Column #139; By St. Swithin

[Drakenred]

OOPs My bad!
[This message has been edited by Drakenred (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 11-06-2000 11:14 PM Ralf S - got your email, I'm answering it here because it's a good question.

Thanks for the information! The questions for the curious ones, was:

1/ How does the AI add/update terrain-improvements in AI-controlled city-areas?
2/ How does the human add/update terrain-improvements i human-controlled city-areas?

[Slax]

Ummm. Yeah. To discuss ICS please compare 1 large city versus a number of cities which combined have an equal population. I think ICS has been toned down, but is not dead as long as the city gets to work automatically.

Please convince us.

[Gedrin]

I don't think that there is any convincing that can be done about ICS here.

We all know very well from prior threads that if the city tile is worked then ICS is not dead. City caps effect non-ICSers as much as ICSers, ICSers just hit the cap first. So the ICSer rushes to the cap and waits for the non-ICSer to catch up. By that time the ICSer will have collected more from their tiles and therefore be stronger.

The problem is that in say, a size 6 city (I use 6 since I believe from the article that at 7 the city radius has grown to B) your 60,000 people go out and collect 100% from the 8 tiles
= SUM(tiles in ring) * pop working that ring / max pop that can work a ring)
= SUM(8 tiles) * 6/6

Who is left in the city to work the city tile? Hence it is free and hence ICS is not dead.

Furthermore from what I have gathered so far. The population working ring A is more efficient. Lets assume all tiles are equal and we assign the value of 1. One worker working in ring A will collect
=SUM(8 tiles) * 1/6 = 8/6 = 4/3
However in ring B
=SUM(12 tiles) * 1/12 = 12/12 = 1
So it is not only the city tile but the first ring also.
There are two possible corrections to this however:
1. The divisor in ring A is the # of tiles = 8 not the max # of workers = 6.
or
2. The limit of workers in a ring is fixed at # of tiles * 3/4
= SUM(12 tiles) * 1 / 9 = 12/9 = 4/3
The crux of this is that from blindly reading what has been said I do not get the impression that a worker is working the average tile (this would require correction 1 listed above). It looks far more like it is each worker is working each tile in the ring to some extent. That extent is #tiles/max#workers in the ring and is a higher value in ring A.
[I do hope that I am misreading this and if any believe I am I emplore you to point it out because I find this to be the most dissapointing and pro-ICS aspect of all].

Lastly there is the issue of city placement. With more cities (ie ICSing) you can have finer control over the terrain that is included in a city sphere. It appears from the article that if you have a pop 10 city with 4 specialists then your 60,000 workers go only to radius A. So you can mitigate the effects of radius overlap with the use of specialists.

Consider 9 good tiles surounded by dead tiles.
When your radius extends into the dead tiles what would you do? I'd have them work as specialists. Packed cities are no different from this.

Gedrin

[St Swithin]

First, the city's radius is not determined by the number of workers in the field - the number of workers determines how much of the resources the city will collect from the area. Second, you can't affect a city's radius by assigning specialists - the only way to shrink a city is to starve it or to let it get attacked repeatedly, in which case you'd be better off just leaving it undefended for Barbarians.

Regarding government limits, each government type has limitations on the number of happy cities it will support as well as a growth modifier. The growth modifier affects the rate of city growth, but there are also the factors which involve overcrowding and food storage. If a city does not build improvements to alleviate overcrowding, the city will stop growing and become increasingly unhappy. Likewise, if food production drops below a threshold delta (i.e. a positive net in food), the city will stop growing.

So, to sum up: a city of size 7 will have a radius of 2 tiles (so the 'a' ring and 'b' ring from the previous examples), regardless of the number of workers. However, the limitations on growth due to food collection will greatly affect a city which does not have either at least a few farmers or everyone working in the field.

[Gedrin]

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 11-06-2000 11:14 PM OK, first ring has 8 tiles, 9 including the city tile. Don't think of it as 1 worker working 1 tile. Each "worker" represents 10.000 (ten thousand) people. So, you send your 70.000 people out to the fields to work. They bring back 100% of the resources from the 8 tiles around the city, while the city collects the resources from its own tile. When the city radius grows, it gets an additional 12 tiles. So yes, the 8th worker only gets 1/12 of the resources from that area, but there are a lot more (well, about 50%) resources on 12 tiles than on 8.

I understand the the 7 was probably a thinko. You likely meant 6. This is a minor point and of little significance.

And also from your article:

quote: Now I know the question that's burning in your minds: what happens when the city reaches 7? OK, let's say you have 7 workers and a city of size 7 (no specialists - let's keep it simple for now). From the original area of influence (that is, the area the city controlled while it was 6 people and less), the city collects 100% of the resources available. From the new territory the city gained when it increased to 7, the worker collects 1/12 of the resources available. Confusing? Here's a picture: city in the middle. The first radius (A) is a ring around the city. The second radius (B) is a ring around that ring (like the cross-section of an onion). 7 workers in a city means that the city collects 100% of resources in ring A, and ~8% of resources in ring B. And so on, as the city grows.

The significant point here is that from what has been explained so far it looks like the city collects 100% of the tile it is on, the first 6 workers collect 100% of the first 8 tiles and a 7th collects 1/12th of the next 12 tiles. Is this not correct? Your last post indicates something different. If specialists cannot reduce the city radius then the tiles in the radius must be independant of the number of workers and instead strictly a function of population.

Maybe we're getting all confused about worker vs. population. I (like most I think) consider
population = workers + specialists.

Assuming that, for a radius 1 city this can be summed up with the formula
tiles in radius =SUM(8 tiles) * population/6;
tiles worked = 1 + (tiles in radius) * workers/population;
(since of course there is the tile the city is on and specialists don't work tiles)

In order for ICS to be dead the formula must simplify to:
tiles in radius =SUM(9 tiles) * population/9;
tiles worked = (tiles in radius) * workers/population;

or in general
tiles in radius =SUM(x tiles)/x * population;

Here's a simple test.
Take a city, any size with no gold, science, production , whatever improvements except happiness, they do not matter (actually even any improvement that just gives a multiplier with no bonus per population). Make everyone a specialist. Does the city produce nothing at all.
If so ICS is dead. If not then it is not.

Must go.
Gedrin

[Grandpa Troll]

Wow!

You are some Real Intelligent fellas and ladies out here with all you Pie R Squared routines and X=Y* the division of Apples /oranges!!..
LOL
Just a fair warning..me and Fat Jack(The Slaver Boss-Man) are headed your way to relieve you of some of your worries..Heh Heh Heh..so while you calculate the Dad Blamed co-efficient of the square route..Ill be allowing your civilians to work for me!!

Troll

[Drakenred]

If the math to fill the fisrt 8 tiles is what they are saying, (IE, City square is free, the first 8 tiles only need 6 workers to work, ect) then Aparently ICS is not only alive and well in the game, Its now Worse than Ever!

old system 1 city with one worker will get 2 tiles

New Improved system, 1 City with one worker will get 2-2/3 tiles

old system,
1 city with 10 workers = 11 tiles,Vs
10 cities with 1 worker each = 20 tials

New Improved system,
1 city with 10 worker = ~13 tiles
10 cities with 1 worker each, ~25 1/3

suposedly the New system will make ICS harder, with 2 mechognisms
1) (basicaly you will spend 8* the cost to get the efect of one tile improvment, this alone may kill ICS, we will see)
2) the Max City count may have (fianly) been made more realistic for the game, Forcing you to spend hevily for "happy houses" if you want to overgrow your empire

we will see.

Drakenred
[This message has been edited by Drakenred (edited November 08, 2000).]

[Slax]

I have posted about the scourge of ICS in this thread with the others, but I'd like mention that you have to also make sure that there is balance, I mean, we don't want supercities to be way better than average sized cities either.

I am optimistic that ICS has at least been minimized.

[Ralf]

The ultimate Gordian knot-solution would be:

Well, just dont play the game like that. (just kidding)

[Tilemacho]

http://apolyton.net/ctp2/images/view...w/day3-ics.jpg

I think this picture makes it odvious that ICS not only is still there but also becomes stonger!

Anyway I like ICS

[DarkOrder]

well......I will explain this picture. The city Essenheim has a real problem. Normally a city uses all of its citizens (7 here) to gather food, production and commerce from the tiles within the city's control(white dotted line area). The citizens gather 100% of the tile that the city is on and a lessr % from surrounding tiles.

In this case the city has no general "gatherers." All of its citizens are being used to keep the city happy( 7 entertainers). While this keeps the city from revolting, your empire and city are not growing from this arrangment. No one should place a city in the desert unless they can place a bunch of farms/nets around it and put all of its citizens into food gathering/production. This city is needs to place a few citizens back into its general gathering (efficiency) and the rest into food (farmers). Building nets would be better than farms, as you receive more food from the ocean tiles than from the desert ones. Did this rant make an sense?

Smooshies
[This message has been edited by DarkOrder (edited November 11, 2000).]

[Drakenred]

quote: Originally posted by Tilemacho on 11-11-2000 09:13 AM http://apolyton.net/ctp2/images/view...w/day3-ics.jpg I think this picture makes it odvious that ICS not only is still there but also becomes stonger! Anyway I like ICS

Reguardless, Its Obviouse that the Game designers either

a) Dont realy understand what ICS realy is,(Doubtful, you would have to be a complete MORON not to understnad it) or

b) they DO understnad what it is, but thanks to the Popularity of CIV, they feel that Providing the City with its Free-worked tile is one of thoes things that you just dont dare touch

Granted, in the early days when they were first Writing CIV, they did not realise that ICS would become a problem, but they also had to keep the games as basica as posible, and Brian-Sid do have a point when they say that Cities Initly provide an inproved eficiancy to the People who build them Even without adding any inpovments,

BUT the solution to that, is to
1 Force the city to use its 1st population point to work its tile,
2 alow an "auto-bonus", IE the cumulative efect of all tial inprovments(Food-production-trade-transport, excluding only the Fortress-airfeild type of improvments)
to acount for the efects of urban sprawl, Scale the bonuse to the poulation,(IE -.5 food, +-.5 prod*, +.5 or +1 trade in CTP terms per population over 1, {* +.5 production for citys with room to grow, then -.5 per pop when the city "Maxes out", or other simular formlas baseon on pre-maxed and post maxed conditions)

[Ralf]

Another simple-for-Activision-to-add Gordian knot-solution would be:

Make a %-modifier to that damn central city-tile changeable in the .txt tweak-files. You could choose if any city-square could be 100% effective (default) or 80% > 60% > 40% > 20% effective.

That central city-square is the crook!

naaah, ics is dead just for one reason: there's nothing better than seeing the city radius of your wide spaced 20+ size cities....

[Tilemacho]

Mark is partially right. What will be better? To have many small cities or to build few cities which will become giga???

I guess I will build many cities and then destroy some of them in later stages of the game…(not very realistic but…)

[Yoleus]

If my city is squeezed in between other cities and the city radius is cropped short, will I still need the same number of population that I would need if it was free in order to harvest 100% of resources? If for example another city prevents my city to gather resources from 3 squares that would have been inside its radius but are controlled by the other one, will I need 3 less workers to gather the full resources?
In this case, what will happen of the extra 3 workers? Must they be specialists forever or could they be used LATER to gather resources when eventually the radius will grow another ring?