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CapTVK
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Voorburg, the Netherlands, Europe
Jan 1970
time: 05:14
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Jing,
I've followed the thread and think you forgot to stress an important point of ICS: exponential growth a one size will always get two squares of production, a two size city has three. This means that it's far more economical to build settlers to build even more one size cities, who again build setters andsoforth. Once this 'wave' gets going there isn't much you can do.
If a player is patient and good in city management, an ICS'er will always come out on top of normal players, there's no way to counter it effectively. Players have proposed countless strategies to counter this, but there's always a catch whereby ICS wins out.
One of the ways to curve ICS is to put a limit on initial production squares if you reach a certain number of cities under a specific government. If you hit those limit you first have to build specific city improvements (granary to get food prod, marketplace to get shield/trade) to get full benefits of a square.
note:
ICS has been extensively discussed on these forums, if you want to know more about ICS (or I(nfite) C(ity) S(leaze) as it's called)  do a search on the word ICS in the strategy forum or check out the great library there (all Civ2 mechanics known are also posted here). Also check out the civ3 suggestion list (this document is huge!)
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Jing
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Toronto, ON
May 2000
time: 21:14
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CapTVK,
You are absolutely correct in pointing out that the root cause of ICS is exponential growth, i.e. a one size will always get two squares of production, a two size city has three, etc. We did our research on this problem, including reading the extensive discussions on ICS in this forum. I even wrote a patch to remove the free worker on the center square. There have been many other ideas and suggestions on the mailing list.
You are also correct in saying that there has to be some kind of limit when you reach a certain number of cities. And I believe the answer is (un)happiness. Of course, there is a catch in Civ2 that let you get around this. But this is easily fixed in Freeciv, and I have already submitted patch for it. Basically, leftover unhappiness factors will no longer be ignored, but has to be dealt with first before any citizen in a city can become content. This will defititely curb ICS after the initial expansion phase of the game.
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rp
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Eindhoven
May 2000
time: 06:14
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About ICS: Freeciv is very configurable and there is some experimentation going on to reduce the predominance of the ICS strategy by using existing configuration options. The main problem is: 2 cities of size 1 always produce much more than 1 city of size 2. One thing that might help is to make settlers insanely expensive, I don't think anyone has tried this yet.
About Apolyton: I think it's a great site, featurewise, but I much prefer to use my mailer or newsreader, it's much more flexible. much faster, and much less annoying. If Apolyton had a mailing list or Usenet interface I would definitely visit more often. If Freeciv mailing lists didn't already exist I would visit, too. I wonder if Apolyton have been thinking of offering a mailing list interface to the site, it shouldn't be all that hard to do.
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curtadams
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Orange, CA 92866
Mar 2001
time: 21:14
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quote:
Originally posted by rp on 01-21-2001 12:10 PM
One thing that might help is to make settlers insanely expensive, I don't think anyone has tried this yet.
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Works beautifully in Alpha Centauri. The cost of a settler determines the point at which you stop city development for territory growth. Think of a settler as just a city improvement which you can build an infinite number of. It has a cost, and a benefit - a free worked square, extra support (depending of gov't), and faster growth. A rough equivalent is 6 food, 4 shields, and a trade. If the cost is raised to the point which corresponds to that, ICS isn't a problem since settlers aren't a better deal. The benefit equates to about a marketplace, a granary, and a factory. I'd say a fair price, then, is 150-200. Note: that isn't insanely expensive, it's a reasonable price. The current cost is insanely cheap, and that's why ICS is a problem.
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Thue
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Jan 1970
time: 06:14
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It would be cool to seperate the settler and worker abilities out into seperate units. There is more code to do that in freeciv currently, but the AI needs a little work on that point.
That would allow people to raise the cost of settlers.
Did anyone mention the possibility of making a settler cost more than one pop point?
[This message has been edited by Thue (edited May 19, 2001).]
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Darkstar
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Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:14
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Hummm... FreeCiv is supposed to be Civ...
OF COURSE IT'S pure ICS!
Sorry, but that's just obvious.
Unless you drop the Civ model, it will always stay that way. Civ has some extra code to make sure that the Artful Idiots war on you, but even without that, it would be a pure ICS conquest game.
If you want to make the Builder, and I don't mean "Dark Side Builders", a truly valid strategy (Ie balanced versus ICS war) then you have to destroy the Civ base. Sorry.
Civ is ICS because:
* Each city is your resource harvestor/processor (Max one)
* Each city is your production center (Max one)
* Each city is your money generator (Max one)
* Each city is your research center (Max one)
* Each city is your army support mechanism. The more cities you have, the more units you can support in the field.
* Each city can only produce ONE unit/thing.
The free bonus tile is just gravy. Without it, Civ is still ICS. Why? So you can have a horde of cities. Each city helps spread out the cost of those armies, so you can have HORDES and still chunk them out from you production centers. Run them out to other cities (waterfall is most efficent), and keep their cost from dragging down you manufactoring.
After a point, high production is useless for war. Because you can't chug out 2 units in a turn, even if you had the resources. That's just silly.
And since you want to research better then your opponents, and cities are your only research, you have to have MORE to outrace them to those important war weapons and your favorite red herrings (and those great ICS benefitter wonders).
And to pay the costs of all those buildings, you have to have cities to collect the trade that turns into gold that turns into building maintence.
The whole model FORCES you to ICS. It's part of the base design. SMAC was an ADVANCE, but the base didn't change. If a base could turn out 4 jets in a turn, in production capability, it didn't matter. You just got one jet.
To change that, you have to:
1) Make it possible to build multiple things. If I have a city making a unit, and it can build 1.5 of them in a turn, then I should get 3 of them in 2 turns. Not 2.
2) Make it possible to have seperate queues. Maybe it takes a special building (and has prerequisite of X workers/other buildings/whatever). Now, that great city of yours can now chug out multiple things. Adding in more of those, and now you have yet another more build queue.
3) Repeat that process for business (money) and research. Each business center has a greater effect. So you WANT a big city... it's where you make all your money. Not little towns...
4) Change the upper limit of tile resourcing. Big cities can actually max out, and easily. But a LARGE city utilizes far more resources then just those in easy range of it's workers to retrieve. Otherwise, it couldn't support itself. Once again, SMAC made strides in that, with it's "Supply crawlers". CtP used a simplier method as Destiny (although CtP used pop and Destiny used pop and buildings); both use expanding radius. Still, they were both limited to a set range from the city. That's now how real life works. We ship resources and bits all over the world. That's how big cities support themselves. There are plenty of methods to do this.
5) Change how war has no minuses. Right now, War is the ultimate answer to EVERYTHING in Civ style games. War should not be the final answer. If it was, more then just Alexander would have conquered the world. War has it's own repercussions. In lost people and morale, if nothing else.
6) Change the COST to maintain units. Logistics is one of the single BIGGEST limiting factors throughout history to war and army size. The main base of this is simple... it costs more to maintain a unit away from it's supply base. Make units that are to X amount away from a depot costs more to maintain! The X is based on your deployed techs. YOUR Cities (and your allies, if you have this arrangement) count as supply depots. Now, you have to build depots to field an army halfway around the world. And it costs you... enemies can make strikes on your depots and destroy your armies if you can't keep them up. Units whose maintence isn't paid deteroiate. Low morale may desert and/or dissolve.
7) go from a city state system to a NATIONAL system. This spreads out the costs of maintaining units. Research and gold are national resources already. But not armies. Going to a national system de-emphasises the city as your army support structure.
Raising the cost of settlers/pods just slows down ICS. It won't stop it. Removing the extra tile bonus won't stop it.
Without those basic changes, Civ design based games will forever be ICS. It's all about tile utilization and processing. Whether it's trade or food or shields. And the only thing that can utilize a tile is a CITY. Expansion yeilds more tiles utilized. War yields new tiles utilized while taking them away from the enemy. Ultimately, it's all about those tiles and their processing.
Last edited by Darkstar on 08-06-2001 at 13:24
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Thue
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Jan 1970
time: 06:14
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But that would make it expensive to improve the land around your cities. The solution to that is to have seperate settler and worker units. I have a patch that make that possible, which I will apply after 1.12.0 is out.
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Adalbertus
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Cologne, Germany
Feb 2001
time: 06:14
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Civ is ICS - obvious
Even more than obvious. Basically it's about resources, to grab most of them, and in a competitive environment to grab most of them quickly. The original - mankind - behaves much the same way if it can (America going east or settlement in Sibiria) - ICS until space is filled. The reason why it did not usually happen is that there was no empty space (already occupied by other groups) or no available resources (like in desert). In Civ games, you have lots of empty space and if you don't settle it, the others will do. The conclusion would be: Fight for new settling space nearly as strong as for a well defended enemy city.
So, changing this, really requires a new game, where space is rare. Then you have to develop your cities. Some suggestions:
- Initially, a size 1 to 3 city needs all the available space to feed itself. A bit like Call to Power 2 (which in my opinion discourages a strong overlap of city radii), but it should be more difficult to grow. Also keeps the density of cities low.
- large areas of the world map are unusable without tech -> need to improve what you have, or send hoards of formers (Alpha Centauri slang) to improve a new city site.
- Stronger barbarian/nomadic empires or tribes who try to defend their hunting grounds, but also offer trade, and, perhaps, respect your borders. Essentially modelling those groups who made the (definitely existing) loose contact between Mesopotamia, Egypt (A leader of one of those groups was called Abraham), India, China, and later Greece and Rome.
Basically, this means that barbs are more for occupying space than a military threat.
- Later, you will have to decide if you found more cities between your old ones or if you improve your existing ones.
- IMHO a builder game requires a much more flexible diplomacy and an AI which respects treaties more than usually.
Adalbertus
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Martin the Dane
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Aarhus, Denmark
Feb 2000
time: 06:14
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Hmm. Why not suggest improving the value of large cities is stead of ways to make ICS impossible. (Someone might want to play ICS)
I have a few suggestions.
- First make setler and 'formers' two different units (have been propos)
- Make buildings that are available only to cities of a certain size, and realy wort building
- Give each city a say .25 special specialist per pop, rounded down.
- Make gov and tech based city limits, with unhapiness that can be felt. (this is anti ICS)
As for buildings: Make a mill, ups production, per working pop plus a percentage. Markets, Libraries, Banks, etc. should also give some bonus per pop.
As for the special specialist: this specialist should be able to generate either gold, food, or shields at a rate comparable to a good fully developed tile.
Martin the Dane
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Kevin Ar18
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Perhaps CivIII's new model of workers, settlers requiring 2 people, and culture may be the start of a solution to ICS.
It may not solve it completely, but it may offer a more build-like approach like some of you mentioned.
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17-01-2001 17:12
). You can get very good feedback about gameplay issues here. If you asked a question about how to fix ICS in the strategy you would get tons of replies in a few days.
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