ICS discussion

[Roxlimn]

Minor Annoyance:

Yes this game is largely about terraforming, which means any location can be productive.
A city built around hills and a city built on flatland can both be cities with high production. However the hill city can use mines, for free and available from the start while the flatlands city needs manufactories that cost energy and health and technology to make. Sid Meier once said something to the effect of the map being as important a character in the game as the other players. They way you're talking the map should be irrelevant. Just three types of tiles; water, land, and impassible.

I'm specifically referring to KrikkitTwo's annoyance that snow tiles are usable. Clearly, there's a fairly large difference in the game between a snow tile and a Titanium tile, and their potential usages differ for that reason.

Furthermore, I recall you making the opposite argument when it suited your opinion. When people were saying trade routes were never this big a factor in previous games, your response was they are now and it's not changing back. But now the Civ 5 idea of having fewer, bigger cities is something we should do away with. The design of previous games is law when it suits you and arbitrary when it doesn't. If you want to go back the way things were before civ 5 I've been told there is a good Planetfall mod for Civ 4.

I actually don't understand what you said here. In both those cases, I'm arguing for CivBE to be different from Civ5. I don't think the game ought to be like Civ4. I'm just saying that it's not like that hasn't been done before, and that it has never been a problem. Civ5 is unique in its Tall vs. Wide dynamic, just as Civ4 was unique in its own ways. I'm pointing out that taking on the attributes of other games isn't something we ought to be smashing into a new game, especially when it's already different in that respect.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm not annoyed that snow tiles are usable.
I'm annoyed that
1. Type of tile is irrelevant
Because
2. The city is the only tile improvement really worth building

If they really want that type of ICS
1. Grass/plain/desert/tundra/snow should all be one terrain type...currently different terrain base yields is a wasted mechanic
2. Reduce min distance between cities to 1, and weaken their ranged combat strength significantly
-because # of cities is far more important than # of tiles.
They can then decrease map sizes and pop growth/tile aquisition rates.

Then it might actually be interesting.. and actually different from civ 5
Probably change it so that only resource tiles have non0 yield. Just add more yield boosting buildings (maybe allow some buildings to have muliple copies)

 

[Roxlimn]

I'm not annoyed that snow tiles are usable.
I'm annoyed that
1. Type of tile is irrelevant
Because
2. The city is the only tile improvement really worth building

Your first assertion is betrayed by your reluctance to accept my challenge. You changed it. So. Let's do that again.

You can build and improve your Capital, but you cannot improve other cities. Build them preferentially on bad tiles. Win in 146 turns. On Sputnik.

 

[Gort]

Gort:

Going to 10 cities immediately isn't ICS. That's REX. Rapid EXpansion. There's a difference between those two things.

Yes it is. As long as you then continue to make more cities. ICS and REX pretty much always go hand in hand.

I was just making the point that in Civ 4 having ten cities in the early game dooms your economy, while in BE it really doesn't. It's actually optimal play to land-grab as hard as you possibly can, and sort out health later if you feel like it.

Your first assertion is betrayed by your reluctance to accept my challenge. You changed it. So. Let's do that again.

You can build and improve your Capital, but you cannot improve other cities. Build them preferentially on bad tiles. Win in 146 turns. On Sputnik.

Beginning to see why you have that signature.

 

[Anomandaris]

Beginning to see why you have that signature.

Much better.

 

[Roxlimn]

Gort:

Yes it is. As long as you then continue to make more cities. ICS and REX pretty much always go hand in hand.

I was just making the point that in Civ 4 having ten cities in the early game dooms your economy, while in BE it really doesn't. It's actually optimal play to land-grab as hard as you possibly can, and sort out health later if you feel like it.

The break point is -20 Health in CivBE. Below that and you're getting serious Growth issues. Prosperity appears to be geared to allow UREX - Unlimited REX. And no, that's not ICS. ICS is super-dense packing with tile harvest in mind. It doesn't actually have to be especially fast - it's just kind of fast because it's efficient. You can (and often did) slow-roll to a win banking on the tile harvest curve. Speed is not especially necessary.

In REX, it's all about hard speed land-grabbing. That's what we're getting in CivBE right now - unlimited REXing care of Prosperity Tree. Once again, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It's not like you're forced to do it. You can win easily without.

Beginning to see why you have that signature.

It's there for a reason. Civ discussion for mechanics, IMO, isn't really a place for pointless exaggeration and histrionics. If you're going to strongly assert that tiles are irrelevant, I'll expect you to demonstrate that literally. If you do, I'll change my mind. If not, you were wrong. Simple.

 

[Gort]

It's there for a reason. Civ discussion for mechanics, IMO, isn't really a place for pointless exaggeration and histrionics. If you're going to strongly assert that tiles are irrelevant, I'll expect you to demonstrate that literally. If you do, I'll change my mind. If not, you were wrong. Simple.

I think it was the arrogance inherent in expecting others to do work to disprove things that only exist in your own head.

You want to prove something, do your own homework. You seem quite weak when it comes to facts on this own game, but extremely prolific when it comes to defending it.

 

[Roxlimn]

Gort:

If you'll review this thread, you'll find that KrikkitTwo is the one making the assertion that tiles are irrelevant. So I'm asking for why. I, myself, have already given reasons for why not. At the very least, KrikkitTwo has rolled that back to "Tiles are irrelevant except in the Capital." In general, universal assertions of that nature are ill-conceived, ill-kept, and worse than useless. The facts are almost always more complicated.

EDIT: By the by, I'm not defending the game. If that's what you're reading, you're reading it wrong.

 

[player1 fanatic]

In my experience while getting good trade diverential is great for receieving city, on average two cities with good local food and production, and small food/prod will fare better. Plus all those extra routes can be used for local or global trade elsewhere.

Of course sure if you only care abaut food/prod in receieving city then yes, that one city will be better faring with weak trading partner.

But this is not game about having few good cities only. And after some point growth of that mega city will not be worth and huge production will start to be wasted because there is nothing to build.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

In my experience while getting good trade diverential is great for receieving city, on average two cities with good local food and production, and small food/prod will fare better. Plus all those extra routes can be used for local or global trade elsewhere.

Of course sure if you only care abaut food/prod in receieving city then yes, that one city will be better faring with weak trading partner.

But this is not game about having few good cities only. And after some point growth of that mega city will not be worth and huge production will start to be wasted because there is nothing to build.

The build growth, science etc options are Hugh better in this than in civ5. And they affect the return of trade routes.