Do you think ICS has been solved adequately?

[Tassadar500]

So to build a settler in the Industrial age, you need to take away five population points?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

thats retarted.

[Darkstar]

So are many of the suggestions in this thread. But people are being polite and not mentioning it.

ICS exists because of how you harness tiles. The more tiles you can work, the better off you are. The only drag is CORRUPTION.

In early civ, you also got a bonus tile (yielding +1).

If you want to get rid of ICS, you are going to have to change your production (resource translation) points (that's your cities). So that, no matter HOW you have your 100 points of workers, it yields the same results. As many units/improvements/etc...

Then, people will move to whatever makes their POP grow. Because then Pop will be king.

Civ is currently a resource harvesting game. You harvest your tiles. Small cities don't take as long to get to that next tile. Add in that they each give you another queue (no "overflow"), and players all ICS naturally. The game GUIDES you to it, because of the framework.

Putting a pop cost on founding a new city (settlers) doesn't stop ICS. It only slows it. But it's all about turning the tiles into whatever the player wants (more production, research, money, units). And since more cities means more and faster tiles harvested, that means players sprawl. Fix it so one CITY of 40 works exactly as 40 cities of 1 or 20 cities of 2, and ICS will dissolve. Otherwise, ICS will remain.

Remember... TILE utilization. The more tiles = better right now, and the fastest way to do that is more cities. Change that, and ICS will go away (actually, it will transform into whatever improves resource utilization fatest under the new model).

[Drachasor]

As people have said, make it so that there are bonuses for larger citys. Say for each citizen above the last size that doesn't need an aqueduct, the city produces an extra 5-10% trade, shields, and food. This would require some balancing in regards to how much things costs, but something like this could work quite well. Cities with 10 citizens beyond the highest size without an aqueduct would then produce 50-100% more goods than a number of smaller cities that add up to the same number of population points.

There might still be a problem on small maps, but certainly on any map that will reach the modern ages ICS would be dead.

Hmm, another way to handle it would be to give some national bonus when your median city size is above some number, and higher bonuses the higher you are above. As you might recall the median is the middle number you get when you line up your set of numbers (in this case city size) in order from smallest to largest. This means that founding a few new cities wouldn't hurt this effect much, but doubling your city number with a ton of foundings would.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

[SIZE=1] And since more cities means more and faster tiles harvested, that means players sprawl. Fix it so one CITY of 40 works exactly as 40 cities of 1 or 20 cities of 2, and ICS will dissolve. Otherwise, ICS will remain.

ICS exists because 40 cities of 1 and/or 20 cities of 2 work just like 1 city of 40 (well, to a point*). The problem is that it takes so long for you to get a high population city, and it is very easy to make a ton of low population cities, that there is no reason to way for zero benefit.

-Drachasor

*A more telling comparison might be a city of 20 vs. 20 cities of 1 or 10 cities of 2.

[Darkstar]

Not correct, Drachasor.

With 20 cities of 2, you get 20 build queues. You also get to utilizing tiles faster, becase you grow those cities faster then having one big one.

But if you change it so you have overflow (you spend all your production) so it can produce 20 items in one turn, and you grow just as fast if they are all in the same center or not, then ICS vanishes, and only strategy, tactical, and personal preference will guide the player.

And it would be easier on the AI as well.

[Dauphin]

20 size 1 cities use 40 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food all cities will double in 10 turns.
1 size 20 city uses only 21 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food the city will double in over 200 turns.

That is the difference in power. Even those settlers cost two pop points in Civ3 the city they build only uses one population point worth of food, compared to two population points of food in their original city from which they were built.

[Blake]

Lets list what favors ICS:
Growth model: Smaller cities grow faster, adding population and worked tiles to your empire faster. (this is why cost 2 settlers doesn't work)
Production Overflow Truncation: A relatively minor effect, but significant none the less.
(Un)Hapiness: This is MASSIVE, if it's impossible to have a happy size-10 city at some point in the game, players will have to make do with smaller cities. The problem is with the happiness model, Larger cities = unhappy. There is no real rational for this.
City Size Caps: Needs no explaining really. If you want 100% utlization of tiles, you need to ICS to a degree.


Now, what favors BIG cities:
City Improvements: It's cheaper to build 1 Marketplace to service 1 size 10 city, than 2 marketplaces to service 2 size 5 cities. Really simple logic, and the biggest disadvantage of ICS.
Corruption based on city count.
Unhappiness based on city count: This is a dramatically ineffective measure because of the happiness model. 20 size 2 cities are still easier to keep happy than 10 size 4 cities.

The problem is that (un)happiness and City size caps overpower the concentration of infrastructure factor, leaving the growth model what pushes players into ICS.

And Firaxis's problem is they approach the problem from the wrong angle, they should instead be looking at changing what favors ICS, rather than adding disincentives to ICS.

[Enigma_Nova]

Settler inefficiency (2 pop to 1 pop) would have its advantages.

If you shift the power to large cities, people will probably make a bunch of satellite bases to pump settlers into the main base.

Make it so large cities are king, and there will be equally cheesy tactics springing up to rediculously oversize your HQ.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Darkstar
Not correct, Drachasor.

With 20 cities of 2, you get 20 build queues. You also get to utilizing tiles faster, becase you grow those cities faster then having one big one.

But if you change it so you have overflow (you spend all your production) so it can produce 20 items in one turn, and you grow just as fast if they are all in the same center or not, then ICS vanishes, and only strategy, tactical, and personal preference will guide the player.

And it would be easier on the AI as well.

Well I did touch on the time to get a large city issue, but you make a good point about the overflow.

Hmm, overflow could work into my Crazy Idea (that almost no one really likes). Oh well.

-Drachasor

[Deathmerchant]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Settler inefficiency (2 pop to 1 pop) would have its advantages.

If you shift the power to large cities, people will probably make a bunch of satellite bases to pump settlers into the main base.

Make it so large cities are king, and there will be equally cheesy tactics springing up to rediculously oversize your HQ.

I believe there was a size cap for adding population to cities wasn't there? In Civ2 it was 8.. which pretty much prevented what you suggest.

[Enigma_Nova]

I presumed you had the space to stack new people, and were producing the people outside the main base rather than inside it.

When the cost of pop size 2 & 3 combined is less than the cost of pop size 7...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by 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.

Nope, that's way too simple. Cities grow on more factors other than a surplus of food. Food merely makes it possible to have growth. You must have other factors as well so there is actually growth - including immigration.

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
but you need to make sure that there is still incentive to found new cities, so dont make the model too steep.

Get rid of it. Let cities appear on their own.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dauphin
20 size 1 cities use 40 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food all cities will double in 10 turns.
1 size 20 city uses only 21 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food the city will double in over 200 turns.

That's because the current population model is retarded.

[Rasputin]

the sugestionshere getting away from the idea of what civ is.

it is a civilasition game, make your empires. if citys just pop up then you are no longer in control

if we add extra formulaes for calculating city growth the game will become less fun and too micromanagment (parts of it already are)

The simple solution is to restrict how close citys can be, a one line change in the code will possibly be done, all this other stuff will probably mean no change in civ4 .

[Zeiter]

First of all, adding settlers to already established cities in order to rack up the population is just dumb, and should be disabled. Also, I don't see any need for artificial size limits on cities. Let the natural difficulties of managing a large city keep city sizes in check. In this sense I agree with the happiness model. Big cities do tend to make more unhappy citizens. However, where big cities excel is with their huge production capacity made possible by economies of scale. This is where the exponential function needs to be implemented. A size 20 city "harvesting" 30 shields should be able to produce over 50 shields worth of stuff due to the utilization of economies of scale. Here's an example: Is is cheaper to produce 500 cars in a huge factory or to produce 500 cars in 500 separate backwater villages? The big city factory has vastly greater production power in real life, and Civ4 should model this.

Using an exponent in the function could accomplish this. And maybe determine the degree of the exponent by the city size (size 1 city: ^1.01, size 2 city: ^1.02 and so on so a size 30 city gets its production ^1.30 (for instance, 40 shields ^1.3 = a whopping 121 shields!!!!!! But such a city should be almost impossible to manage due to massive rioting and general discontent. Discontented citizens (drones in SMAC) should get exponentially more difficult to quell as a city gets bigger, so that such a size 30 city would have to divert 50 shields or something each turn just to pacify its citizens, leaving it still with 71 shields per turn. I dunno, I'm just throwing ideas out here. I don't even own Civ3, but I am very familiar with the general problems concerning ICS from my SMAC playing.)

I think Civ4 needs to make the jump from a resource-gathering-oriented game to something...more nuanced. What that is I don't know yet.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rasputin
it is a civilasition game, make your empires. if citys just pop up then you are no longer in control

Building an empire != building a collection of cities.

Originally posted by Rasputin
if we add extra formulaes for calculating city growth the game will become less fun and too micromanagment (parts of it already are)

The population model stays beneath the surface and a player doesn't interact with it.

Originally posted by Rasputin
The simple solution is to restrict how close citys can be, a one line change in the code will possibly be done, all this other stuff will probably mean no change in civ4.

Your solution is neither realistic nor satisfactory. It's not good the first time you proposed it. There's no need for a second time.

[Enigma_Nova]

U R:
Inevitably, if there's a hidden process in a complex formula
whose evaluation increases your chance to win by 0.01%,
people will invariably crack that formula and crunch numbers.

We're obcessive like that; protect the game from needing MAPLE 9 in order to calculate your next move. :/

[OPD]

Originally posted by Dauphin
20 size 1 cities use 40 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food all cities will double in 10 turns.
1 size 20 city uses only 21 tiles, and assuming all tiles produce 2 food the city will double in over 200 turns.

That is the difference in power. Even those settlers cost two pop points in Civ3 the city they build only uses one population point worth of food, compared to two population points of food in their original city from which they were built.

Dauphin has hit the nail on the head here, the real ICS problem in civ3 is not about many smaller cities being more productive than 1 big one, as that is simply not the case due to corruption and particularily the way that similar levels of corruption hurts smaller cities more, I'm not sure of the numbers but I'd guess that 25% corruption does take the 2nd sheild?
The real reason why REXing is so important in civ3 is that each additional city grows as quickly as the last, all things being equal 10 size 1 cities will give overall growth that is ten times!! that of 1 size 10 city. Within 10 turns the 10 small cities will be working almost twice!! the number of tiles that the 1 big city is working.

Is it time for corruption to effect food? I guess no one would really like that. Like others have been saying, rather than penalizing one course of action, it would be better to make the alternatives more attractive. Although it should be noted that you can still expand very quickly having only 1 or 2 cities dedicated to settlers.

[Enigma_Nova]

It wouldn't be too bad if corruption affected food.
It would just be another factor to micromanage, that's all.

[Dauphin]

Maybe have the excess food per turn amount multiply by the population size of the city to get the extra food stored per turn. This is effectively identical to making larger cities require less extra food in the food box to grow - a flip on the current system where the food box gets bigger for cities and metropolises.

Alternatively a more complex system which has growth as an exponential function could be implemented. Each turn the population of a city grows by a percentage amount based on a function of health, happiness and food, with food being a limiting factor aswell.

Given the drive for simplicity that Firaxis has, a simple mathematical expression is needed to encompass a simple feedback principle.

And if I see a population growth models that produces sigmoid curves I will be a happy person.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Dauphin
And if I see a population growth models that produces sigmoid curves I will be a happy person.

Just the word "sigmoid" gives me chills.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Building an empire != building a collection of cities.

Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

The population model stays beneath the surface and a player doesn't interact with it.

you are suggesting adding other thing sto the pop calcualtion, therefore the human player has to know what these things are so he can optimise his growth, therefore increased time spent micromanaging a city to get that pop growth.

Your solution is neither realistic nor satisfactory. It's not good the first time you proposed it. There's no need for a second time.

If i wanted total realism i would become a world leader. i want the game to remain fun and not become too real ,which would impact the game badly.

If you go back to the suggestios people made when going from civ2 to civ3, the very complicated ones didnt get in. Why, Firaxis wanted to keep it as a game , not a simulator. My suggestion is as real as the current "cant build citys adjacent to each other"

you can all debate this till the cows come home, but a simple answer will be added to the game, a complicated one will mean the game remains as is.

ICS has not changed since civ2, it still the best response to the AI beneifits.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

!= means not equal to.
FWIW though, I agree that building cities is one of the main functions of an empire. In Civilization games, at the least.

Hello Sigmoid curve.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Yes i agree building citys is building an empire...

/me slaps Rasputin around a bit with a large trout
Skanky's correct on this one.

If i wanted total realism i would become a world leader.

That's not exactly possible, Ras.
Games exist because most of us aren't prepared to kill everything in sight with an M16, but would enjoy doing so.

Oh, and fix the typos - poorly presented arguments are regarded as irrelevant, even if you know what you're on about.

[Drachasor]

[SIZE=1] That's not exactly possible, Ras.
Games exist because most of us aren't prepared to kill everything in sight with an M16, but would enjoy doing so.

For me, at least, you left out a "nor."

Anyhow, the game is unrealistic on many respects, and unless you want to devote years or decades playing a very difficult and hard to manage game, you won't get too realistic. The real world is a tricky place, full of uncertainties on many fronts, and smart leaders must deal with these and other details carefully. Conquerers must be even more careful.

Realism has its place, in terms of giving the game a nice feel. Remember though, in the early game your wars take centuries and your troops aren't even crawling to their destinations. There is no good way to solve this either. This is a game, not a simulation.

-Drachasor

[Dauphin]

What the gameplay factor should come back to is that TBS games should be considered as board games but with the calculations, tabulations, computations and lots of other -ations are taken care of by the computer.

Civ is not first and foremost a game about realism, its a board game in which you don't have to worry about losing the pieces and scorecards for.

Realism is of course important, but I see it as tilting the balance on the choices rather than objectives.

[Enigma_Nova]

Dauphin: That's how a TBS works.
I don't see how WarCraft III, RoN or Zero Hour can be easily transmuted into a board game.

[Dauphin]

You've never played board games at my house.

[Enigma_Nova]

A real-time board game.
That would be priceless.

But how would you solve the problem of units clumping together, since people wouldn't have the time to move them all?

At least people don't ICS in RTS because they don't have the time to managet that many bases.
...
Just make cIV a RTS and problem solved! j/k