ICS still works (trading post spamming too)

BubbaYeti

Warlord
Joined
Nov 18, 2005
Messages
130
First post-patch game...played so far until 1000AD.

ICS and trading post spamming are alive and well. Maritimes still give plenty enough food that you can ignore farms and spam trading posts everywhere. There's still enough food and happiness resources to support a lot of cities. My pace of expansion may not be quite what it was, but it's not far off. Circuses and coliseums still work because most of my cities aren't allowed to grow over pop 6 or so. Lack of specialists in libraries don't seem to be hurting my research any, maybe the beaker carry over is making a big difference.

Way ahead of AI civs in technology. Way ahead in pop and land area. Making about 100 gold a turn.:trophy:
 
The entire concept of the Maritime city states is broken. It needs to provide the food bonus only in the capital. You cannot salvage a bonus which scales with empire size when the other two do not.
 
Nerf, nerf, nerf. Maybe the cultural CSs need to give +1 culture/city instead, and the military CSs +1hammer/city during unit construction.
 
Sure, if they prefer to improve the other types of city states that would work too. But it's dumb to think that you can balance a bonus which scales with empire size with bonuses which do not. Surely they have people who understand this?
 
The entire concept of the Maritime city states is broke

Bingo...except maybe we should say "the entire concept of all three types of city states is broken". I still think the players should benefit from being allied with city states by getting science/culture/gold/units as if they were puppet cities (I made this suggestion right after the intial game release).
 
Bingo...except maybe we should say "the entire concept of all three types of city states is broken". I still think the players should benefit from being allied with city states by getting science/culture/gold/units as if they were puppet cities (I made this suggestion right after the intial game release).

Then why pay? Just conquer and puppet them. Allying is much more expensive, and should have commensurate benefits.
 
Then why pay? Just conquer and puppet them.

Because puppet cities still cost you happiness and maintenance. In my proposal, you don't pay maintenance for city state buildings/units, nor does the city count against your happiness tally.

An additional benefit is that you don't get other city states or civs upset at you for warmongering.
 
You can ICS without maritime city states, so nerfing them down to nothing won't fix this. On the other hand, there are many possible fixes for ICS (see mods forum or just consider civ4's basic fix) that are fairly simple, and prevent ICS while retaining the current maritime mechanism. It doesn't seem like ICS prevention was a priority in this patch.
 
Oh, I agree that there are plenty of ways to address ICS. But the Maritime Problem offends my sensibilities on a personal level. Sid Meier's name is on this freaking thing and they don't have any game designers who understand that you can't balance one bonus which scales with empire size with two other bonuses which do not scale with empire size? This should be in game design 101.
 
Sid Meier's name is on this freaking thing and they don't have any game designers who understand that you can't balance one bonus which scales with empire size with two other bonuses which do not scale with empire size? This should be in game design 101.
Seems really elementary. I don't understand what's going on at Firaxis. As if no intelligent thinking takes place, there.
 
This patch wasn't supposed to kill ICS... so it shouldn't at all be a surprise that it still works. It just wanted to shift the balance a little bit so that empire with fewer but larger cities also has some perks comparatively too.

And sure, your science rate might not be much less compared to pre-patch with ICS... as you say, perhaps the beaker overflow is helping a lot... but that just means that if you were a "builder" the whole time (pre- and post-patch), you should be seeing your science improving dramatically then. Point is, the changes were about shifting the scales a little, not killing anything or making anything unviable. (I mean, really, if they... or any modders... wanted to KILL ics outright, they could do it.)

Regarding MCS: ... yeah, that's never going to be satisfiably balanced with the mechanic it has now. Never.
 
you can't balance one bonus which scales with empire size with two other bonuses which do not scale with empire size? This should be in game design 101.

I'll just point out that in Civ4, the benefit of luxury resources scaled with empire size (1 happy citizen x number of cities) unlike civ5 (where luxury resource benefit is finite). But civ4 had another mechanism to prevent ICS.

My point is only that this sort of thing is complicated with a lot of parts. Civ4 had a lot of this sort of nonsense too (although it did stop ICS).
 
Stop applying reason and rationality into this thread TheBlackHole...its supposed to be a rant thread! :)
 
Oh, I agree that there are plenty of ways to address ICS. But the Maritime Problem offends my sensibilities on a personal level. Sid Meier's name is on this freaking thing and they don't have any game designers who understand that you can't balance one bonus which scales with empire size with two other bonuses which do not scale with empire size? This should be in game design 101.

There's no need to balance them, because they aren't in competition with each other. You have the "maritime CS" game mechanic and you have the "cultural/military CS" game mechanic. There's no more need to balance them to each other than there is to balance any other two completely unrelated game mechanics.
 
I'll just point out that in Civ4, the benefit of luxury resources scaled with empire size (1 happy citizen x number of cities) unlike civ5 (where luxury resource benefit is finite). But civ4 had another mechanism to prevent ICS.

My point is only that this sort of thing is complicated with a lot of parts. Civ4 had a lot of this sort of nonsense too (although it did stop ICS).
You are right. I am a huge fan of Civ IV, but the way resources work there bothers me. A single iron ore deposit cannot sustain the production of all iron-requiring units. And a single source of crude oil can't be enough to support the production of all the tanks in your empire. Etc. This is wrong, of course.
 
Just limit the amount of food a MCS provides to one city. Problem solved.

No. Problem not solved. I can ICS just fine without befriending any maritime city states. So how is the above going to solve ICS? (I'm assuming that ICS is the "problem" you are talking about.)

Edit: Just having some fun. Not trying to start a fight here.
 
Stop applying reason and rationality into this thread TheBlackHole...its supposed to be a rant thread! :)
So you mean, everyone else who posted in this thread is unreasonable, irrational and ranting? Is that what you are seeing?
 
No. Problem not solved. I can ICS just fine without befriending any maritime city states. So how is the above going to solve ICS? (I'm assuming that ICS is the "problem" you are talking about.)

Edit: Just having some fun. Not trying to start a fight here.

I did not say the ICS problem is solved. I didn't mean that. I meant that the illogic limitless food supply from one MCS would be solved. Not more, not less. It was a reply to TheBlackHoles assertion that "Regarding MCS: ... yeah, that's never going to be satisfiably balanced with the mechanic it has now. Never."
 
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