ICS and all that Jazz

Enigma_Nova · November 25, 2003, 23:36

Common Abbreviations Thread.
I've heard the term 'ICS' used quite a bit, but have been unable to find out what it means!

Would be useful to have a more concise abbreviation guide - The one in the FAQ doesn't have everything.

P.S. Pardon my n00bness... -_-;

gwillybj · November 25, 2003, 23:57

ICS = Infinite City Sprawl
You plant as many bases as possible as close as possible (one space between). As soon as possible, use crawlers and satellites to gather resources, and make all of your citizens specialists.

Jamski · November 26, 2003, 06:38

With the emphasis on as many bases (cities) as possible. If you run out of base names, that's a good start.

-Jam

Enigma_Nova · November 27, 2003, 09:26

Is this a Sat-Heavy strategy? I don't see the bases as being too productive without Satellites.

JustinSane · November 27, 2003, 13:28

I've actually got a question on this. It's a strategy that has long intrigued me, but I've never given it a serious try. I'm too scared of super-drones. I typically end up with about 20 large cities with Siklander spacing instead. How do you ICS players manage to keep anyone working? Aren't all your citizens doctors? It would seem really tough to pull off after about the fourth bureaucracy limit, which would come at base 37, right?

Enigma_Nova · November 27, 2003, 13:35

There are Multiple Beaurocracy limits?
How do these, and "Super Drones", work?

Adalbertus · November 27, 2003, 14:32

There is basically one bureaucracy limit (bl) which you will pass several times, in the case of difficulty transcend and a huge map, it is nine bases (bl = 9).
- If you have up to bl bases, there are no drones.
- If you found more bases, you'll get bureaucracy drones (b-drones) in your bases, until with foundation of the 2*bl-th base, there is one b-drone in each base.
- The same thing repeats between the 2*bl-th and 3*bl-th base, so technically with the 3*bl-th base, you would have two drones per base, but:
- b-drones (maybe also the other drones) "disproportionate" in pairs, so you don't get two drones, but a super-drone and a worker (or is it that once you have your base "full" of drones the next ones become super-drones? please correct me, if I'm wrong.)
- IIRC, between the 3*bl-th and 4*bl-th base and perhaps beyond you generate even more b-drones. But this is technically irrelevant, because the drone-appeasing facilities come in later and before that, you can't be worse than your base full of super-drones.

The thing is that super-drones take up two "points" of drone-calmers, Recreation commons can calm two drones but only one super-drone. But a single talent can compensate for a super-drone.

There was some elaborate post a year or two ago, which described exactly which base gets drones when you found your n-th base, but searching for this creates too much entropy and I wish to delay the cold death of the universe as long as possible (OK, I already had better excuses).

Kody · November 27, 2003, 20:44

I always thought it was that facilities can calm a super drone, but the game is buggy and it displays the drone even though it doesn't cause riots.

I believed the main thing about super drones is they take up 2 pysch to convert into a drone and drones take 2 more pysch to convert into workers.

I think you only need to worry about super drones if you're.
1. After talents to offset drone problems or to golden age.
2. Using pysch to quell drones.

If you're using just police and drone quelling (not talent or pysch adding) facilities/Special Projects, then you don't have to worry about super drones.

So basically a rec commons will quell 2 super drones, but since pysch/talent effects is allocated to super drones before any other effect is taken into account. The pysch is all lost quelling the super drones that would have otherwise been quelled by the facility.

Kody · November 27, 2003, 22:41

Hrmm okay maybe I'll give a more detailed explanation.

Bureaucracy Limits
Basically different maps have different bureaucracy limits. Also the difficult level and efficiency limit changes it as well. There's a formula in the Alpha Centuari help, but it uses the square root of the map and is mainly a pain to calculate. Personally, I would go for just opening the map editor setting the difficulty level and the map size to whatever map I want to calculate it for and plant bases until I get the bureaucracy warning. You can adjust the SE settings (that change efficiency) to see how it effects your bureaucracy limit too.

After you have the number of the bases for your first bureaucracy limit, bases start getting b-drones. The easiest way to think of bureaucracy effects is getting -2 pysch in bases for every bureaucracy limit you pass.

You don’t get -2 pysch in every base immediately when you pass a bureaucracy limit. Instead more and more bases start getting the extra -2 pysch until you reach the new bureaucracy limit. Basically there’s a global base list and a pattern that b-drones appear in your bases according to the global base list. The exact effect talked about in this post, this post isn’t that detailed (I think I left the detailed version in the hive private forum).
http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...31#post2299531

The effect of pysch.

-2 pysch gives a drone. If you have all drones, then a with an additional -2 pysch a drone becomes a b-drone.

The university’s extra drones is really -2 pysch, the peacekeepers extra talents works out as a +2 pysch.

When you add pysch for every +2 pysch you add you convert a super drone into a normal drone. When all super drones are gone pysch will be used to alternatively change drones into a worker and workers into a talent.

Assume that you have all drones and 1 super drone. You give +8 pysch to that base.
(1) +2 pysch first goes to removing the super drone.
(2) +2 pysch is used convert first drone into worker.
(3) +2 pysch is used convert first worker into a talent.
(4) +2 pysch is used to convert second drone into a worker.
So you end up with 1 talent 1 worker and all the rest normal drones.

There is a limit to the amount of +pysch that will effect a base. That limit is 2 pysch for every population point in that base.

This limit only applies to listed energy pysch. Not to pysch which is gained from special faction abilities or from facilities/special projects that are unlisted in your base pysch. The facilities and special projects that often refer to giving you talents rather than adding pysch are giving you an +4 pysch (if you have all drones) that isn’t listed in your pysch energy. +2 pysch if it can convert a worker into a talent.

I like to think of it that way because a super drone and a talent cancel each other out into a normal drone and a worker respectively. So the game works as if adding talents is just adding pysch.

The effect of facilities, SPs, and police
If a facility quells a drone then it removes the drone whether it’s a super drone or a normal drone. If a super drone was quelled then there is a game bug that will display one more drone than you actually have in your base screen. The real effect of drones in this case can be found by pressing F4 (brings up base list if I remember correctly), and choosing the listing of bases showing your citizens.

Police work similar in quelling drones. They remove a drone whether it’s a super drone or a normal drone.

So if you don’t use talents effects or pysch to take care of your drones, bureaucracy limits mean absolutely nothing to you.

The effect or specialists
A specialist cannot be a drone. If you allocate specialists it does two things. Firstly, it removes a potential normal drone. What I mean by that is the negative pysch that caused the specialist to be a normal drone before won’t make one of your other drones into a super drone.

Secondly, it caps the amount of negative pysch that is applied to your citizens. So basically the bureaucracy -pysch and the university’s extra drones is capped to a maximum of a super drone for every citizen that isn’t a specialist.

Some people deal with drone problems by setting all their workers to specialists, or large portions of their works to specialists.

The catch with facilities and pysch combination

There’s a catch with the way facilities and pysch is calculated. The order is as follows.

1. Bureaucracy effects, factional drone/talent effects applied first
2. Energy pysch is applied (includes facility +percentage pysch)
3. Police units drone quelling
4. Facilities drone quelling
5. SP effects (unless the SP mimics a facility effect where it will instead be calculated in the facility area. eg -2 drones for the VW)

Now the main significance of the order is that pysch is added before police and facilities come into effect. That means that pysch is used up by super drones (these are mostly created by bureaucracy) and by the time the effect of facilities and police comes around all the pysch is already gone.

For example if you have a size 6 base with 4 super drones, and you can quell 5 drones with police and facilities. You need to allocate 10 pysch energy to remove that 6th drone. That’s because pysch needs to be first used up removing the 4 super drones first then the last 2 pysch can remove a normal drone. Since the police and facilities happen after pysch, the super drones need to be dealt with by the pysch before it can remove any normal drones.

This is why some people have problems with the bureaucracy limit. Simply because they needed to allocate pysch energy, which becomes wasteful the more super drones you get and when used in combination with facilities and police. It gets harder if you’re running freemarket and can’t use police. Relying completely on building drone quelling facilities can limit the growth of your bases. The way to get around lack of police is to allocate more specialists.

Also the other problem with extra bureaucracy super drones is it severely hinders your ability to golden age (used for pop booming with hive, morgan, and other growth impair factions).

Somewhere in the list of drone effects is the effect of facilities that add drones (gene jack factory), and the effect of pacifist drones. You’ll need to ask someone else the details of that as I was specifically studying effects that would be useful for the Hive. I think pacifist drones might be calculated after facilities, which means facilities can’t remove pacifist drones only pysch effects.

PS: Enigma_Nova & JustinSane join the ACDG and sign up for the Hive. The Hive needs more people interested in strategy.

Kody · November 27, 2003, 22:57

Quote:

I've actually got a question on this. It's a strategy that has long intrigued me, but I've never given it a serious try. I'm too scared of super-drones. I typically end up with about 20 large cities with Siklander spacing instead. How do you ICS players manage to keep anyone working? Aren't all your citizens doctors? It would seem really tough to pull off after about the fourth bureaucracy limit, which would come at base 37, right?

Combination of smaller cities, police, and specialists. The specialists don't have to be doctors to reduce the number of drones. See "The effect or specialists" in the above post.

Depends on which faction you're playing and what your current situation to how you balance reducing the city size, allocating more specialists or allocating more police (if your energy credit rich I guess also buying more drone reducing facilities).

Bureaucracy drones are mainly just a problem in relation to pysch usage.

Minute Mirage · November 28, 2003, 05:46

I believe the pacifist drones come after the facilities drone reduction but before the SP drone reduction. Now, the catch is that the effect of the VW is counted among the facilities, but the HGP is counted in SP drone reduction stage.

A note about the University's extra drones: if I'm not mistaken, this ability doesn't create super drones, that is, on transcend level you'll only ever get -2 psych.

Another minor note: You can see the real drone situation in the Psych- screen in the base screen. You don't necessarily need to check it in F4.

Kudos for Kody for explaining all that!

Main_Brain · November 28, 2003, 05:47

Also see:
HGP, Lonv+Planned, Dronereduced Factions, Teleph Matrix

Jamski · November 28, 2003, 06:33

Kody

-Jam

Vev · November 28, 2003, 07:50

But I like those drones ...
ESPECIALLY superdrones ...

jtsisyoda · November 28, 2003, 09:42

Increasing efficiency from 0 to +2 increases the beauracracy limit (BL) by 50%. That's 6 to 9 on standard or large maps, and 9 to 14(?) on huge maps. Another +2 to efficiency increases the BL by the same amount... for example, 6 to 9 to 12 on standard/large. (I'm not positive on how fractions are rounded.)

Net efficiency of less than zero (like when running Survival/Planned/None) does not decrease the BL, though. That's helpful for Sven, Lal, and anyone who uses Planned economics before Democracy.

CEO Aaron · December 1, 2003, 15:28

The upshot being that if you want to use ICS, plan on having a lot of small bases with rec-commons and police units keeping everyone in line. By a lot I mean any base you can build anywhere.

Being unable to actually tell whether your bases will be in revolt without looking in the base screen means that there's a bunch more micromanagement than building to somewhere between 1 and 2 times your bureaucracy limits, not to mention commensurately larger build orders. This is what keeps me from playing ICS style, more than anything else.

My latest game has been a foray into the land of momentum and ICS, I'm playing Spartans in Police, using my resulting Police rating of 3 to quell any and all drones, and the support lets me field a modest army while having an extra former at home. So far only middling success, as usual, my tech rate is lagging, and DeeDee is stealing all my SPs. I may need to restart, and start probing more aggressively.

Chaos Theory · December 1, 2003, 17:25

When I ICS, I manage most of my bases exclusively from the F4 screen by the time bureaucracy is a problem, so I don't worry too much about the drone display bug. It also means I don't have to hunt down each base that needs new orders; I can just find them on the F4 screen.

Ogie Oglethorpe · December 2, 2003, 08:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski
Kody

-Jam

Agreed

Kudos

Kody

johndmuller · December 2, 2003, 15:28

Excellent post Kody!!

Regarding the total amount of psych, I thought I read somewhere that there was an absolute limit on psych/base - somewhere in the low 20's to low 30's IIRC - irregardless of whether the base was way large or not. Kody's analysis seems to suggest a very in depth investigation, so I would be inclined to believe his theory instead of my vague recollection, but just in case . . .

I suppose it is implicit in Kody's calculations, but I find that I am often unpleasantly surprised with riots when a base (which seemed to have sufficient drone control to accomodate an extra worker) grows. I believe it is related to the HGP (and/or perhaps just plain psych allocation and/or PK's factional drone control). For example, a base of size 1 showing a talent would seemingly be able to handle a 2nd worker without riots, but that is not always the case - sometimes the initial status line of the psych display will show worker-drone rather than talent-drone after the growth; I suppose it is really talent-superdrone, but it still seems inappropriate.

From a strictly practical standpoint, until such time as Doctors are no longer the only specialists allowed for small bases, a RecComm and either 2 police units or a Holo (or perhaps 1 cop and some Psych) will get your first 4 drones under control, allowing you to add productive specialists instead of Doctors. Whether or not this is worth it is another question, but it does work if your goal is not to have ineffecient doctors.

Minute Mirage · December 2, 2003, 18:02

Quote:

Originally posted by johndmuller

From a strictly practical standpoint, until such time as Doctors are no longer the only specialists allowed for small bases, a RecComm and either 2 police units or a Holo (or perhaps 1 cop and some Psych) will get your first 4 drones under control, allowing you to add productive specialists instead of Doctors. Whether or not this is worth it is another question, but it does work if your goal is not to have ineffecient doctors.

Or you could skip the holo theater, pop boom to size five, and get two or three librarians/technicians. This assumes of course that you can get the 10 nutrients for booming. After you have boomed, you can let the base starve for a while, if you have surplus nutrients, while building the holo theater.

Hercules · December 2, 2003, 19:29

I recall in one game, where the position of the citizen/worker within the base area effected the psych: ie if the worker was placed towards the edge it led to a drone but placed closer to the city square it changed to a worker. Or maybe the effect was related to what was being produced or whether it was a farm or forest being worked.

The game stage for me was also near the first bureaucracy limit and I don't think I had a facility. My feeling was it was related to distance from the base centre but it could also be related to the distance the worker was from faction HQ.

Enigma_Nova · December 2, 2003, 21:17

Energy comes from squares you work (And Sats and Crawlers etc.) so by putting your worker on an Energy square, you get more energy.

This means more energy goes to psych and your drone becomes a worker.

Kody · December 2, 2003, 22:15

Quote:

I suppose it is implicit in Kody's calculations, but I find that I am often unpleasantly surprised with riots when a base (which seemed to have sufficient drone control to accomodate an extra worker) grows. I believe it is related to the HGP (and/or perhaps just plain psych allocation and/or PK's factional drone control). For example, a base of size 1 showing a talent would seemingly be able to handle a 2nd worker without riots, but that is not always the case - sometimes the initial status line of the psych display will show worker-drone rather than talent-drone after the growth; I suppose it is really talent-superdrone, but it still seems inappropriate.

Well that's actually indirectly addressed, although you would need to think really hard to realise it.

For example a police unit and the HGP in a size 1 base with a super drone. Basically the police unit anulls the super drone, and the HGP converts it to a talent.

You would think that having size 2 would be fine as one drone would be canceled by the police unit and one drone by the HGP. That's wrong. Because facilities and police cancel the normal drones first before addressing the super drones.

That means with size 2, 1 drone and 1 super drone. The police unit cancels the normal drone to a worker, the HGP converts the worker to a talent. However, the 2nd citizen is a super drone. Super drone cancels the talent and becomes a drone.

So starting with a drone and a super drone. When you have a police unit and the HGP, you end up with a worker and a drone.

I think the best way to think about it. Each super drone will cause one pysch/talent effect to overlap with one facilities/police effect.

It basically means that pysch and talent effects in combination with facility and police effects aren't as useful.