23-03-2005 03:32									#1
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ICS? Cause, I ain't spending another dime on another civ type game till they do.

	23-03-2005 04:01									#2
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1) We don't know. Which is the current answer to your question.
2) I'm not sure if they should. Restrain it, yes. But remove it? That will be hard, and I think other things are more important. Besides, the game has to be fun, and if all successfull stragegies should be removed, the fun'll be gone. ICS is not a game killer IMHO, but it should possibly be made less efficient, ie not be the only way to win the game easily. BTW, who said you had to do it the easiest way?

	23-03-2005 05:20									#3
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Well, I didn't say I couldn't or haven't. Micromanagement is generally a thing people dislike. I like meaningful micromanagement. Taking extra time to site my cities so that can reach their full potential and running them efficiently, even elegantly, no I call that meaningful micromanagement. Its also known as game play.

Simply building citites on every available square and then building six thousand units, nah, thats not gaming.

You could design better rules in 10 minutes but these guys are too lazy and too cheap to code it.

Rule:

Found village: can build 3 improvements in center tile
village +1 tile : can build 2 additional improvements
and on to
village +8 adjacent tiles: can build up to 19 improvments

Rule 2:

Can't build improvements on sea, lake or mountian ever, nor swamp, jungle or marsh until drained or desert until irrigated.

Rule 3: No improvements can be built in a tile adjacent to another improved village/city tile.

Rule 4: Roads may not be constructed on adjacent tiles (see exception for intersection) but the bonuses count for the tile and the two adjacent parallel tiles unless improvements are in place in which case no bonus is allowed for the improved tile.

Rule 5: Production bonuses for the center tile of large cities are as follows ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ and increase as the city size grows in the following manner ~~~~~~~~~~~~


You can start with rules like that and make a game with plenty of different strategies but none that favor ICS.

	24-03-2005 07:50									#4
	Re: Are they finally gonna fix Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Capt Dizle ICS? Cause, I ain't spending another dime on another civ type game till they do.

Maybe the whole idea of building cities and how many will be tweeked to correct the problem, because I don't think trying to build as many cities ASAP should be beneficial and it takes away from the whole idea of exploring and expanding a lot later on. From that perspective I hope it is fixed, because I don't use any exploitive, city building cheats anyways.

	24-03-2005 09:20									#5
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Given that Civ4 is apparently headed by the guy who thought it was a good idea to make ICS manditory iin civ3, not likely.

Screw him and his munchkin AI.

	24-03-2005 09:27									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Capt Dizle I like meaningful micromanagement. Taking extra time to site my cities so that can reach their full potential and running them efficiently, even elegantly, no I call that meaningful micromanagement.

You just described Call to Power 2.

quote: Screw him and his munchkin AI.

	24-03-2005 22:09									#7
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You don't have to like ICS, but other than some things in Civ, it's not that unrealistic... would the US be the superpower it is without having settled half of North America? Of course, small states who are strong in science/diplomacy/industry/money can have a relatively big influence, but I guess, in the long run the states with big population are better off.

Of course, they should slow it down - at the moment it's unrealistic how fast states grow and the earth is uncovered.

	24-03-2005 22:30									#8
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You know. I never played CTP 2. I bought CTP and I have it still in shrink wrap. Never opened it because of bad reviews.

I wonder if there is someway to order CTP2 on the net. I am currently homebound and could spare some time.

	24-03-2005 23:36									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Capt Dizle You know. I never played CTP 2. I bought CTP and I have it still in shrink wrap. Never opened it because of bad reviews. I wonder if there is someway to order CTP2 on the net. I am currently homebound and could spare some time.

I'd keep an eye on this project then...(at least until civ4 come out)

Ages of Man merges many of the features of civ3 and CTP2. The site linked at the top of the thread has a detailed readme file of the features of the game.

Target release date - end of April/early May.

CTP2 discs should be available, as you will need CTP2 to play it.

	25-03-2005 15:58									#10
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ICS is already fixed, it's just the AI.

In Civ2 there is a nice balance between ICS and a smaller more technologically advanced empire (at least in the short term before the ICSer WLTKDs). This comes out in MP more, but even in SP the earliest landings are for a 10 city empire, because the long run is usually (not always though - shows balance) too long for an ICS approach to catch up. ICS is only powerful because the AI will give you anything in Civ2 if you have a lot of cities, and wont attack you.

In Civ3 there is essentially a city cap because of corruption. Sure you have to expand quickly to begin with, but it's hardly infinite if you expand to circa 20 cities or so. You should have to expand quickly early to set yourself up: the strategic choice you have to make based on the game is whether to do it peacefully or militarily.

ICS is fine.

I think 'fixing ICS' threads are very damaging to Civ, and should be ceased immediately. Or who knows what the next 'corruption' will be?

	25-03-2005 18:39									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Capt Dizle You know. I never played CTP 2. I bought CTP and I have it still in shrink wrap. Never opened it because of bad reviews. I wonder if there is someway to order CTP2 on the net. I am currently homebound and could spare some time.

Try eBay

http://search.ebay.com/Call-To-Power-II


I bought CtP2 for a colleague of mine as a birthday present (they had it in the Low price bins at this time.
Before that he played Civ3, but after I gave him CtP2 he immediately switc´hed to this game and doesn´t think of switching back to Civ 3 again

Got me to play CtP2 again after a long break, and it still has this addiction factor
Especially if you try some of the mods (I am currently playing with the Call to Conquest Mod and this really makes an already good game still better).

	25-03-2005 20:38									#12
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Civ4 should borrow a page out of RoN's book and have a cap on how many cities can be built which could be raised when you researched the right tech.

Have certain techs that would raise the limit on how many cities can be built. Obviously, the player could go above the limit through conquest. And, governments could modify the cap. The cap would also depend on map size.

What this do is limit the number of cities a player can build until they research certain techs. This would eliminate ICS completely since players would only be able to build a few cities at the start. And it would force players to focus on managing their cities rather than just multipliying their cities.

	25-03-2005 21:23									#13
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CtP2 has this also implemented,
with the number of cities you can have depending on the type of government.
Republic for example gives you 20 cities, Democracy 35 and Ecotopia and Virtual Democracy (the best governments you can research) give you 60 cities.

You can go above this number any time, but the more cities you build above the allowed limit of cities, the unhappier your citizens get.

	26-03-2005 02:36									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Proteus_MST CtP2 has this also implemented, with the number of cities you can have depending on the type of government. Republic for example gives you 20 cities, Democracy 35 and Ecotopia and Virtual Democracy (the best governments you can research) give you 60 cities. You can go above this number any time, but the more cities you build above the allowed limit of cities, the unhappier your citizens get.

I like this idea more than what Diplomat describes with RoN's restrictive factor. An increase of corruption throughout the empire might be a nice touch when a Civ exceeds its government city limit. When a 21st, per se, city is initialized in Republic via conquest does that also increase unhappiness in CtP2? Also, how does the AI respond to all of this?

	26-03-2005 02:46									#15
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quote: Originally posted by TechWins I like this idea more than what Diplomat describes with RoN's restrictive factor. An increase of corruption throughout the empire might be a nice touch when a Civ exceeds its government city limit.

The problem with that is how much corruption should the game have? If you have too little, then the limit really does not do that much because players won't be hurt that much if they go over. So players can still ICS and they won't care because it won't hurt them very much. On other hand, if corruption is set too high, then you cripple the game because anytime you go over the limit, corruption will kill your production.

So, in essence what will happen is that players will ICS anyway and not care about the effects of corruption because having a gazillion cities will overrule any penalties from corruption.

	26-03-2005 02:48									#16
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I think the best way to cure ICS is to make a few large cities better than many tiny cities. I like the way CtP2 does it with expanding city radii, which encourages you to space out your cities so they can grow. I also like Diplo's idea of tech-based Max-city #.

	26-03-2005 03:18									#17
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quote: Originally posted by The diplomat The problem with that is how much corruption should the game have? If you have too little, then the limit really does not do that much because players won't be hurt that much if they go over. So players can still ICS and they won't care because it won't hurt them very much. On other hand, if corruption is set too high, then you cripple the game because anytime you go over the limit, corruption will kill your production. So, in essence what will happen is that players will ICS anyway and not care about the effects of corruption because having a gazillion cities will overrule any penalties from corruption.

I was thinking along the lines of adding minor corruption already to CtP2's idea of increasing unhappiness. The two combined ought to do the trick. Then again I've never played a game where there was a rule of limiting cities by deterrance or restricting new cities from being built.

	26-03-2005 03:25									#18
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quote: Originally posted by TechWins I like this idea more than what Diplomat describes with RoN's restrictive factor. An increase of corruption throughout the empire might be a nice touch when a Civ exceeds its government city limit. When a 21st, per se, city is initialized in Republic via conquest does that also increase unhappiness in CtP2? Also, how does the AI respond to all of this?

Of course, it doesn´t matter how you get the cities that exceed the limit, be it that you use our settlers to found them, or gain them through conquest or diplomacy, all that matters is the number of cities within the empire.
How much effect it has I don´t know, I think each city within the empire [maybe above a certain size] one unhappy citizen per city above the limit (I rarely exceed the limit and if I do it it´s just by 1-2 cities [which normally doesn´t have too much effect, as I try to keep my citizens happy, through buildings but also through good working conditions]).
How the AI reacts to this? Well, I have never seen the AI exceed the city limit. But I don´t know if it is programmed to strictly keep its number of cities within the limit or if, within the unmodded game, it just isn´t smart enough to get more cities going
As I now have started to play mods of CtP2 which have an improved AI, I might encounter the AI going nearer to the limit (or even exceedding it. for example through conquest [although the AI within the CtC-Mod seems to like razing the cities it conquers rather than keeping them])

	26-03-2005 03:32									#19
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Proteus, thanks for the explanation. As long as the AI is willing to exceed the overlimit through conquest then everything should be fine with it, IMO.

Once that AoM game becomes available on Apolyton for download I might order Ctp2; it's only $15 new or ~$8-$10 used on Amazon plus $3.95 in shipping. That'll probably be around summer time being more fitting for my schedule.

	27-03-2005 04:39									#20
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Charging 2 pop for every settler made conquest so much better than ICS, when the enemy was nearby, but if you don't consider that a fix, charge 3 people for every settler.

	27-03-2005 18:49									#21
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The ICS works because a size 1 city works 2 squares. You can try to counteract this through additional unhappy people, corruption etc., but these are irritating kludges. Make a city work no more tiles than its population, at least in the early game, and building upwards vs. outwards are brought back into balance.

	28-03-2005 00:05									#22
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By itself that's not very well thought out.

You get the free 2 food (and other resources) so that your city can grow and you can 'build upwards' at all. If you didn't get them squares would have to give at least 3 food.

	28-03-2005 08:26									#23
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That's the feature, not the bug. Without infrastructure, most land allows not-particularly-technologically-advanced peoples to live at little better than subsistance level. If it means the only viable starting positions are near grasslands or rivers, then start the civs on grasslands and rivers, and get those workers irrigating!

	28-03-2005 17:30									#24
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Yes you are correct.

However that is not the point in game terms. To be doomed unless you start near a river is just stupid. Yeah you can search for one, or survive as a small civ for years until you get butchered by advanced races that were lucky enough to start with better terrain. More realistic, and more silly.

I empathise with some realism arguments, but most of the time you have to consider the effect on gameplay first. Your suggestions would make the game unplayable without restarting for a plum spot, then the AIs you'd face without the plum spots would be even more of a pushover than usual.

I just don't think you've thought things through. Your 'fix' fixes ICS in a way, by breaking the game. You threw the baby out with the bathwater.

	28-03-2005 17:49									#25
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You didn't read carefully enough. If there are only a few good starting positions, then the map generator should start all civs in those positions. It already does this, in fact; it would just have to be more stringent about what is good.

Still, the entire basis of the ICS is that each city gets one free tile's worth of production. Three size one cities are 50% more productive than one size three city. One tile's worth of free production is too much. If there has to be free production to make the game playable, then it should be small, possibly say one food and one trade per city.

	28-03-2005 18:03									#26
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Ok so everyone starts on a river, with no bonus. You've proposed no other changes to the rules. As things stand in Civ1 - Civ3 (and if memory serves SMAC) you don't get the benefit from irrigation in despotism *unless* the tile originally gives 3 food, which is then reduced to 2 because of despotism, and then increases back to 3 when you irrigate (you can of course go from 1 on plains to 2, but that doesn't help here). If it starts at 2 (all grassland squares) irrigation increases it to 3 where it gets put back to 2. Therefore with no bonus your civ cannot grow at all from size 1 unless you start on a special. So we have to fix it so all civs get specials? Ok now they can grow (slowly, 20 turns up to size 6 (for Civ3 - differs slightly for others) when the food box size changes.

Then when they want to found city number 2 they have to find another special, or that can't grow either. Sounds pretty silly to me in game terms.

Maybe they could get Monarchy? Well without any changes to the rules that's going to take a long time given that you only have 6 pop in one city after 100 turns!

It needs to be thought through more.

	28-03-2005 18:07									#27
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quote: Originally posted by shimmin Still, the entire basis of the ICS is that each city gets one free tile's worth of production. Three size one cities are 50% more productive than one size three city. One tile's worth of free production is too much. If there has to be free production to make the game playable, then it should be small, possibly say one food and one trade per city.

But if the bonus is one, then you haven't really changed the relative merits of expansion versus building up. You've nerfed ICS *and* building up. ICS is still the best early on, just less effective in overall terms. All you've done is slow the game down for no gain.

	28-03-2005 18:10									#28
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I'm going to be crass and quote my own post, just to make sure you saw it. That at least gives you the opportunity to poke at my position instead of just defending yours, which is difficult.

quote: Originally posted by DrSpike ICS is already fixed, it's just the AI. In Civ2 there is a nice balance between ICS and a smaller more technologically advanced empire (at least in the short term before the ICSer WLTKDs). This comes out in MP more, but even in SP the earliest landings are for a 10 city empire, because the long run is usually (not always though - shows balance) too long for an ICS approach to catch up. ICS is only powerful because the AI will give you anything in Civ2 if you have a lot of cities, and wont attack you. In Civ3 there is essentially a city cap because of corruption. Sure you have to expand quickly to begin with, but it's hardly infinite if you expand to circa 20 cities or so. You should have to expand quickly early to set yourself up: the strategic choice you have to make based on the game is whether to do it peacefully or militarily. ICS is fine. I think 'fixing ICS' threads are very damaging to Civ, and should be ceased immediately. Or who knows what the next 'corruption' will be?

	20-04-2005 09:22									#29
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike Your suggestions would make the game unplayable without restarting for a plum spot, then the AIs you'd face without the plum spots would be even more of a pushover than usual.

If only you knew how many dozens of times everytime I start a new game with PTW that I restart, just to find a reasonable starting location.

Almost two years ago, I got so frustrated in doing this everytime I start a new game, that I just uninstalled it, and haven't played it since.


But now, I think I might go back and reinstall the game because I enjoy the game so much with the exception of having to restart because they plop me in the midst of plains, mountains, jungle, or desert.

This love-and-hate thing is too much sometimes.

	24-04-2005 03:29									#30
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Civ 3 fixed ICS pretty good with settlers costing 2 pop.

The subtler fix in Civ3 is that one pop costs 20 food for each town size up to 6, such that smaller towns don't grow faster than a little bigger ones(but cities do grow slower)

But still, if you build another city in Civ 3 you are effectively doubling your growth, because, assuming normal 2 food squares, you are getting another +2 food surplus. Building a settler is then essentially like building a granary if you think about it, only it's cheaper and gets you more territory That's still a problem IMO that needs to be balanced a bit better.