ICS best of the best!

[Ahriman]

Basically here are the cautions noticed so far:

1. Anything exponential goes crazy with very large cities. This also applies to even quadratics like n^2 if not very careful about small constants. (Even then, 90^2= 8100 points and unless you're dividing by a large constant that's out of control, and if you need to divide by say 100 than this component isn't significant as it only produces 4 science at size 20, so most of the early science will still be in the linear component).

2. Anything with a negative constant can makes early rush strategies, particularly warrior rush too strong.

I'd emphasize both of these cautions.
I think the right way to reduce ICS is with happiness per city, food requirements for larger pop (one of the suggestions I had before was to split the hopsital in half, leaving half its effect in place and making the other half available from an aqueduct building at engineering) and city-boosters.
1 science per pop is nice and simple, messing with this isn't the right approach I think.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm not an ICSer, so I decided to test how this plays out for a regular game. Almost seems to make it easier. I don't think I've ever had so much happiness. In interest of disclosure, it was the first time I played Greece and I had two allies, but I usually have two and still have some happiness concerns.

I think I'll go for war and wipe out a couple of civs and see how my happiness is then.

 

[Valkrionn]

As far as I'm concerned, that's actually a good thing. And pretty well within the intent of the mod.

Builders will have more happiness, and be more competitive. Expansionists will have less.

 

[Dale]

Please note there is a bug that zeros bureaucracy unhappiness whenever you save then load. V2 will contain the fix, but some other enhancements to the mod.

And yes, the intent is to allow taller Empires to be more viable, whilst at the same time reducing the viability of extreme wide Empires.

 

[alpaca]

I'm not an ICSer, so I decided to test how this plays out for a regular game. Almost seems to make it easier. I don't think I've ever had so much happiness. In interest of disclosure, it was the first time I played Greece and I had two allies, but I usually have two and still have some happiness concerns.

I think I'll go for war and wipe out a couple of civs and see how my happiness is then.

You will have more happiness than before with very large cities only. Some maths:

Before, Colosseum was +4 , theatre was +4 . To offset the Colosseum, the city needs size 8. At size 16 you can offset the theatre, too. However, luxuries in Dale's mod only yield +4 , which usually costs you something like 5-10 . Also, from number of cities is higher. At 3 cities, you get 7 instead of 6, at 4 cities 11 instead of 8, with a tendency to increase.

So no, even small empires don't typically get more if it weren't for the bug

 

[LordTC]

You will have more happiness than before with very large cities only. Some maths:

Before, Colosseum was +4 , theatre was +4 . To offset the Colosseum, the city needs size 8. At size 16 you can offset the theatre, too. However, luxuries in Dale's mod only yield +4 , which usually costs you something like 5-10 . Also, from number of cities is higher. At 3 cities, you get 7 instead of 6, at 4 cities 11 instead of 8, with a tendency to increase.

So no, even small empires don't typically get more if it weren't for the bug

It's not just offsets though, a size 12 city gets a huge boost from a Colliseum compared to a size 12 city in Civ V.

At size 16 Colisseum + Theatre gives 12 happy in the normal game they give 8. In a game with only 3 cities you get:
1 extra unhappiness for # cities
1 less happiness per luxury (usually not many given only 3 cities)

 

[Louis XXIV]

You will have more happiness than before with very large cities only. Some maths:

Before, Colosseum was +4 , theatre was +4 . To offset the Colosseum, the city needs size 8. At size 16 you can offset the theatre, too. However, luxuries in Dale's mod only yield +4 , which usually costs you something like 5-10 . Also, from number of cities is higher. At 3 cities, you get 7 instead of 6, at 4 cities 11 instead of 8, with a tendency to increase.

So no, even small empires don't typically get more if it weren't for the bug

Must have been the bug. This was day 2 of testing when it felt ridiculously easy. The tool tip still says bureaucracy 3, should it have been more? I think I had 6 or 7 cities, many in the 8 or 9 range and I only think I had two Colosseums and nothing else.

Anyway, leaving aside the bug, I think it plays as a more fun game. There's also genuine size difference between cities, which was nice.

 

[Dale]

Must have been the bug. This was day 2 of testing when it felt ridiculously easy. The tool tip still says bureaucracy 3, should it have been more? I think I had 6 or 7 cities, many in the 8 or 9 range and I only think I had two Colosseums and nothing else.

Anyway, leaving aside the bug, I think it plays as a more fun game. There's also genuine size difference between cities, which was nice.

To calculate bureaucracy, it's Factorial(numCities) / 2. So for 6 cities it's (1+2+3+4+5+6)/2

 

[alpaca]

It's not just offsets though, a size 12 city gets a huge boost from a Colliseum compared to a size 12 city in Civ V.

At size 16 Colisseum + Theatre gives 12 happy in the normal game they give 8. In a game with only 3 cities you get:
1 extra unhappiness for # cities
1 less happiness per luxury (usually not many given only 3 cities)

Colosseum and Theatre both yield +0.25*pop in happiness in the released version of the mod. So at 16 they break even. Size 16 is already huge with the high food costs and barely attainable in anything but the capital.

The thing is: let's say you play with 3 cities and get 4 luxuries. This gets you 16 happiness. Add 9 for difficulty level and we have 25. Unhappiness from number of cities is 6 and bureaucracy is 2, which means you have 17 happiness left. Then you can, with a theatre and colosseum in each city, grow to size 34. This is just 11 pop per city and hence I say in the mod small empires don't have more happiness.

To calculate bureaucracy, it's Factorial(numCities) / 2. So for 6 cities it's (1+2+3+4+5+6)/2

n! is 1*2*3*...*n, I wrote before that your formula yields n(n-1)/4 as bureaucracy. Factorial would be a lot worse, n! increases extremely quickly.

 

[Dale]

Hence why I said above "Space and Number" maths isn't my strong suit.

You're right about the formula though. In the next version it'll be /3.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Hence why I said above "Space and Number" maths isn't my strong suit.

You're right about the formula though. In the next version it'll be /3.

So, an empire with 25 cities will be worth 200 unhappiness before pop count.


My idea is to take the square root of N (number of cities) floored.
This way, this same empire only cost 5*25=125 unhappiness before pop count. Also, with one less city, it drops to 4*24=96. Personnally, I think those gaps (4, 9, 16, ...) will add more strategic depth wether to expand or not.

 

[Celevin]

Any non-linear number based on # of cities has to vary according to world size, otherwise it won't be balanced at all. Somehow integrate the same variable used for culture in your equation. To integrate it so it inflates at the same rate, divide your maintenance equation by the world size variable, then balance your equation around that value.