It's not ICS- it's REX!

[freezuch]

i agree, when you playing on normal map these bastards(pikeman and settler) are moving through your territory and found their cities right in the middle of my civ.

[IBNobody]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Go ahead and give me an exact strategy explaining how *NOT* gaining more cities will help a civilization.

Um....Reduced corruption? :P

If you don't expand all over the place, you won't face as much corruption. (Unless you edit the rules.)

- Nobody

You asked ::ducks::

[Hydey]

I can't buy civ 3 yet but just reading through these many threads here it appears to me that many people are trying to play this game the way they played civ2.

If you ever read any of the early threads about civ 2 Strats you roll on the floor laughing at the silly ideas people had about playing the game. I think before we start asking for patchs to fix these things we allow ourselves the chance to find ways around the problems with our brains.

[yin26]

Easy to say when you haven't played the game yet.

I do agree, of course, we will need more time with the game. But 'if it smells like a duck' I don't think we're gonna get steak anytime soon.

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by IBNobody


Um....Reduced corruption? :P

If you don't expand all over the place, you won't face as much corruption. (Unless you edit the rules.)

- Nobody

You asked ::ducks::

... You *KNOW* how faulted that is. Corruption create a "critical mass" of cities you can have, and that mass goes up over time as you become more and more stable. Try again, because that argument is going to work for the first 10 cities, which is just about all that's going ot come out of the expansion phaze.

[CygnusZ]

Double Post.

[MxM]

Well, actually I had successful game on medium map with 8 civs, small continents. In the beginning I focused on the development of only one city, I did not even try to build settlers. The city was on the river and it riched relatively fast the size of 12. I was focusing mostly on the culture, but when I could not build cultural buildings, I built barracks and military units. And the city was very productive, so I managed to build about 7 veteran archers very fast. Quite soon somebody declared a war, and I captured 2 cities, and I stopped only because I wanted to play small siv in this game. About the same time, my capital managed to convert 3 additional cities. So, as a result, I had 5 cities and one super city. That happened without building even one (!!!) settler. The rest of the game was pretty standard and I won by diplomatic victory.

Conclusion: you do not need to REX in order to have a successful game. You can achieve decent civ by other means: by culture and by conquest. REX is just one way to play, but not the only one. However I must admit, that if you have a lot of territory and only small # of civs, you have to REX, because you will not be able to meet and to convert/conquer other cities until later in the game.

[raadmme]

Summary:
Try using units to block the AIs settlers from moving where you don't want them to move.
Needs more testing...
Rest of this post is just an example of it working one time.

Also, concerning the topic, it seems like rapid expansion at first is the best strategy at this time for the AI, and for players, so I think its good the AI does it all the time.


Haven't had time to test this theory much unfortuneately, but in my current game (only my 2nd) it worked well for out-expanding the AI significantly, and controlling all the strategic resources so far (iron/horses) and most of the luxuries, on monarch difficulty.

This example is flawed because I recieved a settler from a barbarian hut early, near my starting settlers, but I hope to replicate this in future games. (edit: the fast expansion in general without the bonus settlers. Sounds like I expect the bonus settlers everytime )
After seeing how fast the AI expands, I tried to expand as fast as possible, playing Americans on monarch difficulty. I started on a pangea, 80% water, rest standard settings, barbarian villages only. I built settlers whenever a town got to 3, and warriors(later spearmen and occasionally workers) while waiting for them to get to 3. I started on a small island (to my surprise considering it was a pangea map...) with the Aztecs and Iroquois very close (smallest land mass, so expected tough competition). I scouted the whole island very quickly, and used all the warriors I made to scout. There was 5 ivory and 5 dye on the island. (I ended up with all the ivory, and all but 3 dye, 1 of which wasn't useable by them.)

After I found out how small the island was, I put warriors on all the key mountain tops and hills near my enemies. Then, when they started building settlers, I used my warriors to force the settlers away from the resources, by using a wall of warriors to keep them from moving there. Also, with all my warriors, my army was usually considered about equal to the AI's, so I never had any difficulty with them not respecting me. Near the end of the expansion phase, I had 3 Aztec settlers and 2 Iroquois settlers blocked while my last 4 settlers built to fill in the remaining spots. During this time the AI was ignoring my borders with its settlers while trying to get to the last spots, but I was still able to contain them with all my warriors and spearmen. Those settlers finally disappeared after I filled in the last spot (at which point I was almost to Monarchy). I assume they were used for growth in the AIs towns. Also, I used settlers to build villages at the AI's borders to steal resources where it was possible. Stole an ivory and iron from the Aztecs this way. Saw the AI do this to me my first game, very annoying, but smart. This is easily avoided tho when prepared, by blocking, but, unfortunately, the AI does not prevent resource stealing well.

At this point in the game, a couple turns after monarchy has been established, about ~700 bc if I remember correctly, I have a very dominant lead over my 2 island neighbors. They have no access to iron, horses, or ivory. My score and culture is about twice as much as each of theirs (half the histograph). I have a good sized tech lead over both of them, despite minimum (32-turn) science research for all of the expansion phase, while the AI was gaining many techs, which I subsequently recieved in trade. The Aztecs and Iroquois have 5 towns each, while I have ~9. 3 of the Aztecs towns are seperated from its capital, because of my interferance, and still not connected by roads. The only one that the Aztecs managed to get next to the capital is in a very poor mountainous location.

Hmm... rambled on a bit.

[MxM]

Has anyone else managed to win without REX on regent? I suspect that most of the players try REX because ICS was working very good in civII. But did you try another play stile in civ III. It worked for me, especially when you do not have much space per civ.

[yin26]

Well, some thoughts: Blocking off the settlers with units is a novel approach ... but the game should have better options then that! Anyway: Good work!

As for the map size, I think that's important. If you start with not much space to begin with, the AI readily sees that you've filled in the spaces and will concentrate on his own infrastructure. But when land is plentiful, the AI's character really changes to hype-expansion across your borders.

Sure, it makes sense. Sure, maybe that's the only way the civ thinks it can survive on such a map. Still, it makes for some tedious opening games.

I don't want to have to make a wall of warriors or a flood of cities just to deal with AI settlers.

Alas, we may be at the limits of AI programming on this point. I will accept the situation if Firaxis says not much else can be done from their point of view.

[Pyrodrew]

If you don't expand all over the place, you won't face as much corruption.

I have no problem with #ofcities causing corruption. But if I'm in England (with say 10 cities) & I notice SouthAmerica & Australia are open territory I should be able to put cities there without having Distance Corruption choke me to death. And at 1 shield/turn it will take FOREVER to build a forbidden palace & courthouse. And once built this forbidden palace & courthouse have no effect (or very very little) compared to the power of Distance Corruption. Result = The only way I can expand is slowly outward from the center of my empire. And if I am *lucky* enough to have leaders to help relocate my capital in SouthAmerica the Distance Corruption overwhelms my initial 10 cities in England... all that work down the drain.

[Talenn]

As I posted in another 'ICS' thread, I think the best and easiest solution would be that a city cant build a setter unless it is a certain size (maybe 4 or 5 for starters...would have to be tested). This would dramatically slow down the early expansion and force players (and AIs) to choose their more limited city sites more carefully.

What I find most disturbing about the current system is that all Civs (including the player) expand like mad in the extremely ancient era of the game and that by the time of the historical 'land grabs' and mass colonizations in the real world, there is practically no unoccupied land (on default maps/Civs) etc. For example, the 'Explorer' unit is nearly worthless except as a spy because there is nothing left to explore! Almost every single scrap of land is occupied long before they exist.

At any rate, I'd like to see some solution to the problem, not because its unbeatable, but because its 1) ahistorical, 2) too cost effective and 3) boring to have to do the same strategy game after game. I thought one of Sid's cornerstone design principles is the risk/reward decision-making. When it comes to the early game 'land grab', there is no decision...do it or die.

[Robert]

I currently play at Monarch level. (don't ask me how I got my copy overhere in Europe )

I started between Aztecs and Americans.
I play Iroquois. All civs indeed start to expand like crazy. So did I.
Since I'm not very experienced (yet) with civ3 I begun a little behind but got myself a solid empire with about 10 cities whent hey got 12.

Then they started indeed to build cities beyond my empire (so my empire became between 2 American 'empires') but I builded cities around his 'colonial' cities and since my 'old' cities already got themselves quiet some culture I was able to get 4 american cities and 2 aztec cities !!

Right now there is only one american city within my borders, but it didn't grow for a long time (I cutted all roads to it, which is easy since it's borders are surrounded by ME) and it's in the middle of the desert and plains.

Indeed, the AI is expanding like crazy, but you can chose multiple strategies ! Having a strong strategy and the right resources (I've build multiple colonies so far and earn much money and tech by trading them with superior civs) (don't forget to cancel after 20 turns and rip them off again )

The first 3 games were a disaster to me, I had to get used to it.
But now I think I'm doing fine. Next game will be even better since I know right now that deserts are important (saltpeter) and pherhaps I'll protect my borders more to prevent foreign settlers to cross them.

The more I play it, the more I get used to it and the more I like it.

CyberShy

[old dog]

Originally posted by yin26
Do me a favor a play as China, normal random map. See if you don't start next to India and have him crawling all over you ignoring your borders etc.

I doubt that I'm just getting unlucky in my games.

I too have been playing as China, at the mid-difficulty levels. I've restarted a few times, so I have a little experience now dealing with India during the early part of the game.

Yes, India is a border pusher. Japan is much less so. France for some reason has often shown up nearby, and they like to come along a little later and grab little corners of unclaimed land and push.

One thing I've seen, though, is India's behavior seems relatively "realistic" or, at least, related to their own self interests. Their border aggressiveness is definitely related to their ability to expand in other directions. They want to win, so they don't want to be boxed in where they don't have enough land. Rather than go to war, they quietly push and try to grab spots along the border, happily sending settlers across your land to reach some square that is not really your land, but will cause havoc to your territorial integrity.

As to the main subject of this thread-- the standard early expansion of Civ3 certainly mimics history. The key resource early on is food. Given sufficient food, your early civ expands enough to be a viable competitor. I guess the question is whether this makes for fun gameplay, over the long run. So far, I'm giving it a tentative thumbs up. But I certainly can't criticize the AI for following the obvious game strategy.

[Lord Maxwell]

Originally posted by yin26
People who don't call this ICS or who don't see the problems: Again, what level of difficulty are you playing?

I don't see the problem on Deity. Why is it bad that the computer is aggressive in early expansion when an aggressive early expansion has always been the human ticket to winning since the original civ?

Second thing: I'm not asking for the AI to STOP its expansion. I'm asking for the player to have a reasonable way to deal with the AI violating your territory TO expand. In addition, I'm asking that colonies be used in the way they were intended: As a bit of a risk in order to grab a far-off resource. As it is now, we just build city after city (and I *do* build them Civ2 style over-lapping each other just as always). Contiguous City Borders along with Settler Deporation would really make the whole thing a lot more stragtegic and fun.

I agree that colonies failed as a concept. The entire map is filled by 1500 AD at the very latest... There is by then nowhere on the planet that isn't within someones borders, which makes colonies worthless in the time period when they actually were most useful.