Limits to expansion?

[Staler87]

I don't see why everyone hates ICS so much. I think that ICS should be a perfectly viable strategy. The only problem that arise from it, in my opinion, are when it becomes the only viable strategy. In any strategy game I want the game to have as many balanced and well thought out approaches to victory as possible. If I wanted one way to 'solve' the game I was playing I would go build a puzzle instead.

 

[spfun]

Gali is right on the money imo, rexxing will be pretty difficult, comparatively to past games. Civ 6 is really busy, even workers need to be built strategically. Opportunity costs all over the place. I really like what I'm seeing in this respect.

 

[ddd123]

I don't see why everyone hates ICS so much. I think that ICS should be a perfectly viable strategy. The only problem that arise from it, in my opinion, are when it becomes the only viable strategy. In any strategy game I want the game to have as many balanced and well thought out approaches to victory as possible. If I wanted one way to 'solve' the game I was playing I would go build a puzzle instead.

If you dont see flaws in ICS or stacks of doom then there is nothing we can do to explain it to you, sry...
They are such big and selfexplanatory flaws it hurts.

 

[Thormodr]

If you dont see flaws in ICS or stacks of doom then there is nothing we can do to explain it to you, sry...
They are such big and selfexplanatory flaws it hurts.

At least the AI could use Stacks of Doom in an intelligent manner.
1UPT utterly bamboozled the AI.
Fighting wars with the AI was like taking candy from a baby.

This is not to mention the other disastrous consequences of 1UPT.

 

[ddd123]

The fact civ 5 was a bad product made to abuse fanbase is beyond any doubt.
But after a bridge collapse you cant say "bridges are bad" just cause some bad guys made one really poorly.
Ai was just one of the many features they did poorly, not putting effort, not testing, not spending money on it, and the result is bad, the problems are never the rules, cause whatever the rule you need to build AI around it.

 

[Gali]

I forgot to mention city-state quests which apparently play a larger role in city state diplomacy than before and give longer term benefits. Yet another factor to consider.

For the Ai lets see what they learned from Civ 5 combined with far more processing power and relaxed stacking rules can do. Also if they have better mod tools available the community will help the Ai. Civ 4 didn't have a great Ai until the community made one. If the mod tools are even close to what they say we could have a stack of doom civ 6 out before the first expansion. Districts will help the AI immensely. Even the Civ 5 Ai could dance outside your cities reliably. Now it'll be pillaging your districts and preventing you from working them doing MUCH more damage and making war non trivial. Now the AI can disrupt your science, faith and culture generation and can probable just occupy districts which have to be worked.

The new rules could make 1upt much more tactical. They should make holding territory more necessary which increases the role of cavalry and melee. Anti-tank guns and siege make more sense as support and will have a role. Range spam could be less effective as it kills stuff slowly and does a poor job of holding territory. It also sounds like they are adding in much more interesting forts which can also have a range attack. Barbarians already sound more interesting with actual invasions if you are caught napping. Most landmark new systems have teething problems.

Civ 5 was not made to abuse trust. Really people act like babies and conspiracy nuts on this site too much. Civ 5 was an attempt to revolutionize the entire civilization franchise and make it less niche. The problem is the core design was flawed which is not surprising after the guy who made BTS was put in charge. 1upt could work in the new game if it is given enough tweaks and the community is allowed to fix the Ai. NO COMPANY EVER PROGRAMS A GREAT AI. Look at Paradox the AI on their game is horrible. And they have a much more aggressive dlc model. EU 4 Ai has to have massive economic cheats on every level to just not go bankrupt repeatedly. The ROI is too low for any company to build an AI at the level we want. Even Stardock can't and the AI programmer is the CEO.

Firaxis saw the potential and decided to learn from their mistakes. Civ 5 kept the franchise profitable and relevant. It also put Ed Beach in charge. So far that looks like a good decision.

 

[ddd123]

Yeah conspiracy, like it isnt a fact that half games are shipped heavily incomplete and super bugged... thats a theory not a fact...

The decision to do 1UPT was right ofc but just cause stack of dooms were the supreme , and a design so flawed it hurt, but then they stop develop the game, both on AI and many other features and ofc this new heavily warmonger design couldnt stand such a bad war AI.

 

[m15a]

Yeah conspiracy, like it isnt a fact that half games are shipped heavily incomplete and super bugged... thats a theory not a fact...

You didn't (just) say the game was bugged or incomplete. You said the game was made to abuse the fan base. Taken literally, that statement does sound like a crazy conspiracy theory. Although maybe you were just exaggerating because you wanted your opinion to count more than other people's or be more forceful than you can support with argument. (If so, it didn't work. It's hard to take anything said after that statement seriously.)

 

[Ribannah]

The best limiting factor to continuous expansion is time. If the moment when investing in new settlers no longer pays off comes early enough, there is no problem that needs to be solved artificially.

 

[ddd123]

You didn't (just) say the game was bugged or incomplete. You said the game was made to abuse the fan base. Taken literally, that statement does sound like a crazy conspiracy theory.

No it sounds like the reality of game development when it touches corporation and not software houses...
Or do you really believe fifa 201x is a serious attempt at improving the game genre? At bettering humanity?

Also tbh that applies to any seller, do you think your gillette mach 12 really make all women around you get wet?Thats how marketing works you try to exploit ppl need or desire.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I don't see why everyone hates ICS so much. I think that ICS should be a perfectly viable strategy. The only problem that arise from it, in my opinion, are when it becomes the only viable strategy. In any strategy game I want the game to have as many balanced and well thought out approaches to victory as possible. If I wanted one way to 'solve' the game I was playing I would go build a puzzle instead.

Sure, the problem was ICS was far and away the most dominant strategy back in Civ3.

 

[kaspergm]

The best limiting factor to continuous expansion is time. If the moment when investing in new settlers no longer pays off comes early enough, there is no problem that needs to be solved artificially.

That is a really horrible way of solving the problem, however. The fact that there was zero intention for late-game (renaissance/industrial) expansion boosts was a major flaw in Civ5, so we definitely don't want to make that even worse in Civ6.

 

[Acken]

The best limiting factor to continuous expansion is time. If the moment when investing in new settlers no longer pays off comes early enough, there is no problem that needs to be solved artificially.

Game ending too quick and or mid game expansion being non viable is not really great.

 

[Ryika]

I don't see why everyone hates ICS so much. I think that ICS should be a perfectly viable strategy. The only problem that arise from it, in my opinion, are when it becomes the only viable strategy. In any strategy game I want the game to have as many balanced and well thought out approaches to victory as possible. If I wanted one way to 'solve' the game I was playing I would go build a puzzle instead.

ICS is fine by itself, it just tends to be the either the dominant strategy or not be good at all. It's hard to find a middle ground when there's a strategy that can have way more cities than any other strategy, in record time. It tends to become the "If I manage to get away with it it'll be the best strategy."-solution; and one that plays really, really boring when repeated again and again.

I certainly don't want AIs spawning too close being the only factor against dominating ICS-strategies.

 

[Bandobras Took]

At least the AI could use Stacks of Doom in an intelligent manner.

I would contest that; the number of high-level victories I saw in Civ 4 that relied on beating the tar out of the AI was far higher than the number of peaceful victories I saw.

I will say that the AI used stacks of doom more intelligently than 1 UPT, but that's hardly a recommendation.

(There was also the fun exploit in at least one earlier Civ game of keeping an AI army endlessly shuffling between two empty cities by switching a garrison unit between them.)

 

[ddd123]

but the AI didnt use at all stack of doom its just that the game revolved much much more on just raw power, and so the AI cheating incredibly had so so many units.
But the ability to maneuver stacks of doom was non existant , only in the last expansion of civ4 there was a slightly better AI but still nothing related to stacks of doom, on the opposite, that AI started to split stacks and control different fronts.

Being civ5 a better game raw power means about nothing, so yeah the AI suffers much more in the same equally superior military power, cause with stacks of doom in the end it could lose 5 cities but AIs stack would reach your city sooner or later and there was nothing you could do, but overall Ais would stil lose badly.

 

[joncnunn]

Sure, the problem was ICS was far and away the most dominant strategy back in Civ3.

I'm already seeing things in Civ VI that would discourage the ICS settlement pattern [founding every city as tight as possible regardless of terrain along with the close variant of capital gets a bit more space] such as districts and world wonders taking up space.

What I've not yet seen is what in Civ VI is designed against a massive REX to begin the game. Particularly in light that in Civ II/III it was primarily newer cities whose responsibility it was to keep spawning settlers & cheap garrison units when the inner rings turned to development.
But in addition to cities at their happiness limit in Civ II/III (in part from having built no local happiness structures); cities at the hard cap of 6 (non fresh water cities without an aqueduct) also would build settlers. Since there appears to be a pop cap in Civ VI (that gets increased by "housing"), then it appears that it might always be preferable to have a city at the housing cap build a settler than to build housing (should there be a place to found a new city)

 

[Ribannah]

That is a really horrible way of solving the problem, however. The fact that there was zero intention for late-game (renaissance/industrial) expansion boosts was a major flaw in Civ5, so we definitely don't want to make that even worse in Civ6.

I had various games where I settled new cities later in the game to claim coal and/or aluminium, or a missing luxury, with the happiness to do it and the gold and trade routes to make the new expansion(s) catch up fast.

Game ending too quick and or mid game expansion being non viable is not really great.

During mid-game and late game further (peaceful) expansion can still be viable for strategic reasons, but hopefully not continuous expansion just to grow wider.

Sure, the problem was ICS was far and away the most dominant strategy back in Civ3.

The problem with ICS is that you're mostly busy micromanaging instead of playing a game.

Moderator Action: Three posts merged, please use multi-quote. Thanks

 

[MadDjinn]

ICS is just as bad as 4 city tradition in civ V.

neither should be the 'optimal' path.

 

[historix69]

If ICS is the best strategy, than all players (including AI) should use ICS. Once the whole map is divided, normal play with diplomacy, trade, research, war can continue. If AI on deity is unstoppable due to massive boni, it might be time to go back to prince level (no AI boni).

ICS is better than a set of game rules which leaves large parts of the map unclaimed and empty.