KILLING ICS: Governance

[shattergod]

The Pros and Cons of ICS have been discussed in other threads. I'm formly in support of murdering it. My solution... Governance

It's not cheap to run an empire. To that end I propose that per tile and per city creates a gold cost. Per tile consumes .10 Golds, per City consumes 3 Golds.

If your empire is unable or unwilling to pay the cost of expansion expansion ceases and within a few turns begins to regress. If you allow it to regress far enough it begins to consume your cities, which devolve into lawlessness and become barbarian cities. This can never happen to your capital.

This would effectively kill ICS, and quickly while still allowing players to build both small and sprawling empires, especially considering how much Gold later massive empires are raking in per turn.

 

[pi-r8]

Ironically, the ICS empires tend to have the best gold flow, since they can work a lot of trading posts and skip most of the building maintenence. The large, developed cities with a lot of farms, mines, and buildings- those are the ones that would go broke from this.

 

[Eberon]

Ironically, the ICS empires tend to have the best gold flow, since they can work a lot of trading posts and skip most of the building maintenence. The large, developed cities with a lot of farms, mines, and buildings- those are the ones that would go broke from this.

This.

 

[krasny]

I don't really understand how ICS is possible in Civ5.

Each city and population degrades happiness, and there are only so many means of countering this, luxury resources, which are finite, and social policies which only ameliorate it.

I agree that the effects of happiness and unhappiness are too understated.

brindle:"I think i know, Civ5 is the first Civ game that is about NOT building instead of building. Don't build troops since support is so high, don't build buildings because support is too high, don't build roads because.... yada yada yada"

Knowing what NOT to build is more interesting than the situation that existed in Civ4, because it involves deeper strategy.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Moderator Action: Moved thread

 

[shattergod]

Ironically, the ICS empires tend to have the best gold flow, since they can work a lot of trading posts and skip most of the building maintenence. The large, developed cities with a lot of farms, mines, and buildings- those are the ones that would go broke from this.

I don't dispute they would great gold flow. But Think on it. If I'm putting a new city every three tiles or so in all directions I'll rapidly choke out my coffers.

You can adjust the numbers as you like but many cities clumped tightly together would create huge economic issues because despite trading posts they would not be able to withstand the great costs that they would eventually incur.

 

[krasny]

Why has this thread been moved?

Where has this thread been moved?

 

[pi-r8]

I don't dispute they would great gold flow. But Think on it. If I'm putting a new city every three tiles or so in all directions I'll rapidly choke out my coffers.

You can adjust the numbers as you like but many cities clumped tightly together would create huge economic issues because despite trading posts they would not be able to withstand the great costs that they would eventually incur.

It's just that larger cities tend to produce the least gold in this game, because they have to work farms to grow, and mines to make buildings, while the building maintence eats up their trade route gold. If you put a tax like this on all cities, it's the empires of large developed cities that would get hurt the most.

 

[RealHuhn]

That's why cottages in CIV 4 were a better design decision. At the beginning, rapid expansion had some critical drawbacks because cottages needed some time to grow. And of course, the major influence on science because you had to lower the slider.

There has to be a huge drawback to expansion.
* Maybe double the science output per +1 population. Big cities would be much better then.
* Or nerf scientists because running a library with two specialists is usually the best choice.
* Or increase the maintanance costs per city. There should be some kind of inflation or corruption in big empires.

Just brainstorming here ^^

 

[pagh80]

The main two points that benefit ICS is:

1. Early buildings are more effective than late buildings. Just look at colloseums vs stadiums. That needs to be fixed.
2. No Unhappiness penalty from distance to palace, or atleast not let unhappiness scale linear with amount of cities.

EDIT:
With that said im a builder so i kinda like the ICS game, but i understand that it might be tedious for other people.

 

[Camikaze]

I think this is a good idea. Seems like a city maintenance concept, and it seems odd that it isn't in the game already.

Ironically, the ICS empires tend to have the best gold flow, since they can work a lot of trading posts and skip most of the building maintenence. The large, developed cities with a lot of farms, mines, and buildings- those are the ones that would go broke from this.

Any such effect could be reasonably easily balanced out. Add a 'distance to capital' modifier.

Why has this thread been moved?

Presumably because it is an idea or suggestion.

Where has this thread been moved?

To Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[Perkus]

I don't really understand how ICS is possible in Civ5.

Each city and population degrades happiness, and there are only so many means of countering this, luxury resources, which are finite, and social policies which only ameliorate it.

You only need two methods to be no worse off than a large empire: Meritocracy (+1 happiness for each trade route connected city), which every ICS player gets, and Forbidden Palace (-1 unhappiness per city), which every ICS player either builds or tries to capture.

 

[killmeplease]

unhappiness from number of cities should rise exponentially, or there should be city maintenance also rising exponentially.

 

[Camikaze]

Exponential is the key to restricting this type of thing in the game. It's the same with stacks or anything else where you are attempting to place a penalty on overuse of a particular game mechanic (in this case, cities). The escalating effect is a foolproof way of strongly discouraging large numbers of whatever, whilst still making it possible to use them if you get the calculations right.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

So basically, instead of using just the Shafer Rating (er .. happiness), you want to also bring back maintenance?

Bad idea.

If you really want to get rid of ICS, set a minimum population for building a Colosseum to 2, 3 or 4. One of the keys to ICS [esp. pre-Banking/Order] is rushbuying a Colosseum and other happiness buildings in 1pop cities for +net happiness. (You ultimately wouldn't stop ICS like this, but the 'entry fee' for net happiness by way of the Theatre and Stadium would jump tremendously.)

 

[killmeplease]

simply there could be a rule for cities that happiness from its buildings (except wonders) be not greater than its population size. so you can still build them but the effect will be capped at city's population size.

and also, why not to make unhappiness from cities be rising exponentially?
i thought this is made so until played civ5 for first time.

 

[Perkus]

simply there could be a rule for cities that happiness from its buildings (except wonders) be not greater than its population size. so you can still build them but the effect will be capped at city's population size.

That's a really good idea, I just wish that could be modded now.

 

[Camikaze]

So basically, instead of using just the Shafer Rating (er .. happiness), you want to also bring back maintenance?

Bad idea.

If you really want to get rid of ICS, set a minimum population for building a Colosseum to 2, 3 or 4. One of the keys to ICS [esp. pre-Banking/Order] is rushbuying a Colosseum and other happiness buildings in 1pop cities for +net happiness. (You ultimately wouldn't stop ICS like this, but the 'entry fee' for net happiness by way of the Theatre and Stadium would jump tremendously.)

Arbitrary. Any inflexible minimum population required to build certain buildings is an arbitrary measure. I fail to see what's wrong with city maintenance.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Arbitrary. Any inflexible minimum population required to build certain buildings is an arbitrary measure. I fail to see what's wrong with city maintenance.

While it isn't really doing a great job, ciV already has the Shafer scale (global happiness) to control ICS.

The only way to make things worse is to add yet another scale to control city sprawl.

If Firaxis chooses to bring back city maintenance, they need to abandon the Shafer scale. But we all know that ain't gonna happen.

BTW, even if a minimum population for a particular building is arbitrary (which I don't necessarily think it is), is it any more arbitrary than city maintenance or global happiness?

 

[ProkhorZakharov]

The best way to deal with ICS isn't to punish the player more for it. Civ V already punishes the player for pretty much everything they do, and I think that makes the game a fair bit less fun (see Brindle's quote above). Instead, make smaller empires have their own advantages. Spending fewer hammers on expanding (through conquest or settlers) means spending more units on buildings; so make buildings better. It also means more growth, since fewer cities means more happiness to spend on population, so make larger cities better. It means more happiness in general, so make happiness-based golden ages better. It means a smaller army, so make the AI less likely to attack a small empire with a small army. These are all ways to improve your own experience as a small-empire fan without spoiling the experience of warmongers and expansionists.