boehj
runnin' tings
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2010
- Messages
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Yeh, it's a very handy feature that I use a lot.
ICS? Icey No!
- Thread starter PieceOfMind
- Start date
Yeh, it's a very handy feature that I use a lot.
Bandobras Took
Emperor
For dealing with population unhappiness, perhaps mod the Flat Happiness Wonders (Hanging Gardens, etc.) to have an effect similar to the Piety Social Policy that helps with population unhappiness. There are many per city happiness things that counter city unhappiness, but precious few to mitigate population unhappiness. Percentage-based would favor larger cities and give them a shot in the arm.
Txurce
Deity
I had the same thought while reading this thread. Throw in Thal's CS mod as well, which I believe cut the maritime fish flow down to 66%. It seems to me that much of what he has done in total already combats ICS, and that what POM is essentially trying to do works well with the Balance mods.
My mod has a pretty drastic way of reducing ICS, but it works like a charm.
A)Everyone has India's trait
B)Maritimes nerfed to near oblivion
C)Happiness buildings cost more the more cities you have.
D)Growth rate exponent elimnated
Results in medium sized empires with high populations
A)Everyone has India's trait
B)Maritimes nerfed to near oblivion
C)Happiness buildings cost more the more cities you have.
D)Growth rate exponent elimnated
Results in medium sized empires with high populations
It's related to how you can increase the cost of each national wonder with each additional city. Basically there's a mod tag that specifies a constant hammer amount that you increase the cost by for each additional city.
It's a good idea to go with IMO, and one I did think of at one point. I've a feeling it was introduced in one of the latest patches and wasn't in at release, but I'm not sure.
It's a good idea to go with IMO, and one I did think of at one point. I've a feeling it was introduced in one of the latest patches and wasn't in at release, but I'm not sure.
I've been doing some thinking, and I've come to the conclusion that weakening the happiness buildings doesn't change much at all. I'm worried it's punishing smaller empires nearly as much.
I've got a somewhat radical idea in mind. It won't fix the entire problem and isn't entirely thought out, but I think it will make some headway. I want to discuss it in detail here. The problem isn't just that people want to place as many cities as possible, the problem is also that people would rather have 2 cities on the same lot of land rather than 1 big one. This is because of doubling of happiness buildings.
What if we:
- Remove the 3 main happiness buildings entirely.
- Implement more "stables-like" buildings. Build them around wheat, cow, fish, sheep, and other underutilized resources. I'm picturing a very simple implementation in order to not unbalance the entire game: Put 3 new buildings where the 3 previous happiness buildings were, and make them "+1 happiness per food resource". We can tweak it after that.
This will mean 1 big city and 2 small cities encompassing the same resources and raw culture size will have the same happiness output. It also means that land and resources are more important than just plopping down cities even if they're in the middle of a desert. This won't solve ICS, but at least it makes players want to nab good land.
I've got some ideas that this will work well in tandem with, but I wanted to see what people thought about this first.
I've got a somewhat radical idea in mind. It won't fix the entire problem and isn't entirely thought out, but I think it will make some headway. I want to discuss it in detail here. The problem isn't just that people want to place as many cities as possible, the problem is also that people would rather have 2 cities on the same lot of land rather than 1 big one. This is because of doubling of happiness buildings.
What if we:
- Remove the 3 main happiness buildings entirely.
- Implement more "stables-like" buildings. Build them around wheat, cow, fish, sheep, and other underutilized resources. I'm picturing a very simple implementation in order to not unbalance the entire game: Put 3 new buildings where the 3 previous happiness buildings were, and make them "+1 happiness per food resource". We can tweak it after that.
This will mean 1 big city and 2 small cities encompassing the same resources and raw culture size will have the same happiness output. It also means that land and resources are more important than just plopping down cities even if they're in the middle of a desert. This won't solve ICS, but at least it makes players want to nab good land.
I've got some ideas that this will work well in tandem with, but I wanted to see what people thought about this first.
Yeah, it's a balance. The situation is bad when I want to build ice cities though.
We need something inbetween, and I feel like we're off centre. I would still build resource-less cities with this change, I just would acknowledge that I can't use them to make me happiness.
We need something inbetween, and I feel like we're off centre. I would still build resource-less cities with this change, I just would acknowledge that I can't use them to make me happiness.
Hmm.. well what I did with the happiness buildings costing more was made the initial one cheaper (say 90 I think) and then every city would increase it by 15. So if you had 5 cities, colosseums would cost 165. So small empires are just fine. Although admittedly it does get silly when you have 40 cities through conquering and your colosseums cost 690 hammers. But I mean by then you've won the game right?
I've looked into the food requirement for growth. I graphed both the current function, and the one suggested for v2. (Current function is 15+6n+n^1.8, v2's is 15+7n+n^1.2, where n is the number of cities - 1).
Alongside I've created a function of 15+7n+n^1.6. Below is all 3 graphed up to cities of size 20. I'm worried that the v2 function might be a bit too close to linear. Thoughts?
Alongside I've created a function of 15+7n+n^1.6. Below is all 3 graphed up to cities of size 20. I'm worried that the v2 function might be a bit too close to linear. Thoughts?
Attachments
What's wrong with linear? For the record, that is essentially how civ4 did it. Actually my aim with changing the formula was to make it much more linear, but not too different from the current one for cities less than about size 5.
Since you graphed to size 20, you can't see much of the detail at the smaller city sizes. Graph to just size 5 and you'll see the difference (though it's easier to just read from a table than a graph).
Since you graphed to size 20, you can't see much of the detail at the smaller city sizes. Graph to just size 5 and you'll see the difference (though it's easier to just read from a table than a graph).
Well if it's linear, we have the system like Civ4. Cities without a granary (Civ4 granary, ie Civ5 hospital) grow fairly steadily, cities with a granary grow at double that rate.
If it's an exponential function, we have the following. Cities will grow to a point when the exponential causes around double the food required (this happens at size 8 - you can see this by graphing the marginal change, this then doubles again at around size 25).
I haven't factored in the actual food produced yet. We know that the excess food starts out high, then comes down as the city works less and less food tiles. If the excess food function was f(x) where x was the number of cities, and the food required was g(x), then the time till growth would be f(x)/g(x) for each city size. I'm probably just geeking out right now, but I guess the big question is how do we want that (absurdly hard to graph f(x)/g(x) function) to look? Should it increase to a point where hospitals and surplus food bonus percentages are needed to get it back to "normal growth levels", or should those percent bonuses actually double your growth?
Note: This isn't a case *for* exponential food requirements, but just detailing the difference. I suppose that the big reason that we don't want big cities hard to achieve is that a city of population x+y isn't really better than a city of population x and a city of population y. If it was (through exponential trade bonus income, percent bonuses, higher maintenance costs, and more unhappiness for the 2 cities), then exponential food requirement would probably be warranted.
If it's an exponential function, we have the following. Cities will grow to a point when the exponential causes around double the food required (this happens at size 8 - you can see this by graphing the marginal change, this then doubles again at around size 25).
I haven't factored in the actual food produced yet. We know that the excess food starts out high, then comes down as the city works less and less food tiles. If the excess food function was f(x) where x was the number of cities, and the food required was g(x), then the time till growth would be f(x)/g(x) for each city size. I'm probably just geeking out right now, but I guess the big question is how do we want that (absurdly hard to graph f(x)/g(x) function) to look? Should it increase to a point where hospitals and surplus food bonus percentages are needed to get it back to "normal growth levels", or should those percent bonuses actually double your growth?
Note: This isn't a case *for* exponential food requirements, but just detailing the difference. I suppose that the big reason that we don't want big cities hard to achieve is that a city of population x+y isn't really better than a city of population x and a city of population y. If it was (through exponential trade bonus income, percent bonuses, higher maintenance costs, and more unhappiness for the 2 cities), then exponential food requirement would probably be warranted.
IMO growth can never be high enough if you're trying to eliminate ICS. The only problem with high populations I've found is high gold trade routes, so the higher the growth, the more you have to lower route gold. Btw, PoMind already lowered hospital effectiveness I think
Well all we're modifying is how long till out city grows, not its maximum size or anything else. Let's set it obscenely high. Let's say 0 food required: our city is as big as (food output) - 2*(city population) the moment it's built. What will happen? What will break completely?IMO growth can never be high enough if you're trying to eliminate ICS. The only problem with high populations I've found is high gold trade routes, so the higher the growth, the more you have to lower route gold. Btw, PoMind already lowered hospital effectiveness I think
