Proposals to Fix ICS in Civ3: Firaxis, please stop by...

[yin26]

The problem with Civ3 is how you have to do ICS. In ICS it was the player's option to do ICS, where as in Civ3 you are forced to do ICS to win the game.

I agree and would add: I *enjoy* having to expand aggressively in the early game, but it just gets tedious when I *have* to expand coast to coast before the AI does.

The principle is great ... but the implementation just needs a little tweaking.

Firaxis: There have been some good ideas here. Did you try any of these in testing and found they didn't work?

[Stromprophet]

I still disagree about ICS. I don't think it's as relevant. 19 cities? What level are you playing on anyway. I've been playing Regent, and King. Which, ICS may work one v one against someone, but not against 15 comp opponents. Because you can't expand everywhere, because the computers do it before you.

Which is the point in the long run. You can't win with ICS in the long run. You have to have more culture, more resources, and more military. Or be wise in trades to get what you need.

I think one of the things that is now bothering me, is the corruption ammounts. They are very high. But I like the fact that I can't dominate the world. It makes it much more fun.

I think ICS problem will not exist in MP. One v One, possibly. You can pump as much as you like, but it's still expensive and clearly much more slow for us. I mean I had 19 cities on Deity by 2000 BC in Civ II. So it's very slow now.

It also destroyed the power of Mikes, and Hanging in Republic. Which was my favorite strategy.

[Kc7mxo]

Umm. Don't get too cocky about all these "wonderful" ideas you have. Most of them are rather dumb.


Contiguous borders? Right. . . . . . . do you have idea how damn annoying this would be? ick. The colonization of over continents had nothing to do with placement of previous colonies, and in fact many were the time the settlers tried to avoid contact.

Kicking out settlers? Damn good idea. But so what? You can do it now. And they use boats. Hmmm. Wouldn't really help.

The AI plays normal? Umm. I don't like what its doing either, but it IS a valid strategy. And if it doesn't ake up all that land. . . . um, won't you?

3 Pop settlers?

Forcing the player to do something is just going to piss people off. No one is going to like border restrictions on their cities.


On the other hand, I kinda like the revolting cities burn themselves down. Saves me the trouble.

I think what we really need is for them to go barbarian instead. If a city is losing too much corruption, then it declares independance and turns barb. wasn't this in the list?

I definetly wish barbs could capture cities. oh well.

[SITS]

A simpler rule would be that a city can be built anywhere as long as it doesn't affect anothers borders otherwise it has to be an connected to your own borders. Another way to cure it is to make a new city VERY vulnerable to anothers culture with a very real chance that in the next turn it will be taken over unless it is nearer its own cities. I think the second rule would be more in keeping of the game.

[yin26]

Contiguous borders? Right. . . . . . . do you have idea how damn annoying this would be? ick. The colonization of over continents had nothing to do with placement of previous colonies, and in fact many were the time the settlers tried to avoid contact.

It would be less annoying than what we have now, IMO. And the 'reality' argument fails here. It's about making the game more fun and strategically sound.

Kicking out settlers? Damn good idea. But so what? You can do it now. And they use boats. Hmmm. Wouldn't really help.

Can you share the hotkey? My dealing with the enemy settler captures him and starts a war. And so what if they use boats? That's good strategy. I should be patrolling. Read more carefully before you start with the 'reall dumb' comment, eh?

I've been playing Regent, and King. Which, ICS may work one v one against someone, but not against 15 comp opponents. Because you can't expand everywhere, because the computers do it before you.

I also play on Regent ... as China always next to India. Perhaps India is more aggressive in this regard?

[yin26]

SITS: Yes, your border idea might be more acceptable to more people.

[TechWins]

The AI plays normal? Umm. I don't like what its doing either, but it IS a valid strategy. And if it doesn't ake up all that land. . . . um, won't you?

Yes, the AI should take the land, yet in a sophisticated manner. The AI shouldn't do expansion in a manner that will make it have 15 1-2 pop size cities laying around in the year 10ad. Note that expanding in a sophosticated manner would be 'normal'.

3 Pop settlers?

If you read my post (unless you misunderstood) you would know that the 3 pop settlers idea goes along with this:

2)If a city builds a settler, then the city will have to wait for two more project (wealth doesn't count) completions to finish. There is a way to get around this, though, you can build a settler consecutively or bi-consecutively, but after the settler is built half of the remaining citizens in the city will become unhappy. The realistic reasoning for this is that the city needs time to recooperate after losing a lot of citizens (3; that's where this comes into play) and will become unhappy if they are not able to do so.

Kicking out settlers? Damn good idea. But so what? You can do it now. And they use boats. Hmmm. Wouldn't really help.

Having to contact the other Civ four to five times before you are allowed to use the option of "leave my territory now or prepare for war" for diplomacy isn't quite as effective.

Umm. Don't get too cocky about all these "wonderful" ideas you have. Most of them are rather dumb.

I detect jealously in this comment.

Yin, you are not the only one who is being annoyed by the expansion of other Civ3; I constantly have the Romans trying to get into my land building cities. In fact they have done it three times but two of those times the city has converted over to me. Again a 'normal' AI would not have had this happen to them.

[gamadict]

I havn't really thought of how this would effect the balence, but I really think you should be able to attack any unit crossing your territory in your terriritory without many repercussions. At least, not among any civs but the one's you attacked. Especially with military units. I mean, without provocation or permission, countries just don't go traipsing through other countrie's borders with their military without any expecting any resistance, unless they're just so superior that the other nation's can't do anything about it. I also agree with the people who suggest that settling in the middle of your countries' empire should be considered some kind of agressive act. I'm not a history expert, but I'm sure someone can point out a scenario where this caused a lot of conflict in the Real World...

[korn469]

ICS isn't the same thing as expansion, ICS was basically a way to exploit the game mechanics in order to achieve an advantage, in the same way a player would station a bomber over a stack of units to keep them from getting killed

ICS existed because of the following reasons

*by building a settler 1 pop essentially became 2 pop with the free settler
this is fixed in Civ3

*a large number of size one cities supported far more units than a few large cities with equal pop
this is partially fixed in Civ3

*size one cities grew exponentially faster than really large cities
this has pretty much been taken care of in civ3

civ3 has done a fairly good job of breaking the mechanics that made ICS work but what's left is a situation where it's either expand or die, and you can say the exact same thing about starcraft...plus larger cities are more valuable in civ3 than what they were in civ2, so exceptions to the expand or die rule will exist

[yin26]

Yin, you are not the only one who is being annoyed by the expansion of other Civ3

And I think we are saying the same thing here: AI expansion is great! Awesome, in fact! But the AI will expand at the expense of his own empire and common sense regarding borders. India in my game has wrecked himself sending his escort teams literally to the other side of a large continent just to settle in tundra. If that same settler had stayed at home, the production value would have been much much higher. Not to mention he also had to pull troops far far away from his capital to escort them.

I will say this about my game: India was trapped in a corner. In a sense, I respect that the AI tried to expand at all costs instead of rolling up and dying. This is great!!!

But force him to go to war with me, then, by trespassing all over the place. Have him make allies to attack me from two fronts if he's in that spot. But the 'fix' allowing him to run across my land despite protest just is not satisfying.

gamadict: Perhaps another answer could be that once you discover Nationalism, any enemy cities not connected to its primary borders AND surrounded by your borders on all side gets automatically swallowed up by you? Before nationalism, I could accept the idea of loose city-states.

[yin26]

Korn: I understand that they fixed the 'free pop' aspect of ICS. But what is NOT fixed is the fundamental 'make cities until you drop' dynamic. I would not have been against the free pop part of ICS to begin with. It's the messy and tedious city expansion part I disliked.

And that part has been emphasized in Civ3, even if the free pop issue has been addressed.

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by yin26
As for wanting to start cities far apar from each other and work them back in, I understand the strategy behind it. But I still say that your cities should 'flower' out from your capital. Make the initial borders bigger to compensate for the CCB.

Isn't there room for a middle ground? I agree it's beyond stupid to have colonial AI making cities in the tiny little gap in your tremendous empire. Forcing the border's to actually be contingous in the start though? C'mon... what your suggesting is more restricting (and tedious) than just being able to do what you want.

Keep in mind, that I really think the start where the concept of defined borders comes into play is one the most facinating aspects. Despite some cries, it does work really well and eventually the shape of a nation becomes well defined.

[yin26]

A more flexible solution like SITS mentioned would be better. But I would also add: What are colonies for? As the game stands, they are next to useless when you can so easily just send out cities.

[CygnusZ]

Well, to tweak colonies I would make it so that they wouldn't be swallowed up by national borders.

I agree with you that there should be sane national borders. But it creates a huge problems. For example, in my current game me (greece) and Egypt teamed up to take down Rome. I got southern Rome and Egypt took western Rome. Western Rome is not connected Egypt however, it's connected to me and I think egypt deserves the spoils.

It *IS* sane for egypt to get that continuous land mass interrupted by my nation. For issues like these I'm wary about changing the system.

Unless the contingous borders interfere with my "mushrooming" practice (valid strat) and especially not mess around with conquering problems such as these, not to mention slow down the already slow beginning, I don't see how this would be viable.

[korn469]

yin

yes i agree with you about the expand to infinity and beyond syndrome, and there is more of a focus on expansion in civ3 than in civ2

Another way to cure it is to make a new city VERY vulnerable to anothers culture with a very real chance that in the next turn it will be taken over unless it is nearer its own cities. I think the second rule would be more in keeping of the game.

well i have been playing as much as possible since getting the game on wednesday...and i would say that is a good 25 hours at least, and in that time i have seen exactly one city switch sides because of culture and that was like a size five city that i had captured from the Greeks, i have seen more leadera than i have cultural assimilation

however Sits idea is a really good one in my opinion, and it would be nice if in addition to cities switching sides, that if the player has over extended theirselves too much that cities would revolt and become independent civs

[yin26]

If you take my approach, the solution requires you to take over a city there and then expand on those borders at will. These 'new borders' would not connect to your original cities of course. Think of taking over the city as 'establishing a base of operations.'

If you take SITS's approach, you'd merely need to found your city a few tiles back away from the current civ's borders ... and if his borders are quite large, it means he has quite a bit of power and SHOULDN'T have to tolerate your founding cities so closely on top of him ... and vice versa.

[yavoon]

"plz make the ai less expansionist, cuz I'm afriad if the ai doesn't suck more, I might be forced to play efficiently"

at some point, u guys gotta stop knocking the ai for doing wut is an effective buildup. especially under such lame reasons as "its too effective" or "it disrupts my gameplay" cuz thats really some stanky lame ****.

[CygnusZ]

But the new cities you take over wouldn't necessairly have connected borders. Or they would be connected the to the rival civilization which would be a no-no.

even under Sits system, your newly conquered cities would now be even *MORE* vulnerable to takeover by culture by the civ you are at war with. That's no good...

BTW, I've seen plenty of cultural defection

[yin26]

yavoon: Too bad we don't have MP yet, eh? Needless to say, you'd probably lose.

CygnusZ: Needless to say, ANY city taken over creates its new (if isolated) borders. They don't need to connect. And perhaps it's pushing back the owner civ's borders is a bonus effect of taking over a city.

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by yin26
yavoon: Too bad we don't have MP yet, eh? Needless to say, you'd probably lose.

CygnusZ: Needless to say, ANY city taken over creates its new (if isolated) borders. They don't need to connect. And perhaps it's pushing back the owner civ's borders is a bonus effect of taking over a city.

So we're back to cities not needing to connect? Or only conquered cities don't need to connect?

There are problems with the current system, there are bigger problems with continuous border mechanics. SITS was better, and I think the idea that Nationalism would take over *ANY* civ encompassed by another would be a great permenant fix.

[MxM]

Originally posted by yin26

1) "Continguous City Borders" -- CCBs

The idea is simple: You may found a city ONLY if its borders will touch your existing border. Now, if this means we should expand the initial borders a bit, fine. If the borders do NOT touch, you can only build a colony. And taking away the other civ's colony must NOT be considered an act of war. Building a colony should be a risk ... an important gamble to secure far off resources. That is what Firaxis intended, I think, but currently there is NO reason not to simply put cities helter skelter.

Yin, I completely do not understand why do you think that this suggestion has anything related to ICS. All what you achieve here is that the civs becomes more compact. It has nothing to do with advantage to build more cites, and it does not stop AI building cities. It just limits where AI can build those cites.

I think that solutions that you suggest here are for the different problem: how to stop AI to settle lands, which you think are rightfully yours. This is NOT ICS problem.

One of the possible solutions is, for example, to create special unit, which can claim the territory around it as belonging to you, as long as unit stands there. Or it could be not unit, but tile improvement, like special type of fortress or guarding post. Basically anything that can claim the territory.

This claimed territory can be different from you "real" territory. For example AI can still found cites there, but only after war declaration.

Just my 2 cents

[yin26]

So we're back to cities not needing to connect? Or only conquered cities don't need to connect?

I was saying only conquered cities and the first city founded on a new continent do not need to connect.

There are problems with the current system, there are bigger problems with continuous border mechanics. SITS was better, and I think the idea that Nationalism would take over *ANY* civ encompassed by another would be a great permenant fix.

Well, I'd be interested to see how a continguous system plays. It could suck. It could be surprisingly more interesting. I agree that SITS's idea would cause less controversy and be easier to implement.

Yes, that Nationalism fix could really be a fun way to handle it, too.

Yin, I completely do not understand why do you think that this suggestion has anything related to ICS. All what you achieve here is that the civs becomes more compact. It has nothing to do with advantage to build more cites, and it does not stop AI building cities. It just limits where AI can build those cites.

Well, I don't want to lump all my ideas under that concept of 'fixing ICS' actually. You are right to point out that what I'm getting at here is 'Making City Placement a Lot More Strategic, Meaningful and Fun.'

And limiting the building of cities along the lines people are working out here IS the point and, incidentally, part of fixing ICS for if you cannot place cities where ever one wants at will, you are now having to think a bit more carefully ... as it should be.

And I will stress: I do not think this will cripple the AI. I think it could help it actually by not throwing away so many cities in the early game.

[Travathian]

I think you're making way too big a deal for a small problem. As it is now, all civs act like expansionistic ones. The four civs with this quality should expand like mad. The other 12 though are far too aggressive in expansion. What the computer does is NOT ICS Yin, you of all people should know better than this. Its simply overly aggressive expansion.

I do agree somewhat about the border crossing issues. I noticed when I trespass in the computer's territory, the second warning offers me the option of removing my units back to my territory or declaring war against the enemy. Why can't I do this to the computer, that way IT has to declare war on me to move in my area. But frankly, if you can't defend your borders, your problem. If you want to sit back and play city builder, go get Simcity.

Oh, and I play on Monrach, with medium sized continents and between 5 and 10 civs. I always expand to fill my continent, conquering whoever I share it with, and squashing invaders. I keep vigilant watch on my borders, and aggressively defend my territory. Egypt and France are preferred civs.

Lastly, someone mentioned the idea of settlers/workers defecting. This, I think is a great solution. Each turn one of these units spend in your territory, there's a chance they defect. The chance would be based on the comparison between the two civs. This would provide another benefit to having a good culture.

[MxM]

Yin,

I think that by limiting places where you can put the city limits your possible choices, and thus makes you think less, rather than more.

I suggest to look at the root of the problem: you want somehow to stop AI (and potentially human player in MP) building cities at the places that you think should belong to you, even if you do not have cites right now. So, we need somehow to create mechanism of claiming that territory. If several civs claims the same territory, they should be at the state of war.

Your suggestion of "contiguous borders" is ultimate and very restricting solution for territory claiming: you can not settle anywhere except in the direct vicinity of your other cities. I personally do not like it because this is too limiting, though it is quite possible the easiest to implement.

However, I believe there should be other, more elegant ways to solve this problem. One of the suggestions, as I mention, is to create guarding post, which can be build by either settler and/or worker and/or by some other unit. This post will claim territory, which is within some radius (say 2 squares). This is only claimed territory, hence other sivs still can found cites within this territory, but this automatically means declaration of war.

I am sure we can think of other interesting and may be more simple solutions.

[yin26]

What the computer does is NOT ICS Yin, you of all people should know better than this. Its simply overly aggressive expansion.

Well, I have watched the AI times its settlers to pop out at exactly pop 3. What else is it? Sure, the 'free popluation' issue is fixed, but not the SPIRIT of ICS which dictates: More cities the better ... no matter where ... no matter how.

Now, if I could go for just one of the two things I suggested, I'd go with the border one. Be it through Settler Deportation or chances to defect, all I want, really, is a strategic way to deal with the AI's settlers. If I do the work of setting up my border in the right place, and if I scout properly and have the right units on hand, I should be able to respond in a reasonable way.

Now, if you are always conquering the paired-civ you start with, perhaps that is the best solution given the game as is. I know people on Chieftain can peacefully build from the start next to another civ, but Regent and up seems to really crank on these issues.

It's not that I can't beat the AI that does these things. I'm killing India in my game, for example. It's just that it's not very satisfying. I was bored after the first 30 minutes playing land grab and 'watch the AI walk through my territory.'

[Skanky Burns]

The way i see it, you have two problems with the game.

First, settlers ignoring your borders, despite protests and them agreeing to move. Agreed, this is annoying.
A peaceful solution to this would be useful, and your proposed one fits the description. Have the option to kick them out - back to their own territory, or to capture them and risk war.

Second problem: the computer builds cities in any spare scrap of land, despite its apparent worthlessness. Ive yet to experience this (not having Civ 3 yet), but i agree the AI shouldnt put suicidal cities inside your empire, just waiting to be captured culturally, or if it comes to it, by military.
I disagree with your proposed method, though. I can guarantee that if Firaxis had implemented it, I (and many others) would be complaining about this 'unrealistic, expansion-killing rule which destroys the fun'. I would definately prefer SITS variation of this rule, combined with a much greater change of new cities being captured if there is a large difference in the total cultures of the two civs in question.

ps: Yin, you need a new acronym to describe this, since it isnt ICS.

[yin26]

O.K. Use a different word. To me, the spirit is virtually the same.

And you shouldn't guess how I would react. There was a similar problem with Age of Kings in which the enemy Town Center could be 'pushed' on you. One of the proposals then was the line of site building notion. While it wasn't implemented, another fix was: the Town Center was made a lot more costly in terms of stone, a relatively rare resource in the game.

Along side that, however, was a very simple fact: In AoK you *can* scout and you *can* kill forward builders.

Having gone through this thread several times now, I think that's really all I'm asking. If I can have the ability to send the settler packing, I'd be satisfied. I'm fully aware the AI will still sneak some by on boats or whatever. I'm fine with that. Heck, it will add some fun to the scouting effort.

C'mon. That point seems to be agreed by most or all of us. And it shouldn't be too hard to implement I would think.

[Travathian]

Maybe those pokey cities are staging grounds for a future invasion? Someday they'll have airports and barracks and harbors, and the invasion will spring forth wasps from a disturbed nest! Ok, maybe not.

Maybe the AI could be coded to check the corruption rate at a potential site. Factor in current government, potential governments, improvements, etc and if it doesn't meet certain specs the AI wont build actively build a city. Possibly factor in culture to determine chance of the city being assimilated. Then the expansionistic civs would have a lower threshold and more likelyhood of taking a chance on a crappy spot.

I'd much rather have the AI behavior adapted to allow it to fair better then to change the rules of the game.

Oh, there is one good thing about rampant expansionism, it increases the likelyhood of a new resource being in your territory when they become available.

[yin26]

Well, in the meantime, I will streamline my build orders and basically be more aggressive pressing the AI and trying to eat into him with culture points.

Final Comments (as I don't want to beat a dead horse): Overall, I'm much happier (yes, happier) with the early game. Good work, Firaxis! If you can put in a better diplomatic way to deal with trespassers, I'd be happy. If you don't want to, there are workarounds (the warrior wall [physically blocking them with lots of warriors--can't remember who said that one], the culture bomb [Vel's idea--rush building culture stuff and hurriedly adding to the new city placed like a bomb next to the AI]).

That's it for me on this issue. I'm curious to see if Firaxis has anything to say about it.

Goodnight.

[Talenn]

The REAL problem here is that the reward for city sprawling/mad expansion is simply too high vs the cost investment. If it was less cost effective and/or more risky or difficult, players (and programmed AIs....) would do it less.

The trick would be to make it so that rewards for it are somewhat less or the costs, somewhat higher. Even something so simple as making it so that a city must have a pop of at least 4-5(?) before it can build a settler would cure many of the problems. This would cause those little worthlessly placed cities to be effectively dead-ends and would slow up early spreading in favor of building up some cities, which would in turn, encourage some real cultural development to keep those cities functioning properly.

At any rate restricting where you can build limits a lot of strategies IMO and takes a lot out of the decision making in the early game. I'd much rather see a system where it was far harder to colonize instead so that you have to prioritize your locations more and thus, you'd have less worthless placeholder cities.