Exploring the potential for ICS in civ6

[CivScientist]

I think factories are fine. Sure, you can exploit it and get rapid victories. But at least doing so requires planning.

I'd say the problem is that other mechanics are out of wack. You shouldn't be able to tech so quickly with so little effort, for example. If tech proceeded slower, you couldn't get a science victory in 200 turns even with an optimal factory placement and choice terrain.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Round 225 is great

Okay.
This could mean, if you have more and more cities (founded nearby your other cities, so the AoE of the Industry Districts of your cities affects new founded cities of yours also, you would win Space Race even earlier.
Turn 200 would be possible ... or even below Turn 200


I would say, Firaxis have to patch the industrial district as far as possible.
Maybe the AoE of the Industrial should be only 3 instead of 6 Hexes?
Or for an example a stacking Penalty?
Or you remove the AoE from the industrial and give factories and power plant more free cogs?

Removing the AoE would be sad.
But in this current version of Civ6, this feature is in my opinion broken

The real issue is still that you could spam the whole map withought "hapyness issue's". Even if you would alter the factory's that problem would remain and be open to all sorts of exploitive tactics. What Imho really should happen in the logic of this game is that hapyness in those city's plummet with the result of large production, food and growth malusses imho. Then the player could balance the gains from expansion with it's malusses or vice versa, be it that it is much like the old system of "global hapyness". Don't get me wrong, there would be various other ways to try to render the tactic uninterresting like rising costs, but it appears to me that entertainment districts being unused in a ICS scenario where having loads of happyness was typically needed just make it sound like the district and even amenities mechanic is rather irrelevant. The previous versions of ICS in older Civ games had the player still very much occupied with the need to build a load of hapyness and make that "investment", these ICS city's seem to pay back from day 1.

Even then, i can also agree that the AOE factory's are disproportionally inpactfull in the game on itself. It's just such a huge difference in production regardless the size of the civ that it becomes a very obvious target for beelining.

 

[Pennraugion]

Maybe a maintenance system like in Civ4 could help.

 

[elitetroops]

Okay.
This could mean, if you have more and more cities (founded nearby your other cities, so the AoE of the Industry Districts of your cities affects new founded cities of yours also, you would win Space Race even earlier.
Turn 200 would be possible ... or even below Turn 200

Definitely possible. I'm sure my game was very far from optimal. To put things into perspective, I have a civ 4 game going that I expect to end in a space victory around t225 as well (immortal), but that's after 10 years of playing the game and knowing the mechanics VERY well. In my t225 Civ VI victory I was playing very much in the dark, not really knowing anything about how things actually work. Once the details of all the mechanics are figured out, I bet science victories way below t200 are possible. Unless, of course, they significantly raise the tech costs, which I hope they do.

Right now I think Rome could be the strongest pick for fast space games. They apparently have a super strong UU, which I just read also can chop. The Bath with +4 housing +1 amenities at half price of an aqueduct seems perfect for what you need. I think +6 neighborhoods were not needed, but I'm still not quite sure if you can do without them either. Building a +2 aqueduct or +2 sewer seems like a big waste. Then there's of course the free monument and free roads as well.

I did in my game build 4 entertainment districts and had zoos and stadiums in all of them. Also built Colosseum. All cities were Ecstatic in the end, which I think makes a difference with +10% to all yields. Maybe it wouldn't be so much of a big deal if I had twice as many cities. The only other wonders I built were pyramids and hanging gardens early, and captured the Oracle from China. (Then I built Forbidden Palace in 1 turn with the overflow I got from my 1500 hammers space project engineer 1 turn before the game was over.) Pyramids were definitely worth it, not so sure about Hanging Gardens. You're going to hit the housing cap anyway and growing onto more tiles isn't always that much of an advantage here.

For my next game, I'll try to focus more on culture as well. The +10% science/city state you get from Globalization is massive. In my Emperor game I even considered skipping right past the late game governments to get there faster. I ended up not doing so, but went for communism, as that was the only one I had the Eureka for. At that time Democracy would have taken me 4 turns longer to tech and I didn't feel like delaying Globalization that much. In the end, I only unlocked Globalization with the moon landing, so it wouldn't have made any difference at all. I'm still undecided whether Communism or Democracy is the best pick.

I'm also thinking that in the end as many cities as possible should have both Industrial Zone for AOE buildings and campus to build Research project. Research project is a better bet than Industrial, since 2/3 Information Era GSs help you with your space ship. You can build Industrial projects until you've grabbed the +20% and +1500 production GEs (modern and Atomic era), then focus on Research projects. Building the campuses is not much of a problem. It was mostly 5-6 turns for me once the industrial zones were up and running. Here Germany has a big advantage, since they can get both of those in every city, without the need to grow to pop 4.

Edit: I should also mention that I had Toronto boosting all my AOE buildings to 9 tiles. That is so crazy overpowered. My best Industrial Zone hit 9 additional cities, 11 additional cities once I boosted it with the GE that adds +2 production to both factory and PP and adds +3 range.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The real issue is still that you could spam the whole map withought "hapyness issue's". Even if you would alter the factory's that problem would remain and be open to all sorts of exploitive tactics. What Imho really should happen in the logic of this game is that hapyness in those city's plummet with the result of large production, food and growth malusses imho. Then the player could balance the gains from expansion with it's malusses or vice versa, be it that it is much like the old system of "global hapyness". Don't get me wrong, there would be various other ways to try to render the tactic uninterresting like rising costs, but it appears to me that entertainment districts being unused in a ICS scenario where having loads of happyness was typically needed just make it sound like the district and even amenities mechanic is rather irrelevant. The previous versions of ICS in older Civ games had the player still very much occupied with the need to build a load of hapyness and make that "investment", these ICS city's seem to pay back from day 1.

Even then, i can also agree that the AOE factory's are disproportionally inpactfull in the game on itself. It's just such a huge difference in production regardless the size of the civ that it becomes a very obvious target for beelining.

There's nothing wrong with spamming cities without "happiness/maintenance issues"

The issue is how useful those new cities are... with an industrial district available at pop 1, and giving more production the tighter you are packed, that is what becomes imbalanced...
but that new city contributes almost nothing else...

The problem is production is king...if techs/civics were more expensive, getting some campuses/theaters would be necessary for winning a science or domination victory.

They could also increase the cost slope of the settlers... (say +40 per settler instead of +20)

They could also increase the minimum for a district...maybe first district isn't available until pop 2 or 3 or even 5

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Germany is great for this.

A 1 pop German hamlet in the middle of the desert may not have food to eat, but it can receive production from several factories, build a Hansa and another factory, a commercial district, and a campus.

That's insane.

 

[LDiCesare]

The previous versions of ICS in older Civ games had the player still very much occupied with the need to build a load of hapyness and make that "investment", these ICS city's seem to pay back from day 1.

Not in Civ or Civ 2. In these, new cities wer always unhappy, 1 unahppy citizen and no commerce sue to corruption from distance to palace. But the city square produced one shield, which was enough to maintain a unit and build a huge army. There was zero investment required.

 

[elitetroops]

The previous versions of ICS in older Civ games had the player still very much occupied with the need to build a load of hapyness and make that "investment", these ICS city's seem to pay back from day 1.

No need for happiness in Civ 4 either. In that game there's the city upkeep, but once have enough cities to cap 'number of cities'-maintenance (around 20-25 cities), the rest are always a net gain immediately when settled, as long as you have Representation+Mercantilism (or Statue of Liberty). With the Great Lighthouse offshore cities, even on one tile islands, are almost always a net gain right from the start.

Though in Civ 6 ICS arguably much stronger as there are no negatives to having more cities. A new city is always a net gain. And if in Civ 4 the best strategy for fastest space victory is to expand as fast as possible to just under the domination limit, what is the limit in Civ 6? I think on normal speed there will come a natural limit at some point, since unit movement is so slow and you reach the end of the tech tree so fast, but on huge/marathon you can potentially have absolutely humongous empires. Deity BC space, anyone?

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

The issue is how useful those new cities are... with an industrial district available at pop 1, and giving more production the tighter you are packed, that is what becomes imbalanced...
but that new city contributes almost nothing else...

If the industrial districts were nerfed, there would be still other ways to exploit those city's. Spamming commercial districts in all those city's would give plenty of caravans with food and production and genneraly generate lots of cash, after which it likely would be used for gold strats. Or perhaps the player could spam them with holy site's just to make a ton load of faith to buy stuff with.
Perhaps you could make a minimal pop requirement of 6 to have the first district, but then the new small city's would also benifit from the AOE factory's from larger city's nearby or other AOE districts, and getting that bit of extra housing wouldn't be too hard then.

Not in Civ or Civ 2. In these, new cities wer always unhappy, 1 unahppy citizen and no commerce sue to corruption from distance to palace. But the city square produced one shield, which was enough to maintain a unit and build a huge army. There was zero investment required.

As i remember from those versions, if you settle's more than 12 city's all new city's started with an extra unhapyness, same with 24 city's afaik, so the tiles you gained from the 13th city could have meant loosing 12 tiles in the 1st 12 city's.

No need for happiness in Civ 4 either. In that game there's the city upkeep, but once have enough cities to cap 'number of cities'-maintenance (around 20-25 cities), the rest are always a net gain immediately when settled, as long as you have Representation+Mercantilism (or Statue of Liberty). With the Great Lighthouse offshore cities, even on one tile islands, are almost always a net gain right from the start.

Yes, i think Civ4 was the exception.

 

[elitetroops]

Perhaps you could make a minimal pop requirement of 6 to have the first district, but then the new small city's would also benifit from the AOE factory's from larger city's nearby or other AOE districts, and getting that bit of extra housing wouldn't be too hard then.

I think 6 is way too high (good luck getting all the Eurekas that require districts). Raising it to 2 would already make quite a difference, while not changing the overall dynamics of the game too much.

 

[LDiCesare]

As i remember from those versions, if you settle's more than 12 city's all new city's started with an extra unhapyness, same with 24 city's afaik, so the tiles you gained from the 13th city could have meant loosing 12 tiles in the 1st 12 city's.

I don't remember exactly. But, with no min city distance, 24 cities was notICS in these versions. It was a medium empire. ICS would have been around 100 cities, which largely made up for any loss in the 12 or 24 first ones, if any.

 

[alpaca]

This is not actually the optimal city layout. If you rotate the lattice (go three tiles in one direction, then one in another), you will get a more closely packed set-up, which is easy to understand if you look at the picture below (red is your proposed layout, black is mine)

There are many easy ways to prove that this is a closer packing, for example if you look at cities within the second ring (blue hexagon), the red layout has an average distance of (12*8+6*4)/18=6.66... while the black layout has an average distance of 6*(7+8+4) = 6.33... Alternatively and more geometrical, by the Pythagorean theorem and some easily calculated (or looked-up) properties of regular hexagons, the distance to the closest neighbor in the red case is 4 tiles, while it is only sqrt(3.5^2 + (sqrt(3)/2)^2) = 3.61 tiles for the black layout. The difference is small, but if we're talking about hypothetically optimal situations here, it matters

In fact, while the black layout (there are two of them, one right-rotating, one left) is an improvement, there is an even better one where you move two tiles in one direction, then two in the other

Yellow dots are both in the red and the green lattice. In the big blue hexagon, the green layout now has an average distance of 6*(4+6+8)/18=6 and it has a nearest-neighbor distance of sqrt(3^2 + (3*2/sqrt(3))^2) = 3.46

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

This is not actually the optimal city layout. If you rotate the lattice (go three tiles in one direction, then one in another), you will get a more closely packed set-up, which is easy to understand if you look at the picture below (red is your proposed layout, black is the actual optimal one)
View attachment 456651
There are many easy ways to prove that this is a closer packing, for example if you look at cities within the second ring (blue hexagon), the red layout has an average distance of (12*8+6*4)/18=6.66... while the black layout has an average distance of 6*(7+8+4) = 6.33... Alternatively and more geometrical, by the Pythagorean theorem and some easily calculated (or looked-up) properties of regular hexagons, the distance to the closest neighbor in the red case is 4 tiles, while it is only sqrt(3.5^2 + (1.5*2/sqrt(3))^2) = 3.905 tiles for the black layout. The difference is small, but if we're talking about hypothetically optimal situations here, it matters
.

I stand corrected, indeed that pattern is more dense as you pointed out by illustration and mathematical reasoning, it seems you need more than 40 cities to start see gain from it. Taking into account unperfect maps, i think the best i'd take from it is how the "3 city triangle" pattern of yours is different from mine and use that more as a general guideline. I would need to check if i factory can cover more than the 10 city's my pattern would allow.

 

[alpaca]

I stand corrected, indeed that pattern is more dense as you pointed out by illustration and mathematical reasoning, it seems you need more than 40 cities to start see gain from it. Taking into account unperfect maps, i think the best i'd take from it is how the "3 city triangle" pattern of yours is different from mine and use that more as a general guideline. I would need to check if i factory can cover more than the 10 city's my pattern would allow.

Actually, my layout wasn't optimal, either, as I realized while brushing my teeth just now. I improved the above post with the actually optimal set-up, which you can get by walking two tiles in one direction, then two in another. Also fixed a math error, the difference between the black layout and the red is larger than I had calculated.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Ah and i had just calculated that a factory coudl cover 11 city's rather than the 10 in my first example with the 1st modified pattern you gave me, which looked like this:



Someone should give you some derserving cookies if i can get 12 city's covered by a factory in the 2nd alternative pattern of yours. Give me a few minutes.



And that be 12 city's covered by 1 industrial district. Thx for the pointing out the obviously much more effecient pattern, thats some very good input for this thread and the potential of ICS where AOE yields from factory's matter a lot. I will leave the older ineffecient patterns as a show of how it shouldn't be done.

 

[alpaca]

Ah and i had just calculated that a factory coudl cover 11 city's rather than the 10 in my first example with the 1st modified pattern you gave me, which looked like this:

Someone should give you some derserving cookies if i can get 12 city's covered by a factory in the 2nd alternative pattern of yours. Give me a few minutes.

Bring out the cookies! (Below, in grey)


Edit: oh, you got there first

Seems like the difference is greater than I initially thought. 2 Additional cities in the AOE does add up.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Would you actually place cities like that, ignoring fresh water?

I just try to place cities as close together as possible on lakes, rivers, and coasts.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Seems like the difference is greater than I initially thought. 2 Additional cities in the AOE does add up.

It certaintly does, 20% is no small gain at all. It would get hard to maintain the perfect patern though.

Would you actually place cities like that, ignoring fresh water?

IF atleast the size of the landmass and the placements of mountains would allow it i likely would. City's can get more housing trough infrasructure and tile improvements and while this would require more hammers the added factory's would also provide it and over the longer term. Settling according to fresh water needs will likely drop the amount of city's a factory can serve even below 10 and drop the total amount of city's you have. The result you have could be pretty big due to multiplication of the 2 factors, you have a lower amount of city's on the same area receiving a lower amount of hammers. Say 8 city's on the same area receiving the yield of 8 factory's versus 12 city's receiving the ields of 12 factory's, 8x8x4=256 and 12*12*4= 576, and a warmonger might not need the housing.

 

[Zenstrive]

Those dense cities, I can only imagine that the tiles surrounding the districts are either mines or farms, no lumber mills. I don't think lumber mills are even necessary anymore if you pull that kind of layout. The productions are from overlapping factories and trade routes. I will try it next time, along with city spammings: generate settlers each time my city built industrial and commerce districts.

 

[Martin Alvito]

This is not actually the optimal city layout. If you rotate the lattice (go three tiles in one direction, then one in another), you will get a more closely packed set-up, which is easy to understand if you look at the picture below (red is your proposed layout, black is the actual optimal one)

*angrily demands updated math thread*

It seems fairly obvious that once again ICS is going to be optimal on lower difficulties (sub-Deity surely, and possibly sub-Immortal, have zero time in on that level) until we get some balancing patches.

The reasoning boils down to this: districts generally don't yield enough extra yields relative to the investment cost, so you're better off going wide and pushing pop. It also doesn't hurt that you can push Cogs via Factories in an ICS setup in order to actually build districts despite increased build costs. So long as you can settle your own empire, you're better off relying on the geometric progression that we've known and loved since Yang.

How this works at Immortal/Deity is less clear. It seems evident that building an early military is more efficient than settling things. It's less clear how we should handle conquest, or to be more precise just how much of the AI's inefficient decisions we should live with and how many we should tear down.