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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
The way around that, I guess, is to tie growth more to happiness and/or prosperity than to having excess food.
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Amen.
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pg
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i think the one thing this thread shows is how many obviously and relatively simple ways there are to combat or eliminate ics. i can't help but think ics should have already been fixed in civ 3. if ics doesn't drastically change in civ 4(gone or severly reduced) couldn't we basically say civ is ics? it's much like mmorpgs where the leveling treadmill is so strong one can argue the only gameplay left is the grind to level up. if you master ics you basically have mastered civ. there are many other elements of gameplay but none as important as ics.
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Drachasor
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Though, it doesn't take much technology to have a city on a mountain...it might take a fair amount to have it grow to a large degree. Also, there might be good reasons to found a city there, that some weird
Lastly, governments can and do say where cities will be. It doesn't always work this way, but I seem to recall Alexander making decisions about where to put many cities. Maybe a broader set of names for them would have been nice, but that's not the point. Also, while influence doesn't always equal control, it often can mean that. Anyhow, this is a game afterall, and with regards to your own empire, control over influence tends to be more fun, and realistic enough.
Again though, you aren't going to have a lower quality of life in the people producing food. They'll be getting goods and money from trading and will therefore have a *Higher* quality of life.
-Drachasor
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smellymummy
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firaxis could always just dump the old model of cities and think more about people..
that is, on the map, we would see huts/houses/buildings all over the place, just as population disperses itself, where food permits etc, in RL.
the player would then have to create town centers, maybe like a city hall or a feudal mansion of sorts, and then win the support of the people through entertainment, employment, temples and other things that can be built. through culture, or whatever other means of border expansion, a town center's area of influence would grow, and therefore control more and more population.
as such, population would then be linked to a global function, where of course a player's action would influence it's growth or reduction. Instead of having population fully dependant on individual cities that can be built over and over again.
and what about production limitations? there's no point in limiting a city to produce one military unit per turn. If industry permits, why not allow a city to spit out a stack of 5 warriors a turn instead of just one?
think about it, if I can build two cities within a few tiles, and each reach a population of 10+ million, there's something seriously flawed in that. Are all the citizens just crammed thightly like a can of sardines in my one city?
sure this brings up many many more issues that change how civ is (military units that can pillage and raid population all over the place, among many other things) and well civ4 should change everything anyway
myself, i'd enjoy something fresh 
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Dominae
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IMO, two things are needed to fix the ICS problem:
1. A few big cities needs to be better than many small cities.
Civ3 tried to achieve this with its Corruption system, but more or less failed (although it was a drastic improvement over its predecessors). The reason is that ICS and the "big cities" strategies reach economic parity far too late in the game: until the late Medieval or early Industrial, ICS-type city placement always beats out a sparser arrangement; only with the advent of Industrialization does it really make sense to have a small number of powerul cities. But the game is more or less "over" by this stage of the game. If "big cities" are to be an important part of Civ3, there needs to be better incentives earlier on. Many good such incentives have been proposed above. I would like to add:
a. Wonders can only built in cities of size >x.
b. Only cities of size >x generate Culture.
c. Cities of size x can only benefit from y Luxury resources.
2. Local geography needs to play a more important role in a city's usefulness.
Strangely enough, this idea appears in space-based 4X games but in the Civ series: MOO and Galactic Civilizations each assign a quality rating to planets, and penalize the settlements with poor living conditions (and reward paradises).
Here's the idea translated into Civ:
Let the game calculate a "quality" metric for each and every square of the game. If the quality metric of a tile is low, a city founded there woud incur penalties to everything it does; if the quality metric is high, the city would kick butt without too much effort.
This metric would be a combination of each of the 21 tiles the city would eventually have access to (tiles closer in could be worth more since they're more readily exploitable). A powerful River-adjacent Bonus resource tile would be worth a lot; an crappy Desert tile would be worth very little. Notice that casual Civ players employ a similar metric already, regardless of the distance between cities: "I'll put my next city over there because it looks like a good spot".
Here's the interesting part: pre-existing cities within a site's 21-tile radius would factor in negatively toward that location's metric. So, all other things being equal, putting three cities within a confined area would be less effective than spreading them apart. Of course, if the local geography is amazing, it might be a good idea to place those cities close together. Thus there would still be interesting decisions to be made with respect to city placement (as opposed to GalCiv and MOO).
The reason this "solves" ICS is that in past Civ games all you need was one or two Grassland tiles per city to make it contribute to the empire. Put all those cities together and you get a serious contribution. The rest of the tiles in the city's radius could be very poor (Desert, Tundra, in use by another city, etc.), but it would not matter because you would never use those. With the "quality" idea, players would have to chase down city-sites that have high long-term potential. Most of the real world's big cities (especially in ancient times) fit this description.
What about colonies, and other such "functional" cities? Would they have a role? Sure! Just that they would never prosper much if founded within a bad area. Actual Colonies (as built by Workers) might become that much more important.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Dauphin
How you can you be so sure the beam will always point the right way? The transmitter would constantly be re-aligning to the correct direction, mechanical or software error could mean its no longer pointing in the right direction. Anyway, I think a city that just had a 1,000 people killed by an errant satellite might just be unhappy about it. |
That assumes there isn't extensive software testing to make sure it will work, which I suppose depends on the government. A reminder of how the US runs its nuclear power plants compared to how the USSR did is in order. (I trust I don't need to elaborate anymore than this).
It would be relatively easy to set things up so that you wouldn't hit anyone. GPS satellites already provide the necessary precision to avoid hitting anyone (just give the collector buffer-room), and there are already no-fly zone provisions in law systems. There's nothing to be afraid of.
It would probably be very expensive to implement though, given our current launching technologies.
-Drachasor
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Max Sinister
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
IMO, two things are needed to fix the ICS problem:
1. A few big cities needs to be better than many small cities.
Civ3 tried to achieve this with its Corruption system, but more or less failed (although it was a drastic improvement over its predecessors). The reason is that ICS and the "big cities" strategies reach economic parity far too late in the game: until the late Medieval or early Industrial, ICS-type city placement always beats out a sparser arrangement; only with the advent of Industrialization does it really make sense to have a small number of powerul cities. |
I have to admit, it's realistic... until the industrial era, most cities (except a few capitals and other important ones) were very small. BTW, IMO industrialization should have a much greater impact. Factories are way to expensive if you consider that they give such a low production bonus.
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Many good such incentives have been proposed above. I would like to add:
a. Wonders can only built in cities of size >x.
b. Only cities of size >x generate Culture.
c. Cities of size x can only benefit from y Luxury resources.
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Good ideas.
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:33
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In response to Dominae's 2nd idea:
I'm not sure I like the idea of having the city tile itself have much of an effect besides possibly happiness (which in turn could have an effect on other things). Building on a desert tile, IMO, should not directly effect production. But indirectly, because the people are pissed off you plunked them down in a desert, it wouldn't be as good as a city built on grassland next to a river.
Additionally, I think the happiness bonus/reduction should be calculated not only based on the city tile itself, but also based on the full radius of the city (this is where other cities nearby would come into play - other cities actually falling within the 21-tile radius should result in a nasty happiness hit, say -2). Two cities built on grassland next to rivers are not necessarily the same. Maybe one has some wheat and 2 wine tiles. That's gonna be a happy place (+3?). The other city may have no really good bonus tiles. It will still be nice (+1?), but isn't going to match up to the wine city in happiness.
...
Another thing I was pondering: Dominae correctly states that a big factor in the ICS issue is that fewer, bigger cities don't overtake an ICS layout until the mid-industrial age, once hospitals & factories and whatnot show up. Boiled down to its basic component, this is about the size12 cap.
How about this:
Cities with a Great Wonder or a certain level of culture can keep on growing. That won't have a huge effect, because there are only so many wonders of the world, and I was envisioning a high number for the culture limit.
But hows about adding in some sort of medieval version of a factory that can only be built in cities size 10 or larger? A guild hall or somesuch. Less powerful than a factory, or more expensive in upkeep, or both, but still good enough to be worth building. Available with Invention...
-Arrian
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09-07-2004 02:38
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