ICS, Civ V style

I'm reading Sulla's story right now. He has good insights into flaws that do exist. I do think there are solutions that exist that aren't spamming cities tightly. I'm wondering if adding happiness improvements that can only be built in large cities or making science scale exponentially with population would help (or would Ghandi be too strong?).

My biggest problem with the happiness system (which I generally feel works well) is you have to fight constantly to stay afloat. In Civ4, expansion hurt you and you spammed cottages and got back (or you planned things well and only expanded when you had enough money, either way). With Civ5, you plan properly, but your cities will eventually go sour. This can be fun. I find myself always looking for the next luxury to trade for or the last natural wonder I haven't found or getting the next tech with a happiness improvement. But building another city to add a bit of extra happiness seems too easy of a solution.

Anyone have thoughts on how to improve on this without throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
 
He said he was isolated.

Interesting strategy. Not sure how it would work in a normal game, but hey at least it makes isolated starts more fun than civ4!
He wasn't ... pls read more than the first lines
 
In theory yes, but with civ V food yields + the way maritime cities food works, you get far better served with a lot of size 4-6 cities.

Ok, mindless was probably a little too much, but you really don't have much to think on. If you have some happiness in the bucket and a spot that can sustain 4-6 pop, found a city. This is civ III style ICS almost in it's pure form ...

I point you to the link in my last post.

I point you to his starting location, which he reloaded to get I might add. This is the most ridiculous start I've ever seen. easy mint mine and tons of growth potential in a small condensed area. good lukc getting a start like that without doing the reload shuffle. I also don't believe he "reloaded once" to get that. Ive never seen a starting spot that good in the 50-100 starts Ive done already. And golly gee, look at who his nextdoor neighbor is? Mmm lutefisk.... and cheese.

 
I don't blame his start. He had a lot to go through. Like I said, I don't agree with him on everything (I really enjoy Civ5), but he has good points. He thinks strategically, and knows the flaws in the system. I feel they need to take his filler city strategy and find a way to make it viable for small empires rather than for large ones (filler cities are specialized cities, which is a good thing. I just don't think it should be "normal cities" + the specialized cities). I think his start was about normal, though. The choke point was an oddity, but didn't change much (the AI couldn't have threatened him even if the choke point wasn't there).

BTW, I laughed out loud when I saw the City State island. THAT was a bizarre part of the map.

EDIT: I realize this isn't a review thread of Sulla's stuff, but I feel here is where he makes the best point:

And for the record, I don't believe that this game has been "dumbed down", as some readers incorrectly seemed to take away from my other Civ5 reports. This game doesn't suffer from a lack of complexity, and you can see that Civ5 is intended to present lots of interesting strategic choices. Notice the phrasing I use there, however: the game is "intended" to present strategic choices. The problem is that this game has terribly poor balancing, and the developers literally don't understand their own game.

To me, this indicates that it is fixable, just needs more thought.
 
The lengendary start does things like and better. I tried it once and it is crazy.
 
I point you to his starting location, which he reloaded to get I might add. This is the most ridiculous start I've ever seen. easy mint mine and tons of growth potential in a small condensed area. good lukc getting a start like that without doing the reload shuffle. I also don't believe he "reloaded once" to get that. Ive never seen a starting spot that good in the 50-100 starts Ive done already. And golly gee, look at who his nextdoor neighbor is? Mmm lutefisk.... and cheese.

You can "believe" whatever you want. I played the first start the game gave me in my first four games. I generated exactly one extra start for this game; this was the second. I've played and reported on dozens of games with all manner of starts over the past decade; this is just what the map generator happened to throw out. Believe what you will.
 
Just trying to think outside the box a little, since we are often trying to do fun "broken" things. Which sort of led me to another thought. Is it possible that Gandhi is a great Civ for an ICS bloom?

Bear with me, I understand that the Forbidden Palace and Planned Economy don't scale with Gandhi as the text of the abilities would leave you to believe (who wrote the manual for this game seriously).

Gandhi is working normally. There is no funky math behind the scenes.

Normal civ
Base: 2 :( per city
With Forbidden palace = Base + (-50% * Base) = 1 :( per city
With FP and Planned Economy = Base + (-50% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 0 :( per city

India
Base: 2 :( per city
With UA: Base + (100% * Base) = 4 :( per city
With UA and Forbidden palace = Base + (100% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 3 :( per city
With UA and FP and Planned Economy = Base + (100% * Base) + (-50% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 2 :( per city

Everything (that I've seen so far) in Civ 5 simplifies the math over Civ 4. All percentages work from the original value. X + 50% + 50% = 2X, unlike in Civ 4 where it sometimes meant 2.25X.
 
Gandhi is working normally. There is no funky math behind the scenes.

Normal civ
Base: 2 :( per city
With Forbidden palace = Base + (-50% * Base) = 1 :( per city
With FP and Planned Economy = Base + (-50% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 0 :( per city

India
Base: 2 :( per city
With UA: Base + (100% * Base) = 4 :( per city
With UA and Forbidden palace = Base + (100% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 3 :( per city
With UA and FP and Planned Economy = Base + (100% * Base) + (-50% * Base) + (-50% * Base) = 2 :( per city

Everything (that I've seen so far) in Civ 5 simplifies the math over Civ 4. All percentages work from the original value. X + 50% + 50% = 2X, unlike in Civ 4 where it sometimes meant 2.25X.
Where did you learn math?

The wording on Forbidden Palace and Planned Economy are stupid. It is obviously remnants from a build where the unhappiness per city might have been different. Just think of each as "-1 unhappiness per city".
 
Sulla, do you have any thoughts (generally speaking) on how to modify the system to prevent behavior like this (ICS and the like) without completely scrapping it?
 
I'm reading Sulla's story right now. He has good insights into flaws that do exist. I do think there are solutions that exist that aren't spamming cities tightly. I'm wondering if adding happiness improvements that can only be built in large cities or making science scale exponentially with population would help (or would Ghandi be too strong?).

My biggest problem with the happiness system (which I generally feel works well) is you have to fight constantly to stay afloat. In Civ4, expansion hurt you and you spammed cottages and got back (or you planned things well and only expanded when you had enough money, either way). With Civ5, you plan properly, but your cities will eventually go sour. This can be fun. I find myself always looking for the next luxury to trade for or the last natural wonder I haven't found or getting the next tech with a happiness improvement. But building another city to add a bit of extra happiness seems too easy of a solution.

Anyone have thoughts on how to improve on this without throwing the baby out with the bathwater?


Later buildings that aren't garbage compared to the colosseum is a good start.

There's also no reason for a player to be punished with a happiness sink if they manage to get their cities above population 13. They could cap the unhappiness due to population of any city to be the same as the happiness value of having all buildings produced, too.
 
Yes, I do. Basically, you need to make large cities more desirable than millions of small ones. Here's some quick potential ways to do that:

- Reduce Maritime food benefits!!!!!!! This is your #1 culprit. When cities don't have to feed themselves, and the center tile produces the bulk of the food/production, ICS will dominate every time.

- Make the advanced buildings superior to the basic ones. Right now, a theatre does the same thing as a colosseum, only it costs more shields and costs more gold per turn. (Ditto for pretty much all of the other buildings.) You need to provide an incentive to build these things, instead of spamming the most basic ones.

- Change it so that cities don't take an absolute eternity to grow. Maybe if my cities could actually reach size 15-20, and then use all of those tiles, I'd have an incentive to grow them. Right now, with the extremely slow growth, you're wasting tons of tiles by trying to grow vertically with large cities. As long as growing size 19-20 takes FIFTEEN TIMES the food needed to grow size 1-2, masses of small cities will be better. (I'm not joking about that number, either. That's the real formula.)

- Rebalance the specialists so that Scientists aren't overwhelmingly the best, and Great Scientists also the best Great People. Another reason why this strategy works well is the ease of creating mass libraries + Scientist specialists. Make it so that a size 20 city crushes size 4 cities in science, on the order of 20:1 - kind of like in Civ4.

That would do for starters. I'd really emphasize the "advanced" buildings to make them desirable to build: +10 happiness from stadium, +100% gold from stock exchange, and so on. Make vertical growth powerful, to disincentivize this strategy. Currently, all the advanced buildings basically stink, and there's little reason to build them.
 
OK, I was thinking similar things. My idea for a mod (not sure if it's possible yet) was to add population specific buildings (i.e. happiness buildings that could only be built in large cities) and some kind of exponential science growth based on population. I suppose better buildings that already exist make sense as well (working more with what's here than what to add). By requiring that they stack, that also helps.

For population growth speed, I'll be honest. I'm so terrified of happiness problems that I usually see happiness growth stopping as a blessing. Does any of this have to do with trading post spam or is growth ridiculously slow even with farms?
 
As long as growing size 19-20 takes FIFTEEN TIMES the food needed to grow size 1-2

15/4 = 3.75 times as much food .. a city that big better have the 75% food reduction

If that citizen is a specialist in a 250% science city, that makes him worth 1 * 1.5 (for lib) + 3 = 4.5 base science, 4.5 * 3.5 = 15.75 science. With a +2 science per specialist, that would be 6.5 * 3.5 = 22.75, plus the GPPs you get.

Versus ... 1 science for growing from size 1 to 2. 22.75 is greater than 1 by a factor of 22.75, which is much greater than 3.75. The food is apparently better spent growing from 19 to 20...in fact...even without the food reduction, 22.75 is still greater than 15! People will say, but you can have 23 more cities with maritime bonus to get the same effect...sure provided you have 23 happiness and don't mind losing out on the golden age.

Possibly the specialists were full already, so that citizen isn't another scientist and only pulls in 1 * 1.5 = 1.5 base, 1.5 * 3.5 = 5.25, which is still greater than 3.75. That's all calculated for size 1 to 2 remember, after which point it makes FAR FAR more sense to grow the big city!
 
This is what you get when you rush everyone on your continent and then go mad with cities.

I don't have any production-boosting SPs yet but I can buy pretty much anything I want due to Big Ben + Mercantilism

It's interesting that when the game runs out of city names, it pulls random names from other civilizations (it seems to favor capitals, though).
 

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ICS is fine. I really don't know why you people act so strange. ICS is very realistic and is a common case even today (name me 10 cities in Brazil apart from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, hm?).

The problem is that the AI, even with superior numbers, cannot annihilate your army. As things are right now, big cities are used only for a spacerace/cultural win, as production of military units past industrial age is pretty rare. And yes, before that, even small cities can contribute to the effort.

Buildings, investment into larger cities will start paying off somewhere around turn 300, when even your hammer-poor cities will be able to produce a Research lab in a fair amount of time.

Until Firaxis introduces an AI that is at least comparable to that made in less than two years by Rudankort, a single individual in PG Forever (http://panzercentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45039), ICS and/or early rushes will be the fastest way to win this game.
 
ICS is fine.

Sigh.

To each their own I guess.

I just hope Firaxis makes the sweeping changes Sullla alludes to, as an official patch/expansion/whatever. If this game needs the community to fix, it will forever have a fragmented fan base and lose its base identity.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
ICS is a poor idea when it's a dominant idea.

I mean, I played Civ3 with ICS. I simply didn't know any better. My entire strategy was based on cities 3 tiles apart expanding as much as humanly possible. I'd time everything so settlers would build just as soon as my city hit size three. Then I'd switch to military production right about the same time as the ancient age ended, middle ages began. Then I'd war to get a great person and rush a Forbidden Palace. I'd bring settlers with me and raze cities that would engulf culture of any city I wished to conquer. The strategy was simple and effective. There were strategic moves left (much having with research priorities), but it seemed ICS was dominant and much of the game was more about keeping an eye on overflow and making sure cities never went unhappy.

Civ5 is not as bad as Civ3 was here. There are plenty of macro-management strategic options. But if ICS can be used as a solution to all problems (or simply an overpowered strategy), it is a concern.
 
ICS is a poor idea when it's a dominant idea.

I mean, I played Civ3 with ICS. I simply didn't know any better. My entire strategy was based on cities 3 tiles apart expanding as much as humanly possible. I'd time everything so settlers would build just as soon as my city hit size three. Then I'd switch to military production right about the same time as the ancient age ended, middle ages began. Then I'd war to get a great person and rush a Forbidden Palace. I'd bring settlers with me and raze cities that would engulf culture of any city I wished to conquer. The strategy was simple and effective. There were strategic moves left (much having with research priorities), but it seemed ICS was dominant and much of the game was more about keeping an eye on overflow and making sure cities never went unhappy.

Civ5 is not as bad as Civ3 was here. There are plenty of macro-management strategic options. But if ICS can be used as a solution to all problems (or simply an overpowered strategy), it is a concern.
Yeah, ICS shouldn't be dominant from the start.

I imagine that, as you unlock more policies and techs, your ideal number of cities increases. Somewhere late game in every Civ it always turns into ICS, but at least it's not there at the beginning. Civ4 had this idea down pat with its exponential maintenance, but completely screwed it up with certain overpowered early wonders, and the Financial trait.

Civ5 can fix ICS by also making unhappiness from number of cities have a positive rate of change, but I don't know if the developers want that, or simply don't notice, or don't think it's a big deal. Opportunity cost (A phrase shouted out by many Civ4 Deity players) is a much much bigger deal in Civ5 than Civ4 and is the only reason that every single mid-game civ doesn't sprawl the map instantly.
 
ICS is fine. I really don't know why you people act so strange. ICS is very realistic and is a common case even today (name me 10 cities in Brazil apart from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, hm?).
I don't care whether or not it's realistic, it's just no fun. If you try a game like this you'll see how boring it is... building endless settlers, building the same buildings over and over, and each turn takes forever while you try and manage 20 different size 2 cities.

also, i mean... it's done. There's nothing left to learn, except minor details to optimize this. With civ 4 I'm still, after 5 years, learning new ways of getting the economy to work. But I'm fairly confident that, with the way things are in Civ 5, nothing will be better than some form of small city spam.
 
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