So... What will stop ICS?

[criZp]

Tall and Wide are probably obsolete.

As they really should be, who talks about "tall civs" and "wide civs" in the real world? Such a dumb concept.

Like if you're playing "tall" and have made your 4-5 cities... then making another city is pretty much ruled out. And less (meaningful) choices = less strategy.

 

[igorsrs]

Just to clarify.
I think paced expansion is a good thing.
It is that kind of "brainless" expansion (using Mayans in GnK, for instance) that could break the game.
Using the first 100 turns to claim a huge section of the continent.

So far, I think the diplomatic penalty is the most significant, when AI's go nuts if you build a ton of cities.
Up to BNW, it only affects bordering neighbors, but it kinda works.

 

[dturtle1]

I always thought density was an integral part of ICS. The more cities you could found the stronger you were, regardless on actual map coverage.(The yield of a minimum distance city was far greater than the potential yields of a maximum(whilsts still working all tiles) distance city.Hence the infinite part. Settling enough Cities to cover the land...that is just good expansion
T
all and wide as a concept to me is fine. Even in Civ5, there is actual nuance to the system. The majority of my playthroughs would be considered "square"(8-12 Cities, all 30 pop+). The problem is that 4 City builds are the most effective when considering National Wonders and increasing science and culture costs. A system where this was effectively balanced between Tall, Wide and in between would have worked fine.(National Wonders would need to be rethought as an implementation.)

 

[nzcamel]

Just to clarify.
I think paced expansion is a good thing.
It is that kind of "brainless" expansion (using Mayans in GnK, for instance) that could break the game.
Using the first 100 turns to claim a huge section of the continent.

This ^^^

I always thought density was an integral part of ICS. The more cities you could found the stronger you were, regardless on actual map coverage.(The yield of a minimum distance city was far greater than the potential yields of a maximum(whilsts still working all tiles) distance city.Hence the infinite part. Settling enough Cities to cover the land...that is just good expansion
Tall and wide as a concept to me is fine. Even in Civ5, there is actual nuance to the system. The majority of my playthroughs would be considered "square"(8-12 Cities, all 30 pop+).

If density was integral right out of the blocks, then less of us would have an issue with it because it wouldn't effect your frontiers as badly. Obviously the more densely cities can be packed in, the better ICS works...but only to a point. Cutting off a huge chunk of land is an important component too, to secure that land for yourself.

In a 4X game, expansion cannot be a bad thing, as igorsrs points out. But if that expansion isn't tied to reality - as I alluded to in an earlier post; small under-invested in cities (aka tin sheds) controlling large swathes of territory. I guess V helped reduce that by having borders expand 1 tile at a time, rather than the larger increases that III & IV gave. I'd still say that a lack of investment in your cities is a closer correlation with ICS than proximity of cities.

The problem is that 4 City builds are the most effective when considering National Wonders and increasing science and culture costs. A system where this was effectively balanced between Tall, Wide and in between would have worked fine.(National Wonders would need to be rethought as an implementation.)

And you shouldn't have to consider those. In building yourself a large empire, you have given yourself options. One of your early cities can easily build any said national wonder to focus the leading minds etc of your empire in together. That you have a larger population to draw from means that you will have more top end talent on average. It just makes no sense for large empires to be less efficient -on average- than small ones. Sure, they would suffer corruption at the edges, but generally that will still not put them behind a small civ efficiency wise.

"Tall" is rare historically once any local empire/s gained momentum... without something like Switzerland's natural defenses. Most other "tall" nations existed because they could effectively pay off the bigger countries around them. The big empires were better off with the parasites hanging off them; and they knew it. It was never an equal relationship though.

 

[dturtle1]

I m not sure what you are arguing mate but that is cool , Cutting of huge swathes of land(depending on your opponents location can be done in Civ5...i do it all the time , i call it forward settling. ICS, to me anyway was a problem because the best strategy was to pack your cities as tight in as possible to maximise the number of city centers to produce buildings. It doesn't matter if you forward settle and a back-fill (A.K.A cutting of huge swathes of Land) or if you pack them in from the get-go.

.
It just makes no sense for large empires to be less efficient -on average- than small ones. Sure, they would suffer corruption at the edges, but generally that will still not put them behind a small civ efficiency wise

Yes, because China and Russia are absolutely models of efficiency It makes every sense that Large empires are less efficient on average than smaller states, because these scientific and cultural progresses take time to actually spread throughout the population. Or are you one of those people that believe when Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb that they were on the Shelves in a One Horse Town in Texas next week? I am not even talking about logistics in this case, I am talking about the idea itself needs to travel those distances. Obviously this is much more apparent the further you go back in history. Which could be modelled in Civ by a decrease in the % increase of Scientific/Cultural Costs per City for Technologies such a telegraphy.

Besides that wasn't even the point of the paragraph. The point that you missed is that Civ 5 wasn't a Wide VS tall Dichotomy. There was indeed these shades of grey or nuance as you like to say. My point was that the actual System implemented by Civ 5 was fine( apart from the Nation Wonders implementation) and if it was blanced so as wide Vs Tall VS somewhere in-between were all equal on Yield produced:Cost ratio 4city Build wouldnt have been a thing.

Frankly, i couldnt care whether Tall VS Wide is a reasonable simulation of Empire Sizes. I was merely stating that the System was sound, just the implementation wasn't as sound.

 

[migalhone]

My 2 cents:

I think ICS won't be an optimal strategy because each consecutive settler, builder, district suffers an increase in production cost.

Besides that, until you assign a builder to improve some resources and send a trade route to kickstart the new city's production and growth, that city will be a burden for your Civ. Which reminds me, that's a good example of a meaningful decision: "Do i use my trader to get more gold, or to make another city grow faster?"

Oh and not to mention the need to have part of your military protecting that general direction. And because you use gold to maintain an army, an increase in territory to protect will often mean an increase in expenses.

Seems Firaxis is following the general Civ4 idea regarding building new cities and forcing players to make decisions on when and where to do so. So far i agree with this way of thinking.

 

[Magil]

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

You realize that's a good thing in an empire-building strategy game. Every worthwhile piece of land should be settled. The only question is how quickly.

Still, I think it's unlikely that true ICS will emerge. The rising cost of settlers will mean that undeveloped cities won't be producing them nearly fast enough to spread, and raw population doesn't provide the huge benefits it used to (library no longer scales with pop, etc). You need to improve the land to make it worth anything, at least ideally.

Yes, because China and Russia are absolutely models of efficiency

Real-world examples are not a good arguing point. If more isn't always better, then weird things happen to game balance in this strategy game. There's very little reason to get big if there's no benefit to doing so, staying small is always less risky and easier. Naturally this means that because bigger is harder to manage, it should reap better rewards. If it doesn't, there's a problem.

 

[dturtle1]

It is okay when someone is using real world examples to prove that a point of view is false, i am merely just returning the favour

I also disagree that just because something is harder that it somehow implicitly deserves better rewards. Staying small also means that if a larger empire wanted to eat you it would(should have much easier time doing so. You say that staying small is less riskier, tell me that when you lose 1 city and suddenly 25% of empire is gone .

Honestly i dont really care one way or the other, i had fun both as a Tall and as a Wide and as everywhere in between. The 4city Empire was not some terrible blight that CIv5 designed purely for our torture. It was merely just the outcome of a slightly unbalanced system.

 

[Magil]

It is okay when someone is using real world examples to prove that a point of view is false, i am merely just returning the favour

I also disagree that just because something is harder that it somehow implicitly deserves better rewards. Staying small also means that if a larger empire wanted to eat you it would(should have much easier time doing so. You say that staying small is less riskier, tell me that when you lose 1 city and suddenly 25% of empire is gone .

Not really a huge risk when the AI can't handle combat. But even if we assumed a level playing field, it's certainly less of a risk than settling cities right in the rival's face to grab scraps of valuable land before they get it, often pissing them off in the process.

Honestly i dont really care one way or the other, i had fun both as a Tall and as a Wide and as everywhere in between. The 4city Empire was not some terrible blight that CIv5 designed purely for our torture. It was merely just the outcome of a slightly unbalanced system.

Exactly. That's the whole point. If "good quality" land isn't worth settling (not just temporarily, but not worth settling because it won't pay off before the end of the game, too early in the game), it speaks to an inherent flaw in the system.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Clarification

ICS... infinite city sprawl =getting as many cities as possible since each city is the best possible investment of your X (whatever you need to get a city)...means you pack them in as close as possible.

REX...rapid expansion=getting as much territory as possible in the early parts of the game, involves a lot of cities, but they are spread far out to claim territory. (if you are planning ICS you backfill after the REX phase)

Both get limited by increasing costs of settlers

ICS will also be limited by the increasing cost of districts (particularly if cities add to the cost of other districts)

 

[dturtle1]

Not inherent Flaw...Balancing problem... two totally different things. My argument is that the Civ 5 System could have been balanced where 4 city builds were not the outright best Strategy(as long as the Nation Wonders were implemented differently) and that Civ 5 System was not a straight Tall Vs Wide Dichtotomy but a gradient between the 2 Anyway this way OT, lets just move on


@Krikkit, that is what i thought, it is surprising how quick you can ReX in Civ 5 if you get lucky and put your mind to it.

 

[Magil]

Not inherent Flaw...Balancing problem... two totally different things.

But it did speak to an inherent flaw that has been present in V from the start, and indeed allowed "ICS" to exist at first too. That being that the land didn't matter very much, and that it by and large wasn't interesting. Improving the land provided very small gains, so having access to one piece of land versus another meant very little in the grand scheme of things, extreme exceptions notwithstanding (and there are a few, like Petra, or comparing a fertile river valley to frozen snow/one-tile islands).

Whether or not it's a game-ruining flaw (matter of opinion, even I'd say it did not ruin the game), it is a flaw. In the early days, it was land versus cities. You didn't care about the land, what you wanted was more cities, so you could build more libraries, run more scientists, and use Maritime city-state alliances to feed them. Later on, it was land versus population. It didn't really matter what the citizens worked as long as your city could grow, because it was those raw population numbers that brought you science. If, conversely, the land determined your science output, if the land was the thing that gave you more benefits, then it'd be a different story.

 

[igorsrs]

Just watched FilthyRobot LP.
Stolen settlers remain as settlers.
Exploit detected!!!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Just watched FilthyRobot LP.
Stolen settlers remain as settlers.
Exploit detected!!!

disappointed they still have stolen units.... civilian units should just die (you can keep them safe with the link to a military unit)

Also this might not be a total exploit if the cost of a Settler was based on
NOT "how many settlers have you built"
but
"how many settlers and cities do you have"

 

[nzcamel]

Yes, because China and Russia are absolutely models of efficiency It makes every sense that Large empires are less efficient on average than smaller states, because these scientific and cultural progresses take time to actually spread throughout the population. Or are you one of those people that believe when Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb that they were on the Shelves in a One Horse Town in Texas next week? I am not even talking about logistics in this case, I am talking about the idea itself needs to travel those distances.

You've been very picky with your historical examples lol. Note, I did say on average, i.e. not every single time. Having said that; both Russia and China are very likely to be more efficient than smaller countries that follow their same models of governance etc.
Obviously there's better and worse ways to run any country regardless of size.

The distances are still an issue in ideas getting to you from outside your own country. It's not like ideas have been stopped at borders for most of history - big or small they'd spread mostly at the same rate. Later in history smarter beuracrats would encourage good ideas to spread quicker throughout their realm; but that's hit n miss too lol.
I think the distance example as you've phrased it is a red herring for the most part.

My issue however is with ICS (& the flow on Rex, yes) either not being dealt with at all... or being dealt with too harshly in a 4X game; like it was in V. IV had it sorted. Hopefully VI does too

 

[nzcamel]

Exactly. That's the whole point. If "good quality" land isn't worth settling (not just temporarily, but not worth settling because it won't pay off before the end of the game, too early in the game), it speaks to an inherent flaw in the system.

You smashed it out of the park here Magil. Good quality land should always be worth settling mid to long term. I am getting more hopeful that the rising costs of settlers is in the same mold as IV's infrastructure cost up front; but possibly even more balanced.

Cities give such a great return that the initial investment should be high.
It should never be the other way around; that a new city in a decent location will actually always be a liability rather than become an asset.

 

[Danzo_87]

I think one major roadblock to aggressive expansion is you will fall behind really fast on almost every thing due to the sheer amount of stuff you need to do in the game judging from the Quill's play through so far

 

[Biz_]

The 4city Empire was not some terrible blight that CIv5 designed purely for our torture.

it actually was

vanilla civ5 supported both tall and wide strategies, but whatever geniuses they had developing G&K/BNW killed all of them so that everyone would play the game the same way

 

[Danzo_87]

it actually was

vanilla civ5 supported both tall and wide strategies, but whatever geniuses they had developing G&K/BNW killed all of them so that everyone would play the game the same way

the "geniuses" (at least Ed Beach), is also developing Civ VI though

 

[nzcamel]

the "geniuses" (at least Ed Beach), is also developing Civ VI though

He is
But I like that Beech seems very responsive to player feedback; and is innovating nicely; or so it seems thus far