So... What will stop ICS?

[igorsrs]

So far, I can't see a reason NOT to ICS in the upcoming game.

The older games had a city spam cap:
III: corruption
IV: city "tax"
V: global happiness

Civ VI seems more similar to V global happiness, really, but they flipped one of the numbers:
- luxuries (errm... amenities...) still give 4 "happiness" (lets keep this name for a while...), except it gives only one per city;
- in V, every city you add would COST 3 "hapiness";
- in VI, they flipped the number, and every city will get 3 "free happiness" (up to 3 pop, no amenity is required);

Remember... up to GnK, ICS was a viable strategy, even when cities had a cost of 3.
In VI, you GAIN 3.

- In V, a big empire of 10 cities, could easily get to -10 happiness just by adding 1 pop in each city, resulting in catastrope (-50% prod and gold, revolts, zero growth, combat debuff, ...)
- in VI, it will be is a lot less severe, spreading unhappiness per city, reducing growth by -15% and non-food by 5% yields per negative "happiness" (the penalties probably get worse at some point, maybe at -5 i guess).

But it is even worse... amenities doesn't seem to be the problem at all, housing IS the problem, and it is limited per city (before neighborhoods, that I assume are late-ish game stuff).
In the LP's so far, when you hit housing cap, growth is greatly reduced (-50% if you are about to hit, -75% if you hit, and so on).

Even buildings used to control ICS in V. They had a maintenance cost (and it was huge), and in VI, it is gone!

In the LP's so far, there where some controlling mechanisms, like the increasing settler cost (aparently +50% per settler) and district cost (something on the range of 5% to 10%). But i'm not convinced... they would need to be brutal, or stack multiplicatively...

War weariness, on the other hand, seems more effective in controlling an "infinite city conquest" strategy (in Kongo game, one conquered city got -6 happiness from it... seems huge).

So, here are my wild guesses:
1) what would stop me from ICS, targeting city sizes to 6 (-3 happiness each), each with a campus district (Yeah, science! B****), and another district (comercial hub, probably, if it gives a trade route)?
2) I think all optimal strategies will involve some time in negative "happiness", at least in the early game (like BE), because the penalties are not severe at all, but a lot of big cities will snowball for sure. Right?
3) science buildings seems to give flat yields (+2 library and +4 university, numbers are likely to change), instead of percentual boosts or per citizen boosts (like BE). Right?
4) what about sumerian ziggurat spam?
5) and japanese district "clustering"? I really think districts from other cities give adjacency bonuses, it would be wierd otherwise...
6) how bad would a "districtless" strategy be? (if their cost grew too high with too many cities)
7) will there be a way to control "war weariness", like IV "police state"? (this would open a way to a "infinite city conquest" strategy)
8) I'm mostly sure the game will be unbalanced at launch, but how bad will it be? (Maybe vanilla Civ VI will be like an open beta, and the balanced game will be called an "expansion"... they will probably get it right on the second one... and don't forget the DLCs )

 

[Biz_]

civ is a competitive game. you have to view it as what other players can do to punish you for expanding. not every deterrent has to come from internal pressures.

IV was set up so that an opponent could steal your city with military

V decided to make cities impenetrable fortresses, so that form of counterplay was gone. one of its numerous design errors

 

[isau]

Amenities, increasing settler costs, increasing district costs, and (probable) increasing maintenance costs similar to Civ IV.

 

[Haig]

I'm glad spreading your empire is doable in Civ 6, I hated how in Civ 5 optimal strategy was building only a handful of cities.

 

[Dux1]

You need an amenity at pop 3, and then you need an additional amenity for every two pop after that.

My guess is that the adjacency bonuses for having multiple districts in a city are significant, and you would mostly miss out on these with ICS.

 

[joncnunn]

The main mechanics I see limiting founding a city everywhere on the map are:

1. Each copy? of a given luxury can only supply four cities with an amenity. There is a thread on this specific topic, so please don't repeat arguments on this thread; it's a limit either way, just more severe if the second copy doesn't help cities number 5-8.

2. Increasing cost for settlers, builders, and districts.

3. Possibly fighting major wars with the barbarians themselves in early game whenever their scouts discover one of your cities. (More will be known after today's youtube videos drop, note there is a thread for this already)

4. The diplomatic penalty for settling too closely to an AI (to that particular AI) ; but as an actual penalty (AI taking the city away from you) it only applies if you don't build an army.

5. Along with #4, note that in Civ VI, unlike Civ V, building a city does NOT result in the newly built city being able to bombard your opponents. You must build walls to allow bombard.

6. There is a thread dealing with this already, but I note in case of a city with very few land tiles, the lack of tiles to place districts on, resulting in a severe housing shortage there.

 

[anandus]

I'm glad spreading your empire is doable in Civ 6, I hated how in Civ 5 optimal strategy was building only a handful of cities.

On the other hand, now with districts, the planet will be covered in one big city carpet if empire growth isn't limited.

 

[nzcamel]

Meh, I think IV had the balance mostly right, so if VI is a bit looser than V, I'll live with that.

 

[criZp]

Another thing not considered is that, you may spam as many cities as you want, but it doesn't matter if you can't defend them...

 

[MistyRonin]

I'm glad spreading your empire is doable in Civ 6, I hated how in Civ 5 optimal strategy was building only a handful of cities.

+1

In history nations tendency is to spread until they cover everything. So I see the change a huge improvement. I never liked the Civ V happiness limitation, it was absurd.

Expansion should only be limited by resources (both luxury and money, if you can't afford a military force big enough to defend your turf, others will take your cities), space and access to water. As it is in real life. That way is more enjoyable IMHO.

Personally I want to see more border changes, civs taking cities and losing them in an organic way through the game; in the same way religion works. You'll have to decide what cities to fortify and protect, in which ones to invest in culture, etc. IMHO that's what makes a strategic game fun.

Besides if happiness is again a city issue, you'll have to work out how to keep your annexed cities happy or face rebellions (which historically has been another "limit").

 

[Monika TSarn]

I could see ICS being really good with Germany. With the free district, you can build a Hansa and a Commercial Hub at size 1. You can build cities close together so that their districts help each other, each Hansa being adjacent to 2 or more Commercial Hubs. Small cities with a lot of production !

 

[Calouste]

Another limiting factor to ICS is that Builders have a limited number of charges, so you basically need to build a Builder for every size 3 city.

And you don't gain 3 happiness per city, all happiness is local.

 

[JuhQman]

Why does ICS even need to be stopped? The whole character of civilizations is that they tend to spread until the bump into another one, after which you continue the expansion through other means.

 

[Ryika]

Why does ICS even need to be stopped? The whole character of civilizations is that they tend to spread until the bump into another one, after which you continue the expansion through other means.

Because if ICS is possible, then it's usually the strongest strategy, and if ICS is the strongest strategy, then all you do in the game is to expand until you know you've basically won the game because it's all snowballing from that point on.

Which is pretty boring, I prefer steady and continuous expansion during most of the game.

 

[Nikae]

On the other hand, now with districts, the planet will be covered in one big city carpet if empire growth isn't limited.

Shanghai, New York, Tokyo.

The reason why ICS was overpowered in civ5 was mainly because cities had a huge combat value. Now they are going to require walls in order to have a ranged attack, that can make even barbarians dangerous to them, not only your infrastructure. Another matter is that civ5 ended up on the other side of the horse and founding more than 4 was rarely worth it.

Increasing settler and district cost might be a strong deterrent, amenities not really, since you can grab new luxuries with new cities. But also keep in mind that cities are going to require districts in order to be really useful, and those are tied to population size and so on.

Civ4 was quite well balanced, due to cities being vulnerable and having increasing maintenance cost, both seem to be in play in 6 as well.

Regardless, overpowered ICS is the same as overpowered tradition in civ5. One strategy to play.

 

[JuhQman]

Because if ICS is possible, then it's usually the strongest strategy, and if ICS is the strongest strategy, then all you do in the game is to expand until you know you've basically won the game because it's all snowballing from that point on.

Which is pretty boring, I prefer steady and continuous expansion during most of the game.

Unless if everyoe else is expanding in the same manner as well, which is a very accurate description of how civilizations expanded in the past. Until there was no more room to expand, after which you either had to wage wars against your neighbours, or colonize other parts of the world (when it became possible). And even the colonization included warfare.

BTW not sure, but isn't REX a better term than ICS, seeing as ICS has to do with civ 5's system of global happines...

 

[Ryika]

Unless if everyoe else is expanding in the same manner as well, which is a very accurate description of how civilizations expanded in the past. Until there was no more room to expand, after which you either had to wage wars against your neighbours, or colonize other parts of the world (when it became possible). And even the colonization included warfare.

Then you still end up with some players who are big and get ahead and some players who are small and stay behind. The magic "We all expand at the same rate and then the borders move constantly because everybody is losing cities left and right!"-gameplay just doesn't happen - at least it hasn't happened in past Civ-games. If they found a way to fix the fact that large empires just get ahead so quickly that they can easily stabilize and actually have to spend a considerably time defending themselves, then that may be a different issue (Although at that point it's questionable whether it's still the game most Civ players want).

In a scenario with controlled expansion you still bump into each other in the midgame, and at that point Civ V did a horrible job encouraging warfare, so I hope the less strict system of Civ VI fixes that and actually brings the "Conquer to keep up with others who conquer"-gameplay.

Civ VI does a little bit of forcing careful expansion by making Cities not being able to defend themselves on their own, but I highly doubt that will be enough to force the gameplay we're looking for to make such a scenario realistic. Especially given that the AI would be a LOT worse at it than human players.

 

[anandus]

Shanghai, New York, Tokyo.

Of course there are megacities, but that's something different than the whole map covered in cities/districts, which is bound to happen if there's no limit on ICS (and thus, more cities = more yield).
Everyone will want to maximise their ICS. No player in their right mind would limit the amount of cities build.

Most empires consist of a few core cities with lots of land around it (especially in border regions), not back-to-back cities.

 

[nzcamel]

Why does ICS even need to be stopped? The whole character of civilizations is that they tend to spread until the bump into another one, after which you continue the expansion through other means.

Given the simplicity of Civ compared to real life; without any checks ICS happens in the game in a way that never happened in real life. Think empty cities covering the map controlling huge swathes of territory that in reality their minimal infrastructure couldn't dominate.
Yeah, sure, if we're all war mongers, this isn't really a problem. But a clear point of difference with Civ is that while it incorporates war...it isn't a war game. I should be forced into war by situations that make sense...not by some moron building tin sheds everywhere!

I don't remember if II (which I first played in) had an anti ICS mechanism. I suspect it didn't, and it was annoying as hell having things that were at best villages, successfully masquerade as a cities to deny me my land. In III corruption made distant cities not worth considering, but didn't slow down anyone closer to home.

IV got the balance right I feel, by making you pay the cost of the infrastructure of your city upfront, meaning that for you to get your investment back, you had to actually turn it into a proper city. If you spread too far too soon without ever making your cities somewhere worth living, then your economy would crash. Seemed legit to me. By the late game it wasn't really a hindrance, but then by the late game, everyone had already put down their genuine cities.

I guess some felt it didn't go far enough - hence we had the gymnastics in V.
I'm glad they're gone. To me, bigger empires should produce science etc more efficiently on average; not less efficiently!

In conclusion: I think ICS does need to be checked ala IV; but genuine real sustainable city spread (GRSCS lol) should not be. That is the difference

 

[nzcamel]

Most empires consist of a few core cities with lots of land around it (especially in border regions), not back-to-back cities.

In the modern world?? Not so much. I guess people will end up with what you're talking about because they will make cities closer together to get the max bonuses from districts *sigh*. I hope something is done to make that less viable.

But if people are spreading their cities out to give each as much land as pos then it does play out not too bad when compared with history.