Limits to expansion?

[Ryika]

Well the difference isn't local v. global, but temporary v. permanent.

and even a model of no costs for a city besides settler cost would have the problem of not paying back... there would be no benefit to building a 100 cost settler as opposed to converting that production to faith/culture/gold/science/units to win on the last 10 turns ( a new city is not going to get 10 production per turn).

Yes, we're still talking about the same thing. Like I said, I meant global in the sense of a "global modifier" (calling it "permanent modifier" would probably have skipped this confusion), not in the sense of "If all Cities hat to pay some production then everything would be better!".

Of course in ANY system there comes the point where a city does no longer pay for itself, the reason I bring up the fact that it's a global modifier is that it's the factor that makes it so cities reach that point very early. If it were only for the production require to produce the settler with no other penalty, then funding cities would stay viable until much later in the game, because you're only lagging behind for the production once, but not get a permanent modifier for the rest of the game.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

If you don't limit expansion, you get REX all over the everywhere. If you limit expansion, you end up with pockets and expanses of unsettled land in 1900 A.D.

Can't have both except with CIV's maintenance system. It's the only middleground - make settling an investment.

The stability system proposed in this thread (#68) adds up to the happiness system of Civ V. Cost of governance are the city count penalties, stability is happiness. You can play wide, all you have to do is build those Colosseums if you want to grow your core. The downfall must be in part how rare the stabilizers are (since they are 1-per-city buildings very far apart on the tech tree), in addition to the natural strength of growing higher.

This second condition is caused by the flatness of terrain benefits, I'm thinking the fact that improvements and bonus resources all just add 1 of something. So there's no difference adding 1 pop in one location versus seizing another location; if terrain were actually rich, you'd want that land to be yours. Instead the riches of land are luxury resources, which are just an alternative to Bread and Circuses.

It's all very messed up.

 

[Felis Renidens]

Happiness of CiV will not be. Also, we have to take into account that most buildings will require a specialized district. I think the middle point is simple - whatever penalty you have, be it gold, science, happiness, culture or whatever has to be surmountable - at least in the area the city specializes in.

Actually with specialization (because of districts), land appeal and such - All they need is to make the penalty small enough that a city in a good location is always a good idea (if it costs you science and gives culture - well, it's a different research tree so it is supposed to balance) and you might have a city or two for resources only.

If they manage to balance it and make it a race for good locations rather than blind expansion or just having 4 cities - I think it will be fine. I think that's what they want. What they will achieve, I don't know.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I was surprised no one discussed Birdjaguars thoughts here - I agree to some of them.

I love this idea. Like a zone of domination empirewise... Makes the game vivid and evolving.
It shouldn't be tight solely on the capital either which would be a step back IMO. Maybe you could have cards or buildings dividing Empire-Zone of domination (EZOD) hereby reducing radius around each EZOD-center if needed balancewise...

My whole idea is to create strategic decision making situations for the player. If you want a wide empire then you need to move tech and civics along these paths and if you want small and tall, you can head this direction. A chiefdom probably shouldn't be capable of going very wide. Whereas a despotic kingdom with some expertise in taxation or governance should be wide capable. By adding distance or area limits to wideness and have those limits based on civics & tech you can control the spread of empire without too many penalties and those that are imposed could be eased or erased by improving one's civics or tech. A new city that is far away my not be productive unless you change how you govern and what you know. Globe spanning empires then don't become feasible until the higher levels of civics and tech are met. As I think about it, area is probably better than distance as a measure.

I suppose this is hard to implement and still make it easily accessible for the players. But it stimulates the Rhye's and Fall feeling. I would leave out the migration part and just stop the growth though. Giving the player growth than taking it back again is like a too harsh punishment. You could stay with the simpler EZOD idea and have the same impact on the game development.

The idea is that outlying cities continue to grow, but just pass the excess population on to the major cites rather than just stop growing. This gives them value as an incremental producer of population growth.

Again, the balance is what it's all about. I'd assume it would take a lot of gametime to "reconstruct your major centers" with upgrade-buildings, taking away the opportunity to build something new, which is always more entertaining then reconstructing.
I'd guess because of population and the Civ-mantra of "building an empire to stand the test of time" Rome won't ever "deteriorate" and gets successed by Lecce

If they manage to implement THIS I'll happily play it!

The idea is that in large empires the major centers of wealth, knowledge, production etc. change over time. In the US as the country grew the major cities changed and are changing even today. The East Coast and mid west have been eclipsed by the west and south. Chicago was our 2nd city for many years; now that distinction belongs to LA. I'm looking for a way to simulate that kind of change. Rome has been important for 2000 years, but not always a leading city for production, science, culture and government. It's old buildings now produce tourism rather than what's important to modern life. I'd like to be able to designate newer cities as centers of commerce and culture and undesignate older cities that are now badly placed. such designation would grant bonuses in several areas betting such status. the oldest buildings in former major centers would transition to tourism rather than their previous value. The temple built 1000 years ago would fade in religious value and to recapture that perhaps a church would be built. The old temple would add to tourism.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The difference between our viewpoints is that I want to avoid %-penalties. At least I think it is?

No, I was talking about early expansion limits in general. For example, I named increasing settler cost as one of the limiters.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I like Pandora first contact's system:

1. Each population produce population growth
2. Growth cost of a population increase so that population grow at a constant rate
3. Population growth are splitted between cities if you have multiple. The happiest cities get most growth
4. Cities give no penalties but the colonist who found them are expensive.
5. Cities are founded to get access to good tiles and also because each city can only support a limited amount of population before unhappines start to rise

I think a similar system could work in civilization. We know that each city can only support a limited amount of population. Excess food could be turned into growth points which are then split amongst all your cities, focusing on the happiest cities and cost to grow a population would depend on your global population. Founding new cities would be to get access to more good tiles and in the long term get access to more tiles but would have the same problems as in Pandora.

 

[historix69]

A solution for the "empty map problem" if expansion is severely limited

In a Civ game there usually is a fixed number of Civs and CS from start. The Civs will expand, found new cities as long as expansion is profitable.
In earlier versions of Civ, limiting elements for expansion were
- Distance to Capital (Corruption)
- Number of Cities (Bureaucracy)
- Profitability of additional cites (Food, Resources versus Upkeep)
- Small Map or small landsize

In general, playing on a small map is a good way to limit expansion without using penalties.

If on a huge or giant map an increasing number of civs get eliminated from the game, a penalty based on number of cities or distance to capital might lead to players razing conquered cities and deserting large parts of the map to keep their empires in a profitable state. (If the number of cities penalty would also be based on the decreasing number of active civs, they would have to abandon some of their own core cities, too. )

To avoid the empty map problem, the devs might add (dozens) of (dynamically generated) additional individual neutral minor civs (similar to CS), (maybe even replacing the barbarians), settling between the normal civs and so limiting expansion. (Think of Switzerland) The map would be more quickly covered with cities. Early conquest of neutral cities would be countered by strong selfdefence forces and maybe would only be possible for certain civs with respective UUs. Trade instead would be profitable.
(Limited) Expansion of the major civs would later happen on cost of the minor civs, either via influence or conquest. If a major civ is defeated and its cities are destroyed, minor nations may fill the area instead of leaving it deserted. Minor civs would be limited to maybe 4 cities and would not compete for victory.
Example : If the player starts on a 100-city-map and in the end there are only 2 major empires of 10 cities left, the remaining space might be filled by 20 small nations a 4 cities.

(Note : Throughout the game empty areas would be settled by new dynamically generated minor civs, similar to barbs and barb camps generated in empty map regions.)

With the minor civs available, you may limit the size of an empire to any number of cities without risking the map to stay or become empty.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Speaking in terms of the whole series, Civ V was the exception to the rule with its 4-city 'empires'. Why not simply make a new series for those who prefer small-scale play, and let the rest of us have our huge empires? If I can't found 80 cities in Civ VI, I will mod the game to allow it dammit.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Speaking in terms of the whole series, Civ V was the exception to the rule with its 4-city 'empires'. Why not simply make a new series for those who prefer small-scale play, and let the rest of us have our huge empires? If I can't found 80 cities in Civ VI, I will mod the game to allow it dammit.

You could found 80 cities in CivV (at least on a large/huge map). It wasn't ideal, but you could do it. (And have your be net positive and your science moving at an OK pace)

 

[stiiknafuulia]

You could found 80 cities in CivV (at least on a large/huge map). It wasn't ideal, but you could do it. (And have your be net positive and your science moving at an OK pace)

Key part bolded. In strategy games, optimal + fun should always coincide. Or rather, that should be the aim (as it can't always be achieved). For me the major bummer was too many cities killing your rate of policy acquisition. But even without that, the science penalty meant that acquiring new cities apart from well-developed enemy capitals became actively detrimental at some point (during the renaissance or industrial age probably; I never crunched the numbers, although someone probably did).

Imo, a new city should always be beneficial, up until the very last turn. The benefit should just get smaller and smaller, so that only the most obsessive bean-counters would bother with founding marginal cities after the mid-game. More than anything, it can be considered a fitting punishment for that mentality!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Key part bolded. In strategy games, optimal + fun should always coincide. Or rather, that should be the aim (as it can't always be achieved). For me the major bummer was too many cities killing your rate of policy acquisition. But even without that, the science penalty meant that acquiring new cities apart from well-developed enemy capitals became actively detrimental at some point (during the renaissance or industrial age probably; I never crunched the numbers, although someone probably did).

Imo, a new city should always be beneficial, up until the very last turn. The benefit should just get smaller and smaller, so that only the most obsessive bean-counters would bother with founding marginal cities after the mid-game. More than anything, it can be considered a fitting punishment for that mentality!

I disagree.. in a sense

A new city should always be useful.. for Something
However, it should always be a cost .. for Something else

Now a fully developed city should also always be useful.. and it generally was (they toned down the policy cost increase in BNW particularly on larger maps)

Unless you had ~260 culture from Great Works/Wonders/CS/Specialists, then a City with all the Cultural buildings+liberty+Honor garrison (~13 culture output) would not hurt your average policy rate
(This is assuming Liberty opener, Representation, Warrior caste... Other policies/religious beliefs can make that better or worse)

Same applies with Happiness and Science, a Maximally developed city was always a net positive with the right policies (Ideology beliefs basically eliminate the per city happiness problem by giving a large amount of per city local happiness, that can overflow into global happiness through Meritocracy/Aristocracy/Forbidden Palace/Difficulty level)
So once your city was fully developed it would help you.. However, it could take a Long time to get fully developed.


In the late game, the problem is the Time for it to pay back... so getting a fully developed city in a peace deal often works (although there is the resistance time).
The other thing stopping you from founding 80+ cities (outside of ICS) is simple space, each city maximally developed uses a lot of space.

So if you want 80+ cities a lot of them are best conquered.. because a conquered city will pay back faster than one razed and founded.. and they introduced puppets to help with the biggest problem you mentioned social policy cost.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

A new city should always be useful.. for Something
However, it should always be a cost .. for Something else

I agree. If one choice is more or less do everything the other choice do but better then there is no choice.

 

[m15a]

Speaking in terms of the whole series, Civ V was the exception to the rule with its 4-city 'empires'. Why not simply make a new series for those who prefer small-scale play, and let the rest of us have our huge empires? If I can't found 80 cities in Civ VI, I will mod the game to allow it dammit.

A different series should not be necessary. I played Civ 4 games with few cities settled per civ as well. I just played with a map that was very cramped (like a smallish Europe TSL). If Civ VI works well with large empires on a large map, it could easily work well with small empires on a small map.

And making a new game isn't simple anyway. A mod or scenario is much easier to make.

 

[Felis Renidens]

well, I got to space in Civ 1 games with 3 cities. And I conquered the world on 5.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

@KrikkitTwo: I never finished that many games in Civ V, since I got turned off by the bad balance that it had initially. So I've only gotten into ideologies a few times (I also have a habit of quitting each game when I start to dominate and starting a new one, as it's far more interesting than mopping up what is a 99 % sure win). I've heard it said before that ideologies are op and with the right policies, sprawling empires become possible. But imo they come way too late to actually matter in most games. If their benefits were divided between the various policy trees starting from the early Middle Age (when you're most hurting for happiness), Civ V would be a far better game imo (you could delete the Rationalism tree while you're at it, to make the mid-late game have actual policy choices...).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

@KrikkitTwo: I never finished that many games in Civ V, since I got turned off by the bad balance that it had initially. So I've only gotten into ideologies a few times (I also have a habit of quitting each game when I start to dominate and starting a new one, as it's far more interesting than mopping up what is a 99 % sure win). I've heard it said before that ideologies are op and with the right policies, sprawling empires become possible. But imo they come way too late to actually matter in most games. If their benefits were divided between the various policy trees starting from the early Middle Age (when you're most hurting for happiness), Civ V would be a far better game imo (you could delete the Rationalism tree while you're at it, to make the mid-late game have actual policy choices...).

True... the problem is generally that liberty is not very good at what it does...Middle Ages you can play a sprawling coastal empire with exploration and religion

Per city happy
Meritocracy 1+5%
Exploration 2 (Harbor+lighthouse)
Religion...as much as 5, but 2/3 fairly easily
Colluseum..2

So that's 7 or 8, but it does require some setup.

I think it was intentional though to shove it to the end of the tree, part of what happiness was meant to stop was snowballing...get more cities by conquest-> more of everything->easier to get more cities by conquest.. and its OK for snowballing to start happening in the later part of the game.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

The problem is, though, that it's fun to snowball. It gives a feeling of power and control; of success if I had to boil it down to one word. In Civ IV, it was just about possible to conquer your own continent (unless it was very big), with only a few stops to consolidate, or none if you accepted going deep into the red and crawling out by the skin of your teeth. It gave me such a rush to do that! To watch a thousand cottages bloom from the blood of my enemies... After that the coast was usually clear (if not playing on Deity), as the AIs generally could no longer compete with you... But that was a problem with the AI, not with the acts of the human player. They should've snowballed as well, and then you'd have a snow-fight on your hands.

Sparing the fun until the end of the party is terrible design, as most of the guests will already have left by then. As for using the Exploration tree for happiness, at the point where you could do that, you're starting to invest into Rationalism, and the diversion is typically not worth it (although for Naval conquest games you might make en exception). It doesn't help that the tree is truly terrible other than for the happiness benefits. The social policy trees have terrible balance in general in the default game; I wonder why they were never properly balanced. I hope that they'll finally learn their lesson and not have any (or very few and expensive) science-enhancing national wonders and policies in Civ VI, as those always become the 'must have' things that dictate the course of the whole game (if you want to play optimally, that is -- and you really should, since it's a strategy game after all).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The problem is, though, that it's fun to snowball. It gives a feeling of power and control; of success if I had to boil it down to one word. In Civ IV, it was just about possible to conquer your own continent (unless it was very big), with only a few stops to consolidate, or none if you accepted going deep into the red and crawling out by the skin of your teeth. It gave me such a rush to do that! To watch a thousand cottages bloom from the blood of my enemies... After that the coast was usually clear (if not playing on Deity), as the AIs generally could no longer compete with you... But that was a problem with the AI, not with the acts of the human player. They should've snowballed as well, and then you'd have a snow-fight on your hands.

Sparing the fun until the end of the party is terrible design, as most of the guests will already have left by then. As for using the Exploration tree for happiness, at the point where you could do that, you're starting to invest into Rationalism, and the diversion is typically not worth it (although for Naval conquest games you might make en exception). It doesn't help that the tree is truly terrible other than for the happiness benefits. The social policy trees have terrible balance in general in the default game; I wonder why they were never properly balanced. I hope that they'll finally learn their lesson and not have any (or very few and expensive) science-enhancing national wonders and policies in Civ VI, as those always become the 'must have' things that dictate the course of the whole game (if you want to play optimally, that is -- and you really should, since it's a strategy game after all).

Well the Eureka moment should help a little bit with the overpowered science (you get 1/2 of the tech without any research at all)

But the other thing is that research boosting things are fine as long as they are truly balanced... If rationalism was
+5% science if happy
+25% to great scientists (whose bulb value was fixed on birth like musicians)
+5% to universities (have universities only be base +10% science, 1 scientist)
+1 science to specialists
+1 gold science buildings
+50% Research Agreements
and the Free tech at the end..then it would be not so bad

then it might be better balanced

I think the problem (saving fun to the end) was you have
REX (deal with barbs)....develop military + happiness capability to expand into neighbors...do that or win tall now
(you usually can clear 1 neighbor after the REX before the late game, but that's rare)

If instead....
Every Good city spot Starts with a "city-state" on it

You can
1. build settlers and expand into the 'badlands' (barbs are there)
2. focus on conquering neighboring "city-states"
3. focus on diplo/econo/culturally absorbing neighboring "city states" (and have a mechanism for this 'peaceful conquest')

This way you can "defeat an enemy" and get a small amount of expansion (with the internal penalties involved), rather than having to swallow an entire civ.

 

[ftl]

Oh man. Thinking about this gives me a lot of respect for the designers, this is a really tough problem.

ICS is annoying and anti-thematic, so it should be suboptimal to have lots of cities right next to each other. Rapid expansion should be fine as a strategy but shouldn't be the dominant/only strategy. ...but on the other hand, it's silly when expansion is so damaging that people decide to simply stay on 3 cities for the whole game, and even worse when *conquerors* taking over empires try to avoid taking/keeping any cities they don't absolutely have to.

Since cities are the core mechanic for generating, well, everything else in Civ, no wonder it's hard to create well-balanced reasons why you might want to hold off on getting them.

I think fundamentally, the best way to balance this is to have the AI be good enough to take advantage of the opportunity costs you've foregone. At the end of the day, it has to be the case that having a lot of good cities is, in the long run, better than having a small number of good cities. The only way to avoid this is to make penalties for large numbers of cities steep enough that players want to avoid expanding, and that leads to the silly cases where land goes unclaimed for millenia. But if more cities are better than fewer cities, what stops you from just building them as fast as possible? I think the best way is to have there be an opportunity cost that's big enough for the AI to take advantage of. It should take a lot of resources to put together a viable new city - not just the production to build the settler, but maybe some social policy stuff you have to do to make the city actually productive and happy and growing... but unless the AI is good enough to take advantage of the fact that you're spending resources on expansion, of course the investment will eventually pay off!

The AI needs to be good enough that if you've spent too much early game building lots of settlers, a nearby militaristic AI should be good enough at fighting to be able to go with their army and beat you up and steal some of these juicy poorly-defended cities. Or a nearby scientific-minded civ should be able to get far enough ahead of you in tech to be able to have an army a tech level ahead of yours (thus being able to beat you up and steal your stuff). And so on.

If you forego all sorts of other things in exchange for building lots of cities early, and the AI just lets you sit there with those cities until you catch up to all the stuff that you didn't do because you were building cities, no wonder it's tough to balance.