Why I think ICS was deliberately designed as an option

[Roxlimn]

Paeanblack:

You need to hit me with more details, I'm afraid. Prior to turn 100, supporting 5 army units crashes my economy hard - like my net gold gets down really low. I know I won't have any gold to upgrade anything by turn 90. How are you earning that much gold?

Other question - by turn 90 how many cities should I have? Workers? Need benchmarking guidelines.

 

[Post Monkeh]

while i'm sure ics isn't the "only" strategy, from what i've seen the game is heavily stacked in its favour.

the one major game feature to control the size of your empire is happiness. each city creates one unhappy face, but can produce a number of happy face producing buidlings, so really the best thing to have is lots of cities with smaller populations. i really hope this is modified in future because i hate having loads of cities crammed together. not only is it an unenjoyable way to play the game, it also cripples my pc.

 

[Roxlimn]

Actually, the best thing is to have lots of cities with large populations.

 

[mlashmit]

Forgive my noobishness Great Sirs, but isn't the problem with ICS the I part? So wouldn't the easiest solution be to reduce the effectiveness of either the Forbidden Palace or the Order SP Planned Economy? Or perhaps both? Not sure what this means for India's UA or the Piety happiness modifying Policy (which is for unhappiness from population & only in unoccupied cities), but I feel that this is the simplest, most elegant, and easiest to implement solution. Consider the difference if they only provided -40% unhappiness from number of cities instead of -50%.

I've got to do some testing around other things, I was pretty sure that the increasing cost of SPs per city was multiplicative instead of additive. Also, haven't seen it addressed but haven't really searched for it, but I'm curious if an obseleted (but completed) SP branch counts towards a cultural victory, specifically could I complete piety in early game then late game activate rationalism & lose the bonuses from piety but still retain the branch completion towards the Utopia Project.

 

[Post Monkeh]

Actually, the best thing is to have lots of cities with large populations.

sorry, given a choice between 20 size 10 cities or 10 size 20 cities, the civilopedia would have you believe it's better to have fewer, larger cities because having more cities adds further unhappiness. the reality is, the one extra unhappiness caused by the extra city can easily be negated by the buildings the city can produce.

 

[Paeanblack]

You need to hit me with more details, I'm afraid. Prior to turn 100, supporting 5 army units crashes my economy hard - like my net gold gets down really low. I know I won't have any gold to upgrade anything by turn 90. How are you earning that much gold?

Trade routes. Getting them hooked up in a timely fashion yields a ton of cash. My workers exclusively build luxuries and roads. If they have a spare action due to the movement rules, they will burn it on a TP. This will build 2-3 TPs over time, with a half-dozen partially completed ones.

 

[Roxlimn]

Why choose? Have 20 size 20 cities!

Trade routes. Getting them hooked up in a timely fashion yields a ton of cash. My workers exclusively build luxuries and roads. If they have a spare action due to the movement rules, they will burn it on a TP. This will build 2-3 TPs over time, with a half-dozen partially completed ones.

Thanks! So, need Wheel early for gold. Need Calendar for luxuries. Need Ironworking to live. Sounds very tech intensive. Sounds micro-intensive, too, from the sounds of it. Half done improvements? Man. I never do that. Wouldn't want to.

 

[Paeanblack]

Half done improvements? Man. I never do that. Wouldn't want to.

I guess for me, old habits die hard.

Addendum:
When building roads, this also saves money. You don't pay maintenance until the road is completed. Pre-build the road by canceling your worker action one turn before it is finished and on the next turn you move the worker and start on the next tile. When all the tiles are pre-built, go back and finish the road at the rate of 1 tile/turn. (Or better yet, bring in a second worker at that point and work from both ends)

Built the "normal" way with one pre-Citizenship worker, a length-3 road will cost 12 gold in maintenance before you see a return from the trade route. Built the "cheap" way, that road will cost 3 gold in maintenance and finish in the same amount of time. It doesn't take long for those savings to add up.

 

[Celevin]

I think you should reconsider. You asked a question and I answered it fully, address my points properly. Perhaps the reason you don't understand the problem is invalid preconceptions

I was measuring the marginal gain of adding new cities, and I know exactly how the static benefits of puppets and cultural city states affect it.

There's a reason we don't consider those in these arguments. If we did, I'd come right back at you and say "Aha, but your 5 city empire is just worse than my 1 city empire!!!". Static benefits are too powerful for culture victories right now, and if you look outside culture victories, then even with the few more social policies a small empire completely pales in comparison to a large empire. I've started numerous topics on very very fast culture wins, and of complete puppet abuse.

Finally, the other reason I don't want to continue this is you completely weight your arguments. Why give the benefit of puppets to a small empire and not a large? Why assume a small empire actually has bigger cities? Both of these are unrealistic in the current state of the game.

I'm really really not in the mood to argue minute details when they don't really matter. ICS is dominant from multiple playthroughs from the majority of players on here. You can see that just by looking at the marginal difference from gaining a new city to the marginal cost.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Concerning the question: "What advantages should a small empire have over a big one?"

I'm going to speak in Civ4 terms for a moment, since a lot of these concepts have broken down completely in Civ 5.

A large empire should produce more raw "commerce" and more raw hammers. However a small empire should be more efficent, more specialized, it should be able to make the smaller pool of resources it gets go farther. Roghly speaking, a large empire should be able to produce an army quicker, but a small empire should be able to build a wonder quicker, simply because the large empire's hammers are spread out and diffused, and the small empire's hammers are concentrated and more get pumped through hammer enhancing buildings/ nat. wonders/ civics.

There are a LOT of things which prevent small empires from specializing in this way in civ 5.

- National Wonders in general are weaker. They provide lower bonuses than the equivalent wonder did in Civ4. This is also the case with buildings.

- Civ 5's equivalent of settling Great People, creating special hexes, is a very weak option compared to alternatives.

- Limited specialist slots, plus science being based on population. This means each city can really only produce a limited amount of science, population + 2 specialist slots, going up to 4? specialist slots later on with the more advanced builfings. It's hard to concentrate science and thus get the most of things like the National College. Gold can be concentrated through the mint, but there aren't any national wonders to take advantage of it. Culture can be concentrated but the +% boosts to culture (which is the only point of concentrating something) come really late in the tech tree. If the Academy was a more powerful option, it might solve this problem somewhat.

- Traditional as a whole isn't nearly as powerful as Bureaucracy was in Civ4. People have commented that Bureau was a OP in Civ4, but I think that had more to do with the other options being not that great and less to do with Bureau being OP.

- Maritime city-states tht functionally make food a global resource.

- Less powerful terrain specials.

A lot of new Civ5 concepts have really ham-strung small small empires' ablity to super-specialize thier cities. For a while in the Civ franchise, it wasn't uncommon for your speicialized sciene-city to be producing more science than the rest of your empire combined. For better or worse, this no longer happens in Civ5 and this departure from the ability to super-specialize has really hurt small empires.

 

[Post Monkeh]

Why choose? Have 20 size 20 cities!

because my citizens start to revolt, the disobedient bastards

 

[Roxlimn]

The key to winning quickly with ICS is to get past the Colosseum hump quickly and then pass on to nearly unlimited happiness. Getting lots of size 20 cities (or size 13, at least) is predicated on the same principles: earn enough money that you can buy and maintain buildings that allow you to get to higher pops without hitting the happiness cap.

Getting the policies is key for latter game growth, though, so might need to either hold off on REXing, or play France. Or play India for the straight up happiness boost. I think that works remarkably well with Paeanblack.

 

[UncleJJ]

Finally, the other reason I don't want to continue this is you completely weight your arguments. Why give the benefit of puppets to a small empire and not a large? Why assume a small empire actually has bigger cities? Both of these are unrealistic in the current state of the game.

I make the assumption that we're talking about the same map and the same circumstances and just two different development strategies for city size. It is you who seems to want to skew the argument. I purposely kept the total happiness in both cases the same, enough for 100 pop. In one case the pop was in 10 cities and in the other 5 cities plus 5 puppets.

You asked a question. I answered it and you didn't like or didn't understand my answer. The real difference between the two sets of cities is in the rate at which they gain SPs. That's it. Everything else is the same with two differing development strategies.

Are the extra SPs worth the potentially slower city growth and all the other limitations the fewer but larger cities have? I don't know, but it is unlikely, given the rate at which cities grow at present. But adding the puppets is an essential part of comparing the two schemes since we want to compare the same situation in regards land and resources (happiness and strategic). Otherwise it is obvious that 10 cities will grab more and be better because of that.

 

[andrewlt]

Well the additional unhappiness+Social policy cost is supposed to model that in Civ 5.. It doesn't.. not well enough.

Adding a tech cost (more science needs to go into education/preserving, disseminating knowledge... and making sure the knowledge won't upset the Imperial order.. would be ideal)



No they were Recognized as superpowers by expanding everywhere. They 'became' super powers due to proper internal development (why China hasn't been a 'superpower' beyond its region until now)

I disagree with this analysis. It is not 5 size 10 cities vs 10 size 10 cities you should be comparing. It's 10 size 10 cities versus 10 size 10 cities with 1 size 1 city that you should be comparing. Economic analysis should always be MB vs MC, not TB vs TC.

Social policies can be ignored somewhat but adding a permanent tech cost penalty for starting a new city would be disastrous. Players will reach a point where planting a new city will be a marginal loss for their empire for the rest of the game.

Having the same punishment mentality as the devs had is why we have this mess in the first place. They decided to punish large empires by severely punishing vertical growth but didn't realize that the punishment for horizontal growth can be worked around by players.

The Civ 4 model worked way better. A new city is a drain on the empire, but after it reaches a certain size or gets enough buildings, it will always be a positive. The brake on ICS is how fast you can grow a city and build enough buildings that the city turns from a negative to a positive. Permanent punishment for building new cities will never work in practice.

 

[Celevin]

You asked a question. I answered it and you didn't like or didn't understand my answer. The real difference between the two sets of cities is in the rate at which they gain SPs. That's it. Everything else is the same with two differing development strategies.

Man, the question was rhetorical. And the point was to stir discussion on how the growth is exponential, but the rewards of a city are linear at best. How much "better" is a size 20 city than a size 10? You save on maintenance, and... that's about it. In fact you lose out on some other qualities that make 2 cities better, like social policies that aid them. I have a hard time thinking of a single social policy that's better for 1 size 20 city over 2 size 10's unless you're talking about the capitol.

I even said "The difference in social policies isn't that much if you've got the gold for your new city.". Unless you're purposely gunning for a cultural victory and comparing it to a large empire that isn't, you're not going to see a substantial difference. And I'll argue that the social policies that the larger empire grabs will do more for it, like say +1 happiness per city.

 

[stii]

Thing is exponential growth isn't automatically better if the time period is short enough. Getting an insane amount of science by t300 is meanless if the game is over before that. That is the edge fewer bigger cities have they get to that point faster as you have you double up on buildings.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I disagree with this analysis. It is not 5 size 10 cities vs 10 size 10 cities you should be comparing. It's 10 size 10 cities versus 10 size 10 cities with 1 size 1 city that you should be comparing. Economic analysis should always be MB vs MC, not TB vs TC.

Social policies can be ignored somewhat but adding a permanent tech cost penalty for starting a new city would be disastrous. Players will reach a point where planting a new city will be a marginal loss for their empire for the rest of the game.

Having the same punishment mentality as the devs had is why we have this mess in the first place. They decided to punish large empires by severely punishing vertical growth but didn't realize that the punishment for horizontal growth can be worked around by players.

The Civ 4 model worked way better. A new city is a drain on the empire, but after it reaches a certain size or gets enough buildings, it will always be a positive. The brake on ICS is how fast you can grow a city and build enough buildings that the city turns from a negative to a positive. Permanent punishment for building new cities will never work in practice.

Its Not Permanent...

Looking at Culture for example

10 size 10 cities (with Monuments+Temples) v. same and you add 1 size 1

Net Immediate Culture
50 v. 50
Net Social Policy Cost
3.7 v. 4

M Cost
50/3.7= 13.51 social policy rate
50/4=12.5 social policy rate
M Cost= "1 Social policy Rate"

However once the size 1 City is developed
Culture
50 v. 55
Net Social Policy Cost
3.7 v. 4

M Benefit
50/3.7=13.51
55/4=13.75
M Benefit ="0.25 social policy rate"


This is true the whole game.

So

Adding a city= Bad
Developing the city=Good (that makes up for the bad)

So 10 size 10 cities
100 Science with a tech cost of 3.7-> 27 tech rate
v.
10 size 10 +1 size 1
101 Science with a tech cost of 4->25.25 tech rate

However X turns later

10 size 12 cities
120 science/3.7->32 "tech rate"
v.
10 size 12 cities + 1 size 8 city (since it grows faster... and allows for additional happiness buildings to be constructed)
127/4->32 "tech rate"


Now 30% might be too high, but the principle is the same...
Add a new city=Penalty
Develop the city=Net benefit

ICS will always be a benefit... the issue is how long it will take.

 

[gaiko]

OK, I can see it, thanks. This explains how I got run over by a runaway Augustus - poor intelligence of that side of the pangaea. Will try with Japan. America's UA would be useful here.

BTW, I'd also also throw in an intrepid trireme mapping the pangaea perimeter.

I don't really consider this nearly as much an exploit (not in the technical sense of the word) of AI military stupidity or predictability as much as simply wiping the continent clean with horsemen. The point is I won't need to capture/raze their far flung cities (which takes more military effort) until I ICS up next to them. Then Borg them.

About the DoWs people are getting:

I'm playing for the most part with an "Always War" attitude on Emperor through Diety. If I catch an AI unit on open terrain with my initial warrior, I attack. If I can do significant damage and stay safe on a hill/forest, I attack. If an AI unit has just fought a Barb, I attack. Very early in the game, there is nothing to lose (except for the long-term diplo effects). You have no tiles to be pillaged, no workers to protect, and your capital can take care of its own defense against the starting AI units.

The earlier the wars start, the less time the AI has to peacefully assemble the critical mass of units that can actually hurt me. My cities are picking off his early units one by one, because exploring the other side of my territory seems to be a HUGE priority for the AI early on. On Diety, this is also one of few times I have anything remotely resembling tech parity with the AI. (I haven't tried the REX-ICS techmonster on Diety yet...still working out the kinks on Emperor)

The upside of this is that I almost never get DoW'd by an AI I'm not prepared for. I don't have to build as much military to stay even in their eyes because they've been losing units over time.

The downside is obviously the diplo hit, but I haven't seen a huge effect from that. The AI seems to respect relative army strength much more than diplo history.

I think a key part of this is hunting Scouts asap. If the AI hasn't explored a particular patch of land, it will keep sending single units to it, even if that means running a gauntlet through your ICS crossfire.