founded by this way and most of them were actually grown to cities from mere villages.

That's why we need to differentiate the status of our settlement like this;

Village
Town
City
Megalopolis

When a settler settles, it should make a village not a city.

It is natural that people feel secure when they live in bigger size village because it reduces the dangers of outside invasion or even attack from wild beasts. So small size villagers would not feel happy to be splited from their fellow villagers. As long as the food and water supply are alright,they will grow to the town status.

The behaviours of villagers,townees and citizens should vary by acting differently when they are faced to build a unit of settler.

Basically, villagers like to see more people
for growth of the village so they will hardly join the settler group.(should takes ages to build a settler from a village-should be treated differently from production capacity)

Citizens are sick of seeing people so they will happily join the settler(should takes little time to build a settler)

Townees' behaviour will be somewhat between above two groups.

Also there should be production and trade penalty for being low status dwelling.

Only city status should be allowed to have complex social class,trade and production boost by specialisation of working class.

Many villages or town owned empire like Russia should suffer enormously from the production,trade and science penalty whereas other big city based western European nations are more efficient at production,trade and science even though the total population of Russia is bigger than those of western European nations.

ie)
Great Britain: 5 20-sized cities. Total pop.100
Russian Empire: 40 5-sized Towns. Total pop.200

City production bonus 100%
City Trade bonus 150%
City Science bonus 200%(none to village)
Town production bonus 50%
Town Trade bonus50%
Town science bonus25%
Village has no bonus

British total production:200 Trade:250 Science:300
Russian total production:300 Trade:300 Science:250

Considering the Russians have twice more pop. than the British, the outcome is quite amazing.

So what about the differnce between cities and towns regarding the rate of pop. growth? Well, townees tend to have more childrens than citizens do so their birthrate will exceed that of citizens. So still towns have the advantages hah? later they can be all cities anyway in the current model of the game.

That's why we need to add an migration factor to population growth.

Townees and villagers should admire the lifestyle of citizens so they will migrate to nearby cities. Mortality should be higher in villages and Towns due to lack of health care. But during the early stage of the game cities are also vulnerable from epidemics.

overall:
1.Higher pop. growth but also higher mortality rate for villages and towns than those of cities(unstable growth)
2.lower pop. growth and mortality rate for cities(Steady growth)
3.Production,trade and science bonus to cities.
4.Harder pop. control unless you are in charge of extreme totalitarian regime.(no forced migration or settlement)

Ah! another point.
AI-controlled setter which is made in villages so they will choose suitable site for the settlement. After the settlement we can establish our authority to the new village.(Small scale migrations are not government led in thoroughout history!)
Only city-borne settlers should be directly controlled by us(makes sense when we think government-led large scale migration)

Players will be discouraged to produce village-borne setter because AI-controlled setter might settle unwanted site and encourage to build more cities to produce controllable and proper(might be bigger size so harly perish?)setters.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited February 25, 2000).]

[The Joker]

I think one of the major reasons why ICS is a problem is, that growth rates in small cities is larger than that in large ones. As population growth is exponential this is totally against reality. For some reason it is faster to go from size 4 to 5 than it is to go from size 20 to 21. This is not at all realistic.

I think this should be delt with, and I also think that cities should have a real population in stead of thos ugly heads.

Youngsun:
I totally agree with your ideas. I myself have posted an idea like yours (that you are not in complete control over your expansion), but it never became as developed as yours. It would be great to have it included.

korn:
Thanks for your responce.

Bureaucracy points:
They would work as an expence on your national budget, like the city improvements. Each city would increase the amount required for the BP. You would decide how much to be spent on it, but the more you do spend, the smaller is the chance of a civil war. I think the civil wars cost by lack of BP's should be only small ones where a few cities (like 5-15% of your cities) break away. The large ones would be more crucial and would be caused by more important reasons (like nationalism or a general discontent with your SE settings or policy - check out raingoons "CIVilians: the next best thing that civ never had" thread for info on how this could be done). The BPs should work so that it wouldn't be more catastrophic to lack them than that you would accept to spare some if you're truly f***** in a war or something. This would mean that if you have 1 BP per city, the chance of each city (preferably the periphery ones) to try to break apart from your civ would be like 10% (this would be catastrophic if you have. If you spend 2 BP per city the chance would be down to 5%. If you use 10 BP per city the chance would be down to something like 0,05%. I don't think you should be able to be totally sure not to ever get a civil war (I don't think you should have any security in civ3 - no matter how many troops you garrison in a conquored city there should always be a very small chance of it breaking up).

These BPs would mean, that a huge empire with small cities would be a huge cost on your national budget. I think this alone could solve ICS (although I still think there are other problems in Civ2 that it can't solve alone), as an empire with 40 size 1 cities would never work out - it would be far too expensive, forcing you to have an unusually high tax rate, setting you back in research.

I must say that I don't quite understand how your idea would solve ICS...

More units for a large civ: I didn't mean this as a sollution for ICS. I meant it as a way to make the power balance of the world be dynamic, meaning that the most powerful civ at one point in the game wouldn't stay that forever. A way to make this happend is, that being a large civ would need a lot of units stationed around the world (to help your allies, defend your protectorates, a large navy to defend your valuable energy trade routes etc). This would all cost money, which would give you less research and therefor make it possible for you to be surpassed by a less militaristic civ. I am not saying that is should be impossible to stay a large civ throughout the game, just that it should be very dificult.

Of cause the SoA should be done well to work. A smaller civ should be able to change from low to medium instantly, and technology would make the change faster for everybody. I agree that it should be possible for an advanced civ to wage short blitzkriegs without having to move away from low SoA.

I am aware that faster growth for modern cities will encourage ICS, but it is very realistic, and will make the Rise and fall of great Powers more possible.

Research spread: This does totally damage ICS. Imagine having a huge 100 city civ, but only 20 of these can actually make the legion unit that you need as the advance required haven't reached them yet!

More advances would not be a sollution to ICS, but would make good relations with some civs crucial, and would therefor hurt the huge conquestorial civs.

Assimilation: This should definately be included, but I think it should be done by including nationalism, and not just have it so that after x turns a city is assimilated. Assimilation should be gradual, and determined by your actions against the ethnicity the city belongs to, the happyness in the city, the use of police, the amount of improvements you build in the city etc. A city should be able to concist of 20% americans, 70% Germans and 10% Russians.

Xin Yu:
I think the megalopolis could be done (although not with all your extreme bonuses), but that stack of 5 units is completely silly. It has nothing to do with reality, and in the end it would simply mean that everybody walked around with those supertroopers. It would destreoy the balance and the realism of the game, and as it has no function I don't at all see why it should be included.

raingoon:
I do not at all agree with you. Bureaucracy points are not artificial. Of cause a huge civ need to spend much more money on bureaucracy to make it all function. And that includes penalties.

And the SoA is also realistic. Of cause there is a difference between being at war and being at peace. Civs in war use LOADS of money, production etc on the war and therefor not on other things. And of cause a very large civ takes longer to mobilize the army. I agree that technology has made this change faster, but it still excists.

Losing tech: I agree that this should no longer be after some national project (Orange seems to be on to something here).

The most intelligent thing you wrote in your post was definately that ICS should be possible, but require a lot of skill. I completely agree on this, as I think, that it should be possible to have a huge civ that actually stays huge for 1000s of years. But it should be very, VERY hard.

I have always liked your energy model (although I disagree in a few areas, like I think you should need trade routes to move around energy - if this isn't included you couldn't make a blockade against a civ, taking away a great deal of the brilliance of energy), but it doesn't become a sollution to ICS untill industrialization. And then it's more or less too late, as a lot of your cities are then already developed. It can help against ICS (along with it's other advantages), but alone it can not stop it.

[korn469]

Joker

you're on to something!!!

quote: I think one of the major reasons why ICS is a problem is, that growth rates in small cities is larger than that in large ones. As population growth is exponential this is totally against reality

in Alpha Centauri, this means that one size twenty city takes 400 nutrients to grow to size 21, while it only takes 20 nutrients for a size one city to grow to size two, unfortunantly, this also means that it takes 400 nutrients for twenty size one cities to grow to size two. so in effect, for the same amount of food, one civ gets 20 new citizens while another civ get one new citizen.

that is a problem
sloution: new idea read below

also support based on cities is a problem, because unless all civs had +3 support, smaller bases provide much greater support per citizens than a large base does. given the most extream example, you have 20 size one bases and one size 20 base. each civ has one hundred units they must support. if the ICS civ had -2 support and the perfectionist civ had +2 support, it would cost the ICS civ 80 minerals to support its forces while it would cost the perfectionist civ 96 minerals to support it forces. if the situation was reversed it would cost the perfectionist civ 99 minerals to support it focres for 20 minerals. if both were at zero support it would cost the perfectionist civ 98 minerals to support its forces while it would cost the ICS civ 60 minerals to support its forces.

that is a problem
solution: support happens globaly instead of city by city

at each and every population size it is better to have many size one bases instead of one large base from a production stand point.

that is a problem
solution: make the base square yeild 1-0-4 (would that help or hurt?)

from 4-20 citizens it always better to have size one bases than it is to have size a 20 bae when it comes to dealing with drone riots.

that is a problem
solutions: my previous ideas about specialists and drones are based on total population, not city population

so here is a solution to those problems.

Joker, you inspired my new idea...

1. make the nutrient cost of getting a new citizens cost the same reguardless of city size. This would solve the exponential growth problem. Also larger cities would grow faster than smaller cities. I would say make the cost of a new citizen be 40 nutrients (food). This would slow down expansion during the early game when ICS is at its strongest, and later on when cities got larger their growth would increase.

here is a sub idea to this...

in order to make growth not be totally based on nutrients and your growth rate in the SE chart, you could make the base cost nutrient cost of a unit be based on the happiness of a city. In a normal city the base cost would be 40 nutrients. In a "happy" city the base cost of getting a new citizens would be 30 nutrients, and in an "unhappy" city, the base cost of getting a new citizen would be 50 nutrients.

does anyone see any problems with this change? what exploits and pitfalls would it cause? would it be a better system that what civ has now? i think it would, how about you?

korn469

[raingoon]

The Joker,

Bureaucracy Points -- I'm coming around to this. I didn't understand it exactly at first. But if I understand you correctly, essentially it is "political currency," the cost the central government pays to exert control over its periphery.

Your point about energy being moved around in trade sounds great to me -- why isn't it in my model?? Could you post a brief summary of what you mean in the EC3 Energy New Idea thread for Energy? I would love to incorporate it.

Also, you're right about Energy not solving the problem until the industrial age. I still like it, but it is not enough.

Korn469,

I like what you're saying about changing the nutrient model.

Seems like all of these ideas eventually get back to a question of "currency" -- How much does it cost to do X? and should it cost more or less? And by currency of course I mean BP's, Nutrients/food, Energy Barrels, etc. These are are currencies within the game. Just about the least important currency in Civ 2 is gold.

[S. Kroeze]

This is an interesting discussion and many intelligent suggestions are made to solve ICS. I agree most with the ideas of the Joker, which shouldn't surprise anyone who followed the discussions on this Forum. Because of lack of time for the moment just two critical remarks:

I Until the introduction of water works around 1850 nearly all cities on this planet had a mortality rate higher than its birth rate and were much more vulnerable to epidemics. Sanitary conditions were always bad or exceptionally bad. Cities could only retain their population figures or grow due to constant migration of rurals to the city. This does also explain why only a few political, religious or economic centres had populations above 100,000. As soon as the centre of power or wealth shifted to another centre the old capitol declined. Most cities were of a parasitic character!

Most towns before 1700AD never passed the 40,000. As an illustration a list of all British and French cities with a population above 28,000 inhabitants in 1700 AD:
Paris ~530,000
Marseille 88,000
Lyon 71,000
Rouen 68,000
Lille 55,000
Torino 43,000 (temporarily conquered)
Bordeaux 42,000
Nantes 42,000
Orleans 41,000
Toulouse 40,000
Caen 37,000
Angers 35,000
Amiens 35,000
Dijon 34,000
Tours 33,000
Metz 30,000
Strasbourg 28,000

London ~550,000
Dublin 80,000
Edinburgh 35,000
Norwich 29,000
So in the British isles only four cities exceeded this number!

Some other figures just for comparison, all 1700 AD:
Amsterdam 172,000
Leiden 62,000
Rotterdam 51,000
Haarlem 48,000
the Hague 29,000
Holland was the most urbanized region of the world, more than half the population dwelling in cities!

Brussel 70,000
Kopenhagen 62,000
Stockholm 48,000
Roma 149,000
Venezia 144,000
Firenze 69,000
Napoli 207,000
Palermo 113,000
Milano 124,000
Lisboa 188,000
Madrid 110,000
Hamburg 70,000
Koln 39,000
Liège 36,000
Wien 105,000
Prag 48,000
Danzig 50,000
Moskwa 130,000, the only Russian city above 28,000
Constantinople ~700,000, at that moment the largest city in the world

Mexico City 100,000
Potosà 95,000
Oruro 72,000
Puebla 63,000
Lima 37,000
In North America (later US and Canada) no city at this date exceeded 20,000!

Cairo ~350,000
Tripoli 50,000
Meknes ~200,000
Algiers 85,000
Tunis 75,000
Gondar 80,000 (in Ethopia)

In Asia we find quite a few really large cities:
Beijing ~650,000
Isfahan ~600,000
Yedo ~500,000
Delhi ~500,000
Ahmedabad ~380,000
Osaka ~370,000
Kyoto ~350,000
Canton ~300,000
Nanking ~300,000
Hangchow 292,000
Soochow 245,000
Dacca ~200,000
Surat ~200,000
Hyderabad ~200,000
Patna 170,000
Seoul 170,000
Sian 167,000
Ayutia 150,000
Tabriz 150,000

In sum there were only about fourty (40!) cities on this planet in 1700AD exceeding the 100,000! There were a lot of smaller centres, but the rural population dwarfed the townspeople.

II about colonization by settlers
Organized colonization by settlers was quite exceptional and didn't occur voluntarily. The Greek migration period from the 8th-6th century BC was the result of enormous population pressure: the land couldn't feed all mouths so to avert disaster it was the only choice!
Of course unorganized migration by wandering nomads has occurred from the beginning. Originally we do all descend out of Africa!

[Theben]

My original solution was to only allow production from the city square if the city size =1. If concerned with quick growth amongst small cities this would cause small cities to grow slowly, getting quicker with larger city size (and no anarchy/despot penalties). Also to allow all cities to have up to 6 items in production, since small cities couldn't put much into any given slots. But having the # of slots based on industrial City Improvements or just city size sounds better.

As for far flung empires, why not just have distant colonies be more vulnerable to independence?

If Centralization is used as an SE, I don't see a need for Bureaucracy points.

[OrangeSfwr]

An oustanding point!

The point being that cities should grow on some sort of scale. Maybe the disease rate can actually serve a purpose in this game. In B.C. times, a disease rate of 50% (before any real medical advancements) would kill of every other citizen (half the growth rate). However, in 2000 with the disease rate signifigantly less (5%) every twentieth citizen would die. I know it doesn't sound complete, but keep in mind it's simply a theory. Basically the solution would be a slower groth rate that slowly increased with the advances of medicine, sanitation, and wonders like the cure for cancer. This would really help this problem out. Also, the food storage box should be irrelevant to growth and simply be used during famine. There should be a seperate system of tracking growth rate for the city.

[korn469]

ok just summing up some things

Growth: the nutrient(food) box should be the same size for all cities, and once that food box gets filled the city grows in size. I propose that this nutrient box be size 40 nutrients(food). This is the growth box.

In a side note, after building a granery, cities should be able to direct some of their food into another box. This box can hold up to ten (maybe 15 or 20) food per citizen. This represents the stored food in your city. If for any reason you run out of food in the growth box, then your city will drawn on food stockpiled in this granery box. This will allow you to stockpile food in case of sieges, droughts, famines, ect. Until the discovery of refrigeration, a very small percentage of the food in this box will be lost to decay. Maybe one unit of nutrients per turn.

Support: The amount of free support generated by your empire should be based on three things. One is population. Two is support generating facilities. Three is your civs Social Engineering Support level. Your SE Support level would act as a modifier to the first two categories. Units would not be supported by cities. Instead your civ would generate a number of support units based on the three categories. Each unit would cost so many support points. After your civ had exceeded the number of support points it generated, then shields from random bases would be converted into support points. SE Support leves would determine exactly how many support points each shield would generate. This process would happen automatically and the player would not be involved in it. Support generating facilites should be military structures (barracks) and advanced manufactoring structures (factories).

Production: The base square's production should change as the city increased in size. At first it would produce food-shields-money, then as the city grew larger (size five perhaps) it would produce food-no shields-more money then when it got even biger it would produce no food-no shields-even more money.

Also when a city builds an advanced manufactoring facility it should add in another production slot. So that a civ that had a nanoreplicator could make two units at the same time. A city that had a nanoreplicator and a quantum converter could produce three units at the same time.

Happiness: For cities size 1-4 there should have to be one worker for each pysch specialist, with there always having to be one worker. If the worker was discontent(a drone) then the city would riot and revolt. For larger cities, size 5-20 there would have to be one worker for every two specialist, with a minimum number of three workers. If these workers were discontent they would riot and revolt. For the largest cities, size 21+ there should be a minimum number of seven workers but an unlimited number of specialists. If the workers were discontent the city would riot and revolt. Now only police, happiness spending, or happiness facilities could pacify this minimum number of workers. They could not be turned into happiness or any other kind of specialists.

Additionally, as your empire increases the number of cities under its control there should be a chance for these cities to spontaneously revolt or declare their independednce, even if they are not in a state of riot. The cities the longest distance from the capital would be most likely to declare their independence.

firaxis that would end ICS.

korn469

[markusf]

One word to fix ICS

Introduce Disease!!!!

Introduce the hospital improvement and introduce a doctor unit. Maybe a doctor can even go to other civs and spread disease....

[The Joker]

korn:
I completely agree that support should be delt with on a global scale. If State of Alert is implemented it would work much better with a centralized unit support.

I am not sure what to do with the base square... It is more or less a must-have for the newly found city. I think that if Firaxis can solve ICS etc by other means I would rather keep the base square, but I am not quite sure.

I like your new growth model alot. It is both realistic, it can help solve ICS and it includes that growth should not be based on food entirely. Maybe include trade too (cities with lots of trade has shown to grow faster) by taking the amount of trade in the city divided by the pop and set into some model so that a city with lots of trade would grow faster. Just a suggestion.

When summarizing, what have you done with all my ideas?

raingoon:
I guess I'll do that.

Theben:
I don't think giving advanced cities the possibility to build two things at the same time would solve anything. If it means that the production of the city is divided into two pools, then it would not be good at all. I would much rather have a tank in 10 turns and one in 20 turns than having 2 in 20 turns...

Why would centralization make BPs obsolete? I am for both centralization AND BPs, but I think they can complement each other.

Markusf:
The introduction of a hospital improvement is good, and the doctor is nice too. But PLEASE make him a specialist and not a unit. Having a doctor unit is WAY too CTP. I am not sure it would totally remove ICS, but it could easily be one of the small things that combined would do so.

[korn469]

The Joker,

sorry i didn't have much time to sum up all things (going out on a date)...like i said at the beginning of the post, i was summing up some things

the more i think about it the more that i think leaving the base square untouched is the only way to go, a necessary evil

in my next summary i will in clude SoA, losing tech, assimilation, bureaucracy, energy and then an idea S.Kroeze gave me

that maximum food production should definantly be capped until the industrial age to slow growth...in the industrial age food production would go way up so that population could do the same thing

korn469

[raingoon]

Also here is an idea for something you all have been discussing and seem to grasp better than I -- the problem with the population model.

One word, really -- GERMS. I've been reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel," a book about why civilization evolved down the peculiar paths it did, and why North American Indians, say, did not discover Spain in 1492, rather than the other way around.

Very interesting. But truly profound is the effect that germs have had on population growth and migration over the years. The title of the book is no accident -- germs are right there alongside guns for exactly the reason you would think.

And if you think about it, what ICS in Cic 2 does well is demonstrate what can happen if you have a population that is not checked by the spread of disease. So without further ado, I present the concept of "Germs" to you guys who grasp the population thing better than I do;}.