ICS best of the best!

[Dale]

Think you're AWESOME at ICS? Got the game defeated at the highest levels by city spamming your way across the map? Enjoying either the natural or conquest ICS methods?

Then I have a challenge for you!

I have a mod which changes how happiness works. I want YOU, the ICS best of the best, to try to beat this mod.

What's changed?

No more do happiness buildings give a static amount of global happiness. Yep, that means your colosseum, the staple of ICS, no longer gives 4 . Instead, the colosseum now gives 50% of the city's pop that it's built in. Happiness buildings now provide LOCAL happiness! Theater gives another 25% happiness based on the city's pop, and the same for stadium. Thus, to run at 100% happiness you need to either:
1. Build colosseum, theater and stadium in every city; or
2. Make up any shortfall via other methods (policies, luxuries, wonders).

The consequences of this change include:
1. No longer does a colosseum cover population unhappines in a size 4 city.
2. Excess happiness is now provided by policies, luxuries and wonders.
3. A cost of war is now introduced, with more cities comes more unhappiness, either have excess happiness or the cash to invest in happiness buildings as you take new cities.
4. A widespread Empire is now harder to keep happy and stable.

Let me know in this thread if you want to take the challenge!

 

[Biz_]

so gandhi + colosseum = 100 percent happiness?

 

[Dale]

so gandhi + colosseum = 100 percent happiness?

No, because the formula works off the base population unhappiness after traits.

(I'd already thought of that one )

Also don't forget with Gandhi you suffer double CityNumber unhappiness. So ICS'ing with Gandhi is still out of the question.

 

[Celevin]

So I need 8 population for a colosseum to be better in your version than the present? Easily done.

I think there's a big misconception about ICS empires. They don't have populations of 4 in every city, they have populations of 8+ in every city due to Maritimes. They also have just as large "core cities". I would have more happiness under your rules in an ICS empire than the current game.

 

[Dale]

So I need 8 population for a colosseum to be better in your version than the present? Easily done.

I think there's a big misconception about ICS empires. They don't have populations of 4 in every city, they have populations of 8+ in every city due to Maritimes. They also have just as large "core cities". I would have more happiness under your rules in an ICS empire than the current game.

I'll be interested to hear your feedback on how you manage it AFTER testing the mod (which I'll send links to interested people tonight).

 

[Deep_Blue]

what about a colosseum in a size 20 city = overpowered ??

I mean I leave one big city with 18+ pop and ICS the entire empire, then build happiness buildings in that big city and problems solved + more happiness from colosseum (10 happy)

 

[ZhugeTien]

I'd be interested in trying out this mod just to play around with the numbers and see its practical effects throughout a game. I typically play China on Earth maps and build a rather large empire. Happiness doesn't really become a concern until the medieval era. Interesting idea. It could lead to some very effective ways to stop mindless city spamming.

 

[Dale]

what about a colosseum in a size 20 city = overpowered ??

I mean I leave one big city with 18+ pop and ICS the entire empire, then build happiness buildings in that big city and problems solved + more happiness from colosseum (10 happy)

Okay consider:
1 city of 20 pop == 20 unhappiness
20 cities of 2 pop == 40 unhappiness
Number of cities == 42 unhappiness

Total unhappiness == 102 unhappiness

Col in 20-pop city == 10 happiness
Meritocracy == 21 happiness
Military caste == 21 happiness
5 luxuries == 25 happiness

Total happiness == 77 happiness

So how do you account for the other 25 unhappiness? Even if you built a theater and stadium in the 20-pop city, there is still 15 unaccounted for unhappiness.

Build a colosseum in those other 20 cities, and add another 10 happiness. Getting closer, but still 5 unhappiness all told.

Building happiness percent is applied AFTER traits and policies.

 

[alpaca]

I'd be willing to give it a try

 

[Slowpoke]

One bad thing about both your and my method for solving ICS is it sort of forces the player to choose meritocracy. E.g., previously meritocracy gave one free population happines. But meritocracy with theatres essentially gives 4. Hopefully meritocracy can be changed to a fraction, but I doubt it Theology does this as well.

 

[Deep_Blue]

Okay consider:...

I was talking about building 1 colosseum because you mentioned:

1. Build colosseum, theater and stadium in every city;

so if we are talking about 1 colosseum 1 theater 1 stadium only then it will be more powerful with your mod using 20 pop city.

if we are talking about happiness building in every city then yes there will be less happiness:

no mod: 21 x4 = 84

with mid: 1x10 + 20x4/2 = 50

After giving it a second thought I believe your mod is effective against ICS.

 

[Omega124]

Okay consider:
1 city of 20 pop == 20 unhappiness
20 cities of 2 pop == 40 unhappiness
Number of cities == 42 unhappiness

Total unhappiness == 102 unhappiness

Col in 20-pop city == 10 happiness
Meritocracy == 21 happiness
Military caste == 21 happiness
5 luxuries == 25 happiness

Total happiness == 77 happiness

So how do you account for the other 25 unhappiness? Even if you built a theater and stadium in the 20-pop city, there is still 15 unaccounted for unhappiness.

Build a colosseum in those other 20 cities, and add another 10 happiness. Getting closer, but still 5 unhappiness all told.

Building happiness percent is applied AFTER traits and policies.

Forbidden. Palace.

I rest my case.

 

[Deep_Blue]

I like the idea of local happiness. Make it in a way that all combined happiness buildings + wonders in a city cant give more than 100% of local happiness that it for a city of pop 4 no more than 4 happiness generated from that city even if you get all happiness buildings in it, add a cap limit or something... this will be evil .

 

[Slowpoke]

Yeah I disabled FP. you should probably do so as well Dale

 

[Dale]

Forbidden. Palace.

I rest my case.

FP doesn't come till Renaissance. Even bee-lining directly to it you'll be nearing turn 200 by the time you build it (unless extremely lucky and get an engineer). I feel it may come too late for effective ICS in this mod, but I'll be interested to hear feedback.

FP is great to recover from intense ICS, but if you've been throttled before that, then it looses some of its effectiveness. But please, sign up, try it and we shall see. This is why I want people to TEST the mod, not just through barriers up without even testing the system.

 

[blind biker]

On the face of it, it seems pretty simple yet brilliant.

 

[alpaca]

FP doesn't come till Renaissance. Even bee-lining directly to it you'll be nearing turn 200 by the time you build it (unless extremely lucky and get an engineer). I feel it may come too late for effective ICS in this mod, but I'll be interested to hear feedback.

FP is great to recover from intense ICS, but if you've been throttled before that, then it looses some of its effectiveness. But please, sign up, try it and we shall see. This is why I want people to TEST the mod, not just through barriers up without even testing the system.

In vanilla you can have the FP quite early, before turn 150 I think, without a Great Engineer. Bulb Education and Banking (or Banking at least) and research the rest, it's not as far as you think with Libraries at 2 scientists each.

By the way: What do you mean by "happiness is local"?

 

[Dale]

In vanilla you can have the FP quite early, before turn 150 I think, without a Great Engineer. Bulb Education and Banking (or Banking at least) and research the rest, it's not as far as you think with Libraries at 2 scientists each.

Quite true. My own ICS method doesn't utilise the Banking / FP slingshot, but the Acoustics / TP science slingshot. My aim is to keep ICS as a viable strategy, but not the over-powered strategy.

By the way: What do you mean by "happiness is local"?

The amount of happiness gained from those buildings is directly proportional to the local population of the city. It always bugged me how a colosseum in a tiny city would give more happiness than the actual population in the city.

 

[stormerne]

It always bugged me how a colosseum in a tiny city would give more happiness than the actual population in the city.

Now that doesn't bug me at all. It's very realistic. There are plenty of tourist spots in small towns and remote places that do wonders for national happiness, and the ones that have sports stadiums are very popular with supporters of visiting teams. It's just that the transient population of these places is often several times the permanent residential population.

 

[Celevin]

I'll be interested to hear your feedback on how you manage it AFTER testing the mod (which I'll send links to interested people tonight).

Why not make it public?

I'm not delving into why - it might be the fundamental idea or simply the numbers used. You might just have to tweak it. But this idea will not work in its present state. Thinking through a game should tell you that most of the time you're going to see more happiness than less in all stages. Firstly when you add colosseums to your cities with more than 8 population, and secondly of how those city's excess population over 8 will make up for lost happiness in any city with less than 8 population. I'm only touching the portion of the game that I think this change would have the least effect - late game unhappiness would be completely covered by policies and buildings.

ICS in its current state isn't a bunch of size 2 or size 4 cities. It's "when I have the opportunity, I build a new city. I will buy a colosseum immediately as I have 15 other cities all producing tonnes of cash, and it will skyrocket to size 5+ in very short order, and 10+ shortly after". ICS empires don't even really have cities with less population than a small "Tradition" empire, in fact due to more gold inflow and more "we love the king" days, I'd argue that someone going for ICS actually has more population in the core cities, and will benefit more than small empires from this change.