My ICS Solution

Note: I don't claim this to be an appropriate solution for everyone and there are no doubt flaws that can be exploited. It's merely an attempt to make the game more enjoyable for myself and anyone else that might agree.

1. All resources/buildings reduced to +1 Happiness.
2. New city Unhappiness raised to +5 from +2.
3. Military Units produce scaling Unhappiness based on their strength/how high up the Tech Tree they are.
4. Citizens produce +1 Happiness.
5. Citizens don't produce Science. Science is limited to Buildings/Policies/Specialists.

Explanation: With increased city Unhappiness and Happiness tied to population, each city will have to grow to at least size 5 to break even. Tying Happiness to citizen population will also create a sense of a recurring reward in the form of population growth - the growth of cities beyond ICS size to mega-city sizes of 20+ will become highly profitable as this will be your main source of Happiness.



I've created a mod that employs these features plus others including specific government types and Taxation. Civilization NiGHTS on the mod hub.

cheers.

 

And the effect of this mod when playing as India is what?

 

Good point. Forgot to mention all Civ's have completely new traits. There's also a bunch of other changes to compensate for balance.

Mod info here.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=399510

 

Maybe I am different but I find nothing wrong with ICS whatsoever and note that the AI basically does the same thing.

At the risk of sounding like an endless loop I'll mention that if the game is too easy for you to win, please try a higher difficulty setting.

Just my opinion .. neilkaz ..

 

IMO best way to fight ICS is not by only adding handicaps to ICS, but by buffing large cities to be more beneficial that ICS. Where the player is forced to pick a path other than ICS because that path is simply better.

To counter ICS I suggest:

1- Reintroduce GP farms by allowing unlimited specialists in a city (unlocked from a policy or tech)

2- Exponential City output (science,gold) relative to city population

3- Add corruption principle from Civ3 where the farther the cities from capital the more corruption in it (reduced gold,hammers output).

4- Let the player chose where to go (ICS Vs Large cities) by policies choices

5- Introduce upkeep costs for undeveloped cities (pop<4) when number of cities is > 3*MapSizeFactor.
MapSizeFactor = 0.33 (Duel Map), 0.67 (Tiny Map), 1 (small Map) , 1.33 Standard Map , 1.67 Large Map, 2 for huge Map

That is when number of cities is above that threshold value new cities will have upkeep costs (only new cities), think about this as new cities require spending from the government to develop the infrastructure of those cities, undeveloped city will cost money before it becomes a mature city that pay for itself. When the city grow to pop > 4 the extra costs are removed.

 

Ugh. Not for me.
In this mod, there is never a reason to not grow each city you have to as high a population as possible, because each new citizen pays for itself.
You also mess up the early game tech rate, and everyone has identical tech speed until libraries.
And its almost impossible to expand or to build a military while retaining positive happiness.
And Freedom social policy is totally messed up because now every specialist effectively provides positive happiness.

Also, a major change like this will hopelessly confuse the AI.

 

I have yet to discover how my playing an ICS game decreases your enjoyment of the game.

How can my playstyle possibly affect anything you do in CIV?

 

He can't play any competition games without running into ICSers who will outperform him.

And within reason ICS also does very well in MP, provided they can actually manage specialists and such within the turn limits.

 

Note: I don't claim this to be an appropriate solution for everyone and there are no doubt flaws that can be exploited. It's merely an attempt to make the game more enjoyable for myself and anyone else that might agree.

I could care less about you, specifically, playing an ICS game, John-SJ.

However, your play-style affects my gameplay experience because I don't enjoy playing the game knowing that one strategy is stronger than all others.

As a Civ gamer for the past 20 years I assumed there would be more people that shared this opinion so I created this mod.

 

I don't actually play CIV in MP all that often. That being said, I have no qualms about using the strategy myself in MP if/when needed. It's more the fact that I feel boxed into this strategy if I want to be efficient in my gameplay.

 

So, rather than penalizing a certain playstyle, why not mod the game so that other options are viable as well. In other words, rather than making a good option worse, why not make the currently bad options better?

 

If all options are made viable and unrestricted, then the entire happiness system won't make any sense. Its purpose it to restrict some play styles (like too fast expansion) to maintain the game balance. I think some things shouldn't be possible, like conquering the entire world before the modern era. ICS is one of the biggest problems with the game for me, so I think penalizing it is a good idea. I do it in my mod too.

 

I guess I'll as you too then, if you don't like ICS, who is forcing it on you? Are you talking about SP or MP mods?

 

if you cant keep yourself from doing ics, then make the AI do it too, at least it levels the playing field a bit

 

Well, when I play a game, I usually tend to use the most effective strategy. And if that strategy is ICS, the game becomes less interesting. I prefer to know how many cities I can "afford" at the given stage of the game instead us using self-imposed rules, and the AI should be somewhat limited too to avoid "runaway civs". In Civ4 the city mainteance costs served this function, I couldn't have too many cities because it would ruin me economically, in Civ5 happiness should do the same, but in unmodded version it doesn't work well because it allows ICS.

(I don't play MP yet, I'm waiting for hotseat and pitboss modes.)

 

what a dumb thread - if u dont want build multiple cities - just dont - why d u need a mod for that?

This game is so easy - u can win with 1 city, or u build 100 - just as u wish - doesnt make a change ...

If u want win fast u build 3 horseman - if u want play on a bit build some libararies and then some tanks or so - its all your choise ...

 

What a dumb post, following your logic it's best to remove happiness from the game altogether, so you can build as many cities as you like

The game needs some limiting factors for both the human player and the AI to become more balanced and interesting in the later eras.

 

He didn´t say that. Conversely, he said the game allows the player to build as few or as many cities he wishes.
And it's true.

I see no wrong in ICS; but when a strategy (it happens to be ICS, could be another) is always the best path to win, then the game is poor.

 

You have to define "best" and "balanced" before doing such statements.

the "best" in terms of fastest way to win is definatly not building lot cities - its to build 3x2 horseman or upgarde warries and move from 1 civ to next and kill it.

There is a VERY HUGE limiting factor to build lot of cities early - happyness, it gets a bit better after several sp.

When talking about balance civ5 is just the wrong game .. where is the "balance" in maritime cs giving unlimited amounts of food in comparasion to laughable stuff in civ5 like granies and lighthouses? - who d ever farm tiles when he can just buy a maritme for way better outcome?

I wont do some long rent about civ5 balance here, all u should figure is that u have unlimited ways to win and can choose your own - nothing wrong with that.

For real there are so many threads around here from people just having no knowlege and therefore posting great "strats" or "improvements" - all this doesnt matter when the game got so much stuff which u can use to have a easy life.

 

ICS is like cheating, the game is already easy, ICS makes it super easy even at high difficulties thats why it needs balance.