ICC will return in Civ 5?

[Schuesseled]

pi-r8, I can understand your concerns. I think ICC was well handled with civ4, though it could probably have been handled even better. The point was ICC was toned down much better than it had been in civ1 to civ3.

At this point, my impression is that their main method to prevent ICC is to introduce hard limits on when you can build settlers. It's a bit vague how it has been described to us but I believe it will work similar to how the civ4 GPP system worked. You might be able to build the second settler when you reach population 5 (empire wide), the third settler when you reach population 10 (empire wide), the fourth when you reach population 20 (empire wide) and so on. How the thresholds would change for each new settler I don't know.

Of course, the guess I am making has several problems with it and would need to be significantly tidied up, but I am thinking it is along the lines of what they mean by requiring certain populations for settlers.

I hope they also have city maintenance as well, but I expect (or should I say 'fear'?) they are removing it because it's not a newbie-friendly feature. I think it was Ahriman who voiced a concern about it now being possibly a bigger catastrophe when a player tanks their economy because there is no simple mechanism available, like there was in civ4 with the neutral commerce type and its associated slider, to allow the player to recover at the cost of less spending on research.

There is much left to wonder at this stage!

On the other side of the coin, your research isn't as badly affect by a economic slump as in civ 4, so it'll be easier to research your way out of the slump. (far easier than in civ 4, alphabet in 800 turns lol )

 

[PieceOfMind]

@Schuesseled

Exactly. If city maintenance is gone (which I suspect) it will be more or less impossible to send your economy into a negative spiral anyway. It will just be "slowed", if you will.

 

[Schuesseled]

oh im sure youll be able to cripple yourself with too much military and diplomacy spending.

 

[Louis XXIV]

And by the way, ICS is not the same as REX. REX (Rapid EXpansion) is about pushing your borders outwards as fast as possible and grab as much land as possible. ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) is an old Civ 2 (and to some extend Civ 3) exploit where you packed your cities ridiculously densely (2 squares apart in Civ 2). I'm not sure which of the two you are protesting here.

I was going to point this out, but you beat me to it

 

[PieceOfMind]

True. But the happiness cap could prevent both ICS and REX, couldn't it? I don't think there's such an obvious division between the two problems. In general I think the ICS is frowned upon more than REX as ICS looks more gamey. Extreme overlap as was possible in games before civ4 was to some extent mitigated by the the rule that you couldn't settle within 2 tiles of another city (except if they were on separate landmasses, strangely!) in civ4.
Having said that, I'm still an ICS'er in civ4, cramming in cities. I'm pretty sure most of the time it's not as efficient as I could be, but old habits die hard I suppose.

To prove it, check out the Japenese empire:
(this is from a game a while back. Emperor level IIRC)

The cities on the west side were captured so they were more spread out.

Spoiler :

 

[pi-r8]

pi-r8, I can understand your concerns. I think ICC was well handled with civ4, though it could probably have been handled even better. The point was ICC was toned down much better than it had been in civ1 to civ3.

At this point, my impression is that their main method to prevent ICC is to introduce hard limits on when you can build settlers. It's a bit vague how it has been described to us but I believe it will work similar to how the civ4 GPP system worked. You might be able to build the second settler when you reach population 5 (empire wide), the third settler when you reach population 10 (empire wide), the fourth when you reach population 20 (empire wide) and so on. How the thresholds would change for each new settler I don't know.

Of course, the guess I am making has several problems with it and would need to be significantly tidied up, but I am thinking it is along the lines of what they mean by requiring certain populations for settlers.

I hope they also have city maintenance as well, but I expect (or should I say 'fear'?) they are removing it because it's not a newbie-friendly feature. I think it was Ahriman who voiced a concern about it now being possibly a bigger catastrophe when a player tanks their economy because there is no simple mechanism available, like there was in civ4 with the neutral commerce type and its associated slider, to allow the player to recover at the cost of less spending on research.

There is much left to wonder at this stage!

Yeah the main reason I'm concerned is that one of my favorite changes in Civ 4 compared to previous versions was the way they limited cities. You could always build more, and it was often advantageous, but not always.

I really hope they don't put hard limits on when you can build settlers. Sure, that's one way to solve the problem, but it seems so inelegant. I hate it when it's obvious to me what should be done, but a game just refuses to let me do it for no reason. Also, a hard limit on settlers would almost guarantee that every civ has the exact same number of cities.

That's a good point about maintenance being able to send you into banruptcy very easily. But maybe they'll bring back the Civ 2 system where it automatically sells of buildings, or simply force new cities to disband.

I like the happiness limit idea better- the option to choose between a few large cities or many smaller cities- but I'm still worried that it will be broken.

 

[pi-r8]

Of course, you'll want to settle until you reach the happiness cap, just like you want to settle until you reach the maintenance cap in Civ 4. That doesn't spell ICS. It means that there is a cap, so you'd better make your cities count.

Your assertion that access to more happiness resources is enough to upset the happiness penalty is unfounded. I doubt Firaxis is trying to make an unbalanced game, so the most reasonable assumption is that they have tested that and made sure ICS isn't a viable strategy.

And by the way, ICS is not the same as REX. REX (Rapid EXpansion) is about pushing your borders outwards as fast as possible and grab as much land as possible. ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) is an old Civ 2 (and to some extend Civ 3) exploit where you packed your cities ridiculously densely (2 squares apart in Civ 2). I'm not sure which of the two you are protesting here.

There really isn't a "maintenance cap" in Civ 4 though. It's pretty easy to just keep settling cities forever, with cottages and trade routes. If your leader is financial or organized, it works great. The only problem is that the AI might reject some of your land claims I don't like the idea of an arbitrary, fixed limit.

I don't know why you assume that Firaxis knows how to balance their game. They shipped Vanilla Civ 4 with an 18 strength Cossack requiring only gunpowder and military tradition. That is a ridiculous imbalance.

I guess ICS might not be the best word. Call it what you want, the problem that I'm talking about is that building settlers forever is always the optimal strategy in earlier versions of Civ. Whether you pack them close or not doesn't matter.

 

[pi-r8]

ICC wasn't handled particularly well in Civ4 actually.
Having a monetary penalty for having more cities only ever slows down the rate of expansion needed to yield the most science, not the maximum amount. A city with a few decent buildings and a couple of cottages would always produce more income than it would swallow up in maintenance.

A happiness cap is completely different as there is a maximum amount of it possible. One you have all the resources around you hooked up and all the happiness buildings built, then there is little more you can do. Interestingly, it means that bigger empires will be more vulnerable to War Weariness, which nicely balances out their increased production capability.

I can easily see situations where even by 0 ad there is a lot of unsettled land in some of the bigger continents, because it simply isnt worth building a few mediocre cities which do little but make your main cities suffer. The more I think about it, the more I like this new mechanic. I can't believe that nobody here thought/suggested it as a mod before. Still, that's why it's sometimes worth paying for a new game.

Well it's not only the maintence issue, it's all the other issues that I mentioned, combined, all seem to promote more cities. For an example of what you can do in Civ 4 with limited cities, check out this game by Unconquered Sun: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292211&page=3
With only 4 cities, he teched economics and liberalism by 100 AD. On deity. There's no way you'd be able to do that while settling a lot of cities early on!

 

[PieceOfMind]

That's a good point about maintenance being able to send you into banruptcy very easily. But maybe they'll bring back the Civ 2 system where it automatically sells of buildings, or simply force new cities to disband.

I doubt both of those. Reason? They're both pretty unfun. Sid Meier is very against unfun features. Even to the point that in civrev he tried to minimise or reduce the ways the RNG could give bad rolls for the player. Something to the effect of guaranteed wins when a strength ratio of 3:1 or more.

Also, I think it would be safe to assume that, like in civ4, buildings won't have maintenance costs so selling them off would indeed be pretty mean, especially if it was only to get you a bit more gold to delay the sinking.

EDIT... Here's a related article, if interested...
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1302

I like the happiness limit idea better- the option to choose between a few large cities or many smaller cities- but I'm still worried that it will be broken.

I agree actually. I didn't even take it much into consideration with that first post, so really I would say I want to take back what I said (lol but I won't just edit it out - that would be naughty )

 

[Celevin]

I see ICS coming back to a degree - maybe not the checkerboard pattern of Civ1 and Civ2 though. My reasoning is most of the science obtained seems to be from population, and scientists in libraries. In Civ4 most of the time science comes from cottage spamming, and so cities didn't need to be compact. I don't think we're really going to see a trade post spam!

If happiness is the new maintenance, then it's not going to hurt too too much at low city sizes. Without looking into wonders or national wonders or great people, I can see a good strategy being keeping closely knit cities around size 4 or 5 with a library and 2 scientists working.

 

[bjbrains]

I see ICS coming back to a degree - maybe not the checkerboard pattern of Civ1 and Civ2 though. My reasoning is most of the science obtained seems to be from population, and scientists in libraries. In Civ4 most of the time science comes from cottage spamming, and so cities didn't need to be compact. I don't think we're really going to see a trade post spam!

If happiness is the new maintenance, then it's not going to hurt too too much at low city sizes. Without looking into wonders or national wonders or great people, I can see a good strategy being keeping closely knit cities around size 4 or 5 with a library and 2 scientists working.

Well, remember that you take a penalty for each city on top of population, so I don't see ICS coming back. My guess is that it'll be the large cities that will be more efficient for research in general, but some of the civ special abilities obviously affect that. Arabia and France give benefits for more cities, Rome makes new cities easier to build up, Washington can scout more land and can expand each new cities 'area' more easily, and India obviously will want a few giant cities.

 

[Celevin]

That's why you keep city sizes small, so they stay within the happiness limit.

Two size 5 cities each with a library is a lot more science than a single size 10 city.

 

[bjbrains]

That's why you keep city sizes small, so they stay within the happiness limit.

Two size 5 cities each with a library is a lot more science than a single size 10 city.

But that's more unhappiness (since each city adds its own unhappiness on top of the population).

 

[Commander Bello]

A happiness cap is completely different as there is a maximum amount of it possible.(...)
I can't believe that nobody here thought/suggested it as a mod before. Still, that's why it's sometimes worth paying for a new game.

I can tell you.

Because it doesn't have any parallel in real life.
Why would it make people in New York and Philadelphia unhappy, when Kansas City is founded?

The same goes with occupying enemy cities.
Were the people of Rome getting unhappy after the Romans occupied Alexandria?
When the victorious Roman legions were marching through the streets of Rome, loaded with booty and slaves from occupied cities, where people cheering or did they make "boooooh"?

EDIT... Here's a related article, if interested...
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1302

From that article:

His players didn't understand math. In Civ Rev, the strength of units were displayed up front to players before battle to show the odds of victory. For example, an attacking unit might be rated at 1.5 with the defending unit at 0.5. This is a 3-to-1 situation.

Unfortunately, the testers expected to win this battle every time despite there being a 25% chance of losing each time

 

[Zhahz]

You say you don't like infinite city sprawl then start making points about city sizes - and I don't see the relationship.

It's always beneficial to have more populous cities since that means they're usually working more tiles and producing more something (in Civ IV more cottages getting worked, more mines getting worked, etc). So it's not like population providing benefits is a new idea here.

Civ is a game about building a civilization - starting with one settler and reaching victory, usually by creating an empire (there are variations of winning with less but they're not exactly the norm). So, by definition, you will found cities, they will grow, and you will sprawl.

Lately the devs (with IV) attempted to slow down rapid expansion but the sprawl has never really been hindered - the AIs and players tend to fill the map eventually.

As to your other points - maybe sticking with Civ IV is the best idea for you, since Civ5 isn't going to be Civ IV with better graphics anymore than Civ IV was a jacked up Civ III. Each iteration is a little different. There wouldn't be much point in releasing a "new version of Civ IV" after 2 expansions and countless user mods (ongoing) pretty much exhaust(ed) all Civ IV has to offer.

 

[Calouste]

But that's more unhappiness (since each city adds its own unhappiness on top of the population).

Indeed, you won't have two size 5 cities to compare to one size 10 city. You will have a size 5 city and a size 4 city, or maybe even 2 size 4 cities. Of course having a second city allows you to build additional happiness buildings, but then we are already into the hammer cost of a Settler, a Library and a happiness building.

 

[Celevin]

It's always beneficial to have more populous cities since that means they're usually working more tiles and producing more something (in Civ IV more cottages getting worked, more mines getting worked, etc). So it's not like population providing benefits is a new idea here.

Doing ICS has two parts:
1) The raw number of cities and size of your empire
2) Making your cities as compact as possible to enjoy the benefit of having more

It's not always the best strategy in Civ4 to spread out your cities and have virtually no overlapping tiles, ie the opposite of ICS. Having "good" tiles that can switch between cities is awesome. Same with maintenance reasons, happiness reasons, health reasons, and everything else. Sometimes 2 smaller cities is better than 1 big one.

The question is, is there enough incentive in big cities and enough detriment in building compact cities to stop ICS? Right now I see lots of incentive to smaller cities, as I can plug in more specialists, and "happiness maintenance" benefits ICS more than a "gold maintenance".

 

[edpovi]

...
Because it doesn't have any parallel in real life.
Why would it make people in New York and Philadelphia unhappy, when Kansas City is founded?
...

Because the folks in KC started calling steaks "Kansas City Strip" instead of "New York Strip"?

 

[Krill]

I doubt both of those. Reason? They're both pretty unfun. Sid Meier is very against unfun features. Even to the point that in civrev he tried to minimise or reduce the ways the RNG could give bad rolls for the player. Something to the effect of guaranteed wins when a strength ratio of 3:1 or more.

Also, I think it would be safe to assume that, like in civ4, buildings won't have maintenance costs so selling them off would indeed be pretty mean, especially if it was only to get you a bit more gold to delay the sinking.

EDIT... Here's a related article, if interested...
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1302



I agree actually. I didn't even take it much into consideration with that first post, so really I would say I want to take back what I said (lol but I won't just edit it out - that would be naughty )

I really hope they balance the map scripts well, because this is just so, so broken it isn't fair.

 

[Schuesseled]

I can tell you.

Because it doesn't have any parallel in real life.
Why would it make people in New York and Philadelphia unhappy, when Kansas City is founded?

The same goes with occupying enemy cities.
Were the people of Rome getting unhappy after the Romans occupied Alexandria?
When the victorious Roman legions were marching through the streets of Rome, loaded with booty and slaves from occupied cities, where people cheering or did they make "boooooh"?
:

And your actually asking how unhappiness is transferred to the rest of your cities.