Do you think ICS has been solved adequately?

[Dauphin]

In Civ3, the restriction of not having a +12 city until the Industrial era incentivised overlapping city radii. Something should be done about that. Not sure what, but give it some thought.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
You don't build improvements when using ICS. A pop requirement for city improvements is irrelevant where ICS is concerned.

Yes you do. You want barracks at least.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by vulture
Another way to achieve the same effect is to have the output (in shields or gold) of a city not be a linear function of its input.

An interesting twist would be for the generation of light bulbs (civilisation advancement points). That way, ICS'ers are forever stuck in the dark ages.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dauphin
In Civ3, the restriction of not having a +12 city until the Industrial era incentivised overlapping city radii. Something should be done about that. Not sure what, but give it some thought.

Overlapping cities are very old. For one thing, the city doesn't cover a regular shape, so some areas are wasted. Then you can never fill up all the squares within the radius anyway. You need entertainers long before that.

[Dauphin]

Overlapping has been around since year dot, mainly for sharing a good tile resource between two cities. I'm talking about having cities overlap the majority of the lands for the sake of being able to have all land tiles worked. IN essence it promotes ICS.

If a city could work most of the tiles in its radius rather than just half (ie it can grow to have enough labourers) it would mean less city overlap and less inclination to ICS..

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Yes you do. You want barracks at least.

Barracks are arguably a good investment when ICSing.
They would also be the first city improvement a city would be allowed to build - it is doubtful the world would be without barracks until size 12 cities for instance.


I do like Vulture's suggestion and method of curbing ICS by increasing output more than increasing input. People will use whatever is more powerful, and if larger cities are more powerful than that is what will be used.
Applying this method to research as UR suggested makes sense as well due to synergy.

[GePap]

I didn;t know clash used an underlying population model like the one I proposed for ci4-cool.

I think the needed changes should be:

1. Pop. minimums for certain improvements

2. Multiple build queues- any city can make multiple things at a time- this would mean large and very productive cities are simply better, and is more realistic.
The exact number of queues would grow with city size, so a giant maglopolis might be able to produce 6 things at a time, a small burg 1 thing.

[Dauphin]

Muliple queues? You mean so that you can use overflow shields on other projects?

Why would you want to split production over six different projects? The overall build time would be the same, but then none would be built as quickly as a single build queue method.

[Dauphin]

Or are you saying that production isn't split but doubles, triples...sextuples as you get more production lines?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Muliple queues? You mean so that you can use overflow shields on other projects?

Why would you want to split production over six different projects? The overall build time would be the same, but then none would be built as quickly as a single build queue method.

Why not? Besides the problem of shield wastage, you may want to always be making a defensive unit and still be building an imporvement of so. This way you could dedicate a few shields a turn towards a defensive unit while you spend say 90% of shields on a library. If there is any problem, you can switch production mainly to the military units without having to fully abandon the library either.


And again, as the city gets bigger you have the ability to use more production lines, specially if you have lots of shields and think you might be able to make 3 or 4 units per turn from some larger cities.

Obviously this would work better if shields came form more limited sources but at the same time in greater amounts. Say, instead of having 10 tiles each giving 2 shields have 2 tiles each giving 10. Now, specae these tiles out, making it more strategic to place cities, but also lessening the sense of lots of little cities.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by GePap


Why not? Besides the problem of shield wastage, you may want to always be making a defensive unit and still be building an imporvement of so. This way you could dedicate a few shields a turn towards a defensive unit while you spend say 90% of shields on a library. If there is any problem, you can switch production mainly to the military units without having to fully abandon the library either.

Lets say you have a city with 100 shields. You want to build an improvements costing 100 shields, and produce 4 units each costing 100 shields.

2 scenarios:

1) Single production line. You build the improvement first in Turn 1. You proceed to build one unit every turn after that until you have 4 units and the improvement in Turn 5.

2) 5 production lines, each receiving a portion of the shields. Lets say 20% each. Turn 1 through 4 sees nothing produced. In Turn 5 all units and the improvement get completed.

You are in the same situation at Turn 5 under both systems, except that under scenario 1 you have units and improvements built turns earlier. You also have the option to build the improvement in any of the 5 turns, depending on needs.

I don't think that multiple queues adds anything that overflow with a single queue can't acheive. If overflow is so large as to be able to produce another unit/improvement within a turn then simply allow it to. e.g if you have 5 warriors at 10 shields queued up and have 50 shields per turn then the city produces 5 warriors next turn.

[Nostromo]

Just noodling... How about introducing national improvements? They would work like city improvements, except at the national level. If you want to move from a size 8 empire (meaning an empire with 8 cities) to a size 9 empire, for example, you have to build a certain nationwide improvement.

[Drachasor]

Multiple queues can help in some instances. Let's say you need to defend a city that has no walls. If you can queue walls and units, and later rush both, it is a big help. Same with just unit defenders.

Generally it greatly aids rush buiding, and it is useful in areas where you need to devote some work to two or more critical things. If what happens to the city in the next 5-10 turns doesn't matter, then mutliple queues don't matter much.

Generally though, multiple queues are a bit messy to manage, I imagine. Rather like multiplying the number of cities you need to micromanage. Ugh!

Best to make general production and other bonuses for cities as they grow, perhaps even make bonuses to cities that aren't crowded in by other cities (this makes early game city crunching less tempting).

-Drachasor

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Civ 3 attempts to curb ICS

2-cost settlers just delay the building of cities. As shown by REX, masses of cities still get built.

This actually destroys ICS, at least the original sense of it. The problem in C2 was that you effectively got a "free pop point" because of the center square. Now that's not true anymore.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by nostromo
Just noodling... How about introducing national improvements? They would work like city improvements, except at the national level. If you want to move from a size 8 empire (meaning an empire with 8 cities) to a size 9 empire, for example, you have to build a certain nationwide improvement.

hmmm...

RoN did this.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Kucinich


hmmm...

RoN did this.

Never played it (my computer is very old, you see ). If think it could kill ICS...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns Civ 3 attempts to curb ICS 2-cost settlers just delay the building of cities. As shown by REX, masses of cities still get built.

This actually destroys ICS, at least the original sense of it. The problem in C2 was that you effectively got a "free pop point" because of the center square. Now that's not true anymore.

But it doesn't destroy ICS in the sense that you still have masses of cities very close together very early. And these close-together cities are more powerful than if the cities were further apart.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I don't think that multiple queues adds anything that overflow with a single queue can't acheive. If overflow is so large as to be able to produce another unit/improvement within a turn then simply allow it to. e.g if you have 5 warriors at 10 shields queued up and have 50 shields per turn then the city produces 5 warriors next turn.

[asleepathewheel]

I like the idea of multiple city queues, but I have a deathly fear that it would just turn into another MoO3 debacle...

[TimeTraveler]

One thing I always wondered about in Civ games is why the city square gives its resources without any of the population heads working on it. With that thought I think ICS could be stopped (or nearly stopped) dead in its tracks if

1. The city square doesn't give its common resources unless a laborer works on the square.

2. The first city of a civilization gets a 3-nutrient square adjacent to it, so that the city is able to produce workers and settlers and expand into an empire.

3. Non-city squares are generally worth a tiny bit more than city squares.

Since city squares can't easily be mined, irrigated, etc, this would mean that four cities each working on four tiles usually could not produce as much as one larger city working on those 16 tiles.

Do note that this is merely an idea I have, and I would like to know if it's a good one.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns Civ 3 attempts to curb ICS 2-cost settlers just delay the building of cities. As shown by REX, masses of cities still get built.

This actually destroys ICS, at least the original sense of it. The problem in C2 was that you effectively got a "free pop point" because of the center square. Now that's not true anymore.

ICS not destroyed i sue it whenever playing the higher levels , works very well, a city separated by one square.. and lots ofo them

[Tassadar500]

I don't think that the center square should change. It is much easier to work land, if the city is built on it.

[Mars]

Rather than penalize ICS why not reward players for building larger more robust cities (afterall nobody likes their play style being penalized). Make the city improvements more worthwhile to be gotten. Particularly make there more improvements that increase production, espicellay earlier on.

Multiple build quenes would only involve more micromangment and wouldn't solve the situation all that much more than keeping it as a single build quene so I doubt that is an effective solution. However, the overflow model is both accurate and would probably help promote larger more powerful cities.

Increasing the spaces between building cities would be just annoying. It would drive a lot of people away from the game. Having a penalization system for cities that are too close together would also be annoying and complicated. allow people to build cities near each other if they so chose.

A solution for the center city square, maybe rather than get rid of it make it so that the larger the city the more of a bonus the center city square gives. Maybe have it so that towards the beginning it gives more of a bonus towards food but as the city grows have it give more of a production and commerce bonus.

make it so that larger cities can support far more units than smaller ones

One thing though, the current corruption models got to go, its so annoying.

Rather than trying to get rid of ICS, make having fewer large cities just as good of a strategy

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mars
Rather than penalize ICS why not reward players for building larger more robust cities (afterall nobody likes their play style being penalized).

It's both sides of the same coin. If it makes you feel better do consider cities and metropolises are rewarded instead of villages and towns penalised

Originally posted by Mars
A solution for the center city square, maybe rather than get rid of it make it so that the larger the city the more of a bonus the center city square gives. Maybe have it so that towards the beginning it gives more of a bonus towards food but as the city grows have it give more of a production and commerce bonus.

Trade bonuses would be good. It simply says goods fetch a higher price in large cities. Makes sense.

[Urban Ranger]

Several other ideas:

1. Labour. Currently, Civ requires only shields for the construction of city improvements and units. This is silly. Make it so that constructions will remove population temorarily from other production activities, while creating army units will permanently take that away. Therefore, large cities with a surplus of population will have an advantage.

2. City defense militia. A certain amount of population will take up arms against outside invaders. This makes bigger cities tougher.

3. Bigger cities bigger city improvements. Most obvious example is City Wall. A bigger city would have thicker and taller city walls.

4. Bigger cities higher arrow bonuses. Covered above, this also represents a more active intra-city commerce.

[pg]

Originally posted by Mars
(afterall nobody likes their play style being penalized).

this strikes me as something weird to say. ics is really the only style of play that's very powerful. so if you don't penalize ics in comparsion to other play styles you are just going to make ics that much worse.

[Max Sinister]

Theoretically, it would be a good idea to be able to build several improvements at the same time in a city. But then, we'd also have to talk about that if Civ had realistic times for building, you should be able to build an improvement (except wonders, maybe) in one turn. Or maybe even several improvements.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

vulture was right - civ models are too linear. change them to exponential growth models, and you will get rid of ICS in no time.

but you need to make sure that there is still incentive to found new cities, so dont make the model too steep.

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Several other ideas:

1. Labour. Currently, Civ requires only shields for the construction of city improvements and units. This is silly. Make it so that constructions will remove population temorarily from other production activities, while creating army units will permanently take that away. Therefore, large cities with a surplus of population will have an advantage.

2. City defense militia. A certain amount of population will take up arms against outside invaders. This makes bigger cities tougher.

3. Bigger cities bigger city improvements. Most obvious example is City Wall. A bigger city would have thicker and taller city walls.

4. Bigger cities higher arrow bonuses. Covered above, this also represents a more active intra-city commerce.

As it is now, you lose walls when your city passes size six

[Jaybe]

From a Civ3 perspective, Rhye's of Civilization (RoC) does a great job at restricting ICS. Its main form is on a huge Earth map with 31 civs.

In RoC settlers come in 3 types, based on the current Age. Off the top of my head, it's: Ancient Settlers 3 population/120 shields; Medieval Settlers 4 pop/190 shields; Industrial Settlers 5 pop/290 shields. Makes for a historical growth rate.

Workers cost 20 shields and all the worker jobs are much more expensive. Forests in particular have a chopping time of 28, and you can't build cities on forests!