ICS: Love it or hate it?

[hclass]

IMO, the best way to control ICS (so no one will keep building only settler in every city) is to seduce players with something else like a great wonder race, a super project which allows one to wipe one opponent Civ with a single strike etc.

 

[ShuShu62]

1. It is a very ahistorical (and historically implausible) way to grow a civilization. Leaders of early civilizations didn't think "I have to litter the landscape with small, primitive cities to bring my empire forward".

That's how I remember my US history. A few hundred thousand settlers, landed on Plymouth rock. The next boatload founded NYC with about a million folks. They built Chicago and LA a couple hundred years later. We left the rest to the Native Americans.

Nobody actually lives in Montana to this date.

 

[Jharii]

That's how I remember my US history. A few hundred thousand settlers, landed on Plymouth rock. The next boatload founded NYC with about a million folks. They built Chicago and LA a couple hundred years later. We left the rest to the Native Americans.

Nobody actually lives in Montana to this date.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it..."

 

[lschnarch]

And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it..."

But the Lord didn't tell them: "And after the fourth child, thou shalt stop!"

 

[Jharii]

No fun, Poly. It was just a general joke, but yeah, probably would have been taken personally by some.

Deleted.

 

[polypheus]

That's how I remember my US history. A few hundred thousand settlers, landed on Plymouth rock. The next boatload founded NYC with about a million folks. They built Chicago and LA a couple hundred years later. We left the rest to the Native Americans.

Nobody actually lives in Montana to this date.

Well according to Civ5 ICS mechanics though, the US "should" have been founding a lot of junk cities in places like Montana, purposefully kept small as their combined "value" would be much greater than the value of a NYC. According to Civ5 mechanics, Montana as a whole is supposedly much more "powerful" and more economically potent than NYC.

 

[ShuShu62]

Well according to Civ5 ICS mechanics though, the US "should" have been founding a lot of junk cities in places like Montana, purposefully kept small as their combined "value" would be much greater than the value of a NYC. According to Civ5 mechanics, Montana as a whole is supposedly much more "powerful" and more economically potent than NYC.

I agree with you completely... but in ICS tearms Montana is one junk city, along with all the mountain and prairie states. No one state is more powerful than NYC, but combined, they far exceed NYC.

as for your stop at 4 comment... Think UTAH.

 

[Abegweit]

@ jdubbins : I don't know if it's more the lack of choice or more the lack of things to do / challenge that players don't like. You can decide to not ICS if you want, even if you know it's inferior. The AI will still be (very) bad in both cases .

@r_lolo : ok, I see. I was not aware of ICS back then. That's still not a good reason to favor ICS so much when the problem was (partly) solved in Civ4.

I don't think you still quite get it (my apologies if I'm wrong). ICS was dominant back in CIV2 days (although, like you, I personally wasn't aware of it at the time and didn't use it). The devs tried to get rid of it in Civ3 with changes to the corruption model. They failed because, as rolo said, all you had to do was hire a scientist or three. You had a core of good cities and a vast hinterland of scientist farms. Interestingly, ICS was far less attractive in Civ3 vanilla than it was in Conquests.

In Civ4 they tried to kill ICS again with the notion of city maintenance. This time they largely succeeded. A massive number of tiny cities is almost never good in Civ4. Perhaps you can make it work with Corps but that's a late-game technique which really doesn't come into play until the game is almost won.

With civ5, ICS has come back with a vengeance. It's far more effective than it was in Civ3, let alone Civ4. In fact, I would argue that it's even better than it was in Civ2. The optimal strategy is a couple of moderate sized cities with an endless spam of tiny ones.

They decided to change so many things in Civ5, but not ICS . I'm really not understanding the devs choices.

I'm quite sure that the devs believed that ICS was impossible in Civ5. After all, Shaffer's favourite way to play the game is with three cities. The ICS issue doesn't really reflect on their choices in themselves so much as their complete inability to understand the consequences of said choices.

 

[Zogar]

@abegweit : Interesting history of ICS

Are you sure they believed ICS was impossible in Civ5 ? I mean, it should have been one of the first things tested. And they shouldn't have made so many designs scaling with the number of city (they shouldn't have put any actually, they don't serve any purpose except favor ICS, especially if the design is around fewer cities). It's too huge a blunder to be believable. And yes, why nerf the big cities that much also, if not for a lot of small cities ? For the sake of 1upt ? No you just need to nerf unit cost, and leave the building cost the same. The 2 unhapiness per new city is here only to prevent REX, not ICS.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is the very large increase in culture cost with new cities, but that can be explained as a way to promote a different gameplay through a different victory (that's a bad decision imho, now that I think back on it, it doesn't make sense to allow a victory condition that goes against all the other mechanisms of the game, this was probably the "Shafer touch", who wanted to still be able to win his games ).

There's more to it in fact. They probably found that farms didn't serve any purpose, as well as roads, windmills and watermills ("less is more"), but they decided to keep them because a lot of fans would be disappointed, as they had already removed religion, espionage and civics. So the best way to keep roads for example was to provide just enough gold for the maintenance of the basic buildings in small cities. Railroad still buffs the production, but not in the capital, it would be too OP, since it is usually the biggest city. True, they decided to give so many units in industrial/modern era, and it goes against the idea of simplicity, but that can probably be explained because otherwise the tech tree would not give anything at all and they would have to cut modern era off : there would be nothing more to remove in Civ6. So they prepare the next civ : no useless tile improvement, no roads, no modern era, possibly no different tile yield, just the looks and military bonuses (too complicated to place new cities, even if ICS quite simplifies everything), fewer units, no cultural victory (was not logical), no diplomatic victory (they always were about money anyways, not diplomacy), no tech victory (because you don't have modern era anymore) and they introduce a new concept : the Dark Age, where you get heavy penalities in every domain, to further prevent the creation of large cities and account for a shorter tech tree, while increasing the historical immersion. Now you have made the perfect wargame, spanning over most of the real history. What do you think about this theory ?

 

[Psyringe]

After all, Shaffer's favourite way to play the game is with three cities.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

It's too huge a blunder to be believable.

I dunno, the sheer amount of questionable decisions made me wondering. Like switching to 1upt while at the same time penalizing road building to get rid of the road sprawl. Each of the two could be viable on its own, but combining them just makes no sense. In a design process that is both rushed and a bit confused, I can see ICS-favoring mechanics slipping through unnoticed as well.

 

[lschnarch]

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

From here:

One of our major goals with Civ 5 was to reduce the disparity between large and small empires. Each city in your empire costs happiness, so if you have 3 cities you'll be "paying" a lot less towards that. Since everything stacks over time, it gives a pretty decent advantage to the small guy. Couple that with some other bonuses (less expensive policies, less maintenance, etc.) and it keeps things pretty close. Generally, my preferred playstyle is to go with around 3 cities, and you can be quite strong that way - something I never really would have said about the earlier Civ games.

 

[aimlessgun]

From here:

One of our major goals with Civ 5 was to reduce the disparity between large and small empires. Each city in your empire costs happiness, so if you have 3 cities you'll be "paying" a lot less towards that. Since everything stacks over time, it gives a pretty decent advantage to the small guy. Couple that with some other bonuses (less expensive policies, less maintenance, etc.) and it keeps things pretty close. Generally, my preferred playstyle is to go with around 3 cities, and you can be quite strong that way - something I never really would have said about the earlier Civ games.

 

[Zogar]

It says a lot. Especially the 'since every stacks over time' which doesn't mean anything. I'm going to register on this forum to check his other posts .

Edit : ok, you forgot to quote the post just before his answer. The right answer was that unfortunately it's not possible to keep up in tech race, not that the game was balanced !

I realize that happiness is a function of both total population and number of cites, but I worry that may not be sufficient dis-economy to scale. Since science is now directly tied to population, how is it possible for a smaller empire to keep up with a larger one in the all important tech race? This is especially important for the peaceful Civ players. Now that wouldn't be me!

Not much else to find, the most important is probably this.

I think fun and balance are both definitely important, but it's much easier to start from something fun and then balance it than the other way around.

 

[John-SJ]

I play Civ games to have fun. I find ICS fun, and so, in Civ 5 I use it in some games, not in others. It depends what I want to accomplish.

My advice is, rather than trying to take ICS away from those who enjoy the play style, if you don't like it, don't build so many cities. It's not like anyone is forcing you.

 

[Zogar]

@ John-Sj : keeping up in tech with the AI at higher difficulties forces you to build a lot of cities to increase your pop. I know that difficulty settings is not really an argument for many people, but the game should be balanced at the highest difficulty (or next to highest, the highest being impossible), not in Prince.

 

[Lone Wolf]

There are certainly some exploits to which I would reply "don't like it, don't use it", but if an exploit deals with the economy of the game - something that is fundamental and is always present - then I have a hard time accepting such a rebuttal.

This is a Single person game. If you decide to use ICS you are in the same boat as one who uses God-mode. Don't complain if it makes your game boring or simple you brought it on you yourself.

The thing is, for some people, having to use consciously bad tactics to avoid exploits is frustrating. It's like conducting war without using promotions, or playing a game of chess without using your knights. Sub-optimal, limiting strategies are boring by the sheer fact of being suboptimal. The more player wants to get better at the game, the more he is bored and frustrated by employing blatantly bad strategies.

The more roleplaying a player is, the more he is frustrated by bad strategies.

 

[Rowain deWolf]

There are certainly some exploits to which I would reply "don't like it, don't use it", but if an exploit deals with the economy of the game - something that is fundamental and is always present - then I have a hard time accepting such a rebuttal.

The thing is, for some people, having to use consciously bad tactics to avoid exploits is frustrating. It's like conducting war without using promotions, or playing a game of chess without using your knights. Sub-optimal, limiting strategies are boring by the sheer fact of being suboptimal. The more player wants to get better at the game, the more he is bored and frustrated by employing blatantly bad strategies.

The more roleplaying a player is, the more he is frustrated by bad strategies.

You find avoiding ICS more boring than mindless cluttering the map with size4 cities?!? then why do want to get rid of ICS?
I find it quite easy and natural to settle cities only in usefull places so I have no problem to avoid ICS at all.
Would I be able to finish the game alot faster with ICS? Most likely but where would be the fun in that?

Edit&PS: ICS is in my eyes only a symptom for some of the economic-issues Civ5 has. I would far rather have the Devs working on those problems(which might make ICS harder or not) then trying to cure the symptom but not the cause.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I play Civ games to have fun. I find ICS fun, and so, in Civ 5 I use it in some games, not in others. It depends what I want to accomplish.

My advice is, rather than trying to take ICS away from those who enjoy the play style, if you don't like it, don't build so many cities. It's not like anyone is forcing you.

I don't agree with taking it away, but with making other strategies just as viable.

 

[Lone Wolf]

You find avoiding ICS more boring than mindless cluttering the map with size4 cities?!? then why do want to get rid of ICS?

More frustrating them boring. Deliberately having to play badly every game is frustrating - people who are not at the extreme roleplaying edge of roleplaying-vs-powergaming scale feel that frustration to some degree. For powergamers, having to play blatantly suboptimally every game is extremely frustrating. They like the feeling that they play to the best of their ability. If doing so it boring, they have the right to protest - it becomes a choice of two evils - boring and optimal or more interesting but suboptimal - while they prefer interesting and optimal. And in vanilla Civ, I'm more of a powergamer.

On the contrary, when playing the Civ4 FfH mod, which has a developed backstory, I'm more of a roleplayer, and I don't care that the best strategy for a particular civ doesn't fit the backstory, if the roleplaying strategy has some unique rewards for the player, too. People who adopt that attitude to Civ5 vanilla are less likely to have problems with ICS.

 

[ShuShu62]

I don't think you still quite get it (my apologies if I'm wrong). ICS was dominant back in CIV2 days (although, like you, I personally wasn't aware of it at the time and didn't use it). The devs tried to get rid of it in Civ3 with changes to the corruption model. They failed because, as rolo said, all you had to do was hire a scientist or three. You had a core of good cities and a vast hinterland of scientist farms. Interestingly, ICS was far less attractive in Civ3 vanilla than it was in Conquests.

ICS started with Civ 1. Civilization has always been about expansion. In Civ 1, Sid gave the option between Horizontal and vertical expansion. We love the King day allowed you to grow the population much faster through happiness than settler expansion, but the scoring has always favored more land.

Those who did the math realized each city got free production so the strategy was simple. Place a city on EVERY tile. I actually found WLTKD could still outperform 1 tile cities, and so large cities and spammed cities were farely well balanced. But Sid was pissed at the one city per tile abomination.

So he implemented minimum city spacing and 'Really, Really mad people', and considered the problem solved in a rare patch in those days. Civ 2 nerfed WLTKD growth and Civ 3 eliminated it. More small cities have outperformed fewer large cities ever since.

But hey, it is Civlization, size does matter.