Return-mail from Chris Pine, lead programmer Civ-3

[Ralf]

I sent a lengthy mail to Chris Pine about the AI problems of Civ-style games, and some general ideas to work around it. Heres what the man responded:

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Thanks for your email!

Many of your suggestions (though I can't say which ones) are already in the game and we will certainly think about the others.

Just so you know, I think we've finally fixed both the ICS problem and the Bigger-is-always-better problem.

Thanks for all of your input and for thinking about the game,

Chris Pine
Lead Programmer
Civilization III
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Here that guys! Both the ICS- and the BAB-problem is now finally squashed!

[Builder]

Halleluya

[The diplomat]

Awesome!

I can't wait to see the civ3 site, they promised.

[Sirotnikov]

A note? from a programmer? actually talking about the game?

THANK YOU!
Ralf, maybe this isn't the time or the place, but - I love you man, thank you very much for the info!

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Sirotnikov on 10-19-2000 10:24 PM THANK YOU! Ralf, maybe this isn't the time or the place, but - I love you man, thank you very much for the info!

Ahh, that was nothing
(is this man being ironic or plain honest )

[UltraSonix]

quote: Just so you know, I think we've finally fixed both the ICS problem and the Bigger-is-always-better problem.

I think a lot of old-timers of this forum will rejoice at this!

And also, did you just email Chris Pine though the email in his profile (cpine@firaxis.com)? Not that I;m going to do anything, of course...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

[Caesar]

ICS?

[Sirotnikov]

I was humorous of course
But I meant every word.

You see, I'm here registered since february and I was lurking a long time before that.
Now, the people that are here for a long enough period of time (me included), rejoice every time there is some new information. We civ3 people know very little about what firaxis is really doing.

Ctp 2 team is beeing very very open and thier part of the site is full of different new facts each week or so.

Civ3 section however changes every 2 months. And the vote seems to me, didn't change now for 3 months or so. *hint hint*
[This message has been edited by Sirotnikov (edited October 20, 2000).]

[Shadowstrike]

Its a good thing that the programmers used our suggestions. It would save them some work on the ideas stage and for us would be a major achievement.

Caesar, ICS a Civilization II strategy which is regarded almost as a "cheat". Basically, you build cities very close together and take advantage of the fact that a size 1 city works 2 squares. Go to the Strategy forum and you'll get a better explaination.

[Ralf]

I cant help wonder how they fixed the BAB problem (Bigger Always Better).

Creating a well-designed empire as huge as possible must have, at least *some*, really desirable points. Perhaps...

- Unmatched ability to gather resource-shields.
- Unmatched ability to conscript/maintain huge armies.

On the other hand; creating a smaller civilized/perfectionist empire must have its own very attractive points as well. Maybe...

- Unmatched ability to ramp up really big cities with much lesser happiness-problems - even though circumstances comparing small-empire city with big-empire city, otherwise are similar.

This unique small-empire advantage makes it easier to compensate in the science-race with more specialized Einsteins. Also; small empires creates unmatched surplus economy (huge number of tax-paying citizens, but much smaller total empire maintainance costs).

Both the government-type and the actual numbers of cities is of course a very important parameter in how big the boost should be.
In theory, one should be able to create a tiny 4-6 city perfectionist "17th century Netherland" type of empires. A few really HUGE cities absolutely brimming with financial surplus and Einstein-figures.

A challenging point is once you have choosen above small empire approach - its *much* harder in modern era end-games, to suddenly change foot and conduct surprising several AI-cities captures per turn invasions. You gradually loose those powerfull small empire city-happiness advantages - and with the added units-away-from-city unhappiness, you are quickly confronted with really daunting domestic unhappiness-problems. Much worse then i Civ-2.

Also; the other way around - if you instead created a huge 25-30+ city-empire, its much easier to produce and maintain really big armies on the march. The smaller empires cities are pretty tough to capture however (good surplus economy + advances in science on pair with the bigger empire-neighbors). Also, *huge* unhappiness problem that ties up *lots* of martial law military units once you captured the city, awaits you.
An alternative could be to "trade" refugees with the invaded empire. Your captured mega-city looses upto half its citizens in a single turn distributed to all the remaining and still resisting cities in that invaded empire. If the invaded empire refuses to take them (food-problems) you can choose to simply kill them off (killing already surrendered civilians however leads to huge, irrepairable damage on your civilization-score, that no last-turn change-everyone-to-Elvis fix-ups can repair).


Perhaps there are loopholes in above idea and maybe Firaxis have a better solution. Anyway; the trick is that *both* the big empire approach *and* the small empire approach should be equally appealing alternatives.
At the end of the day, however; if you create an enormous civilized perfectionist democracy-empire; that should have the final edge. But, yet again - only so much, and definitely not in all and every areas.

This is why the BAB-problem is a rather tricky one.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Shogun Gunner]

Ralf: Thanks for the info. A lot of goods points about BAB. I am anxious to see what Civ III does here.

America is big, just look at how many problems it has.

The bigger you get, the higher your population, the higher the crime is, the more people you have to please, the more land you have to defend. Lots of attributes can be placed in Civ3 to stop the BAB problem.

I never really came across the problem because I am just like Singapore, sit on an island and make it perfect. Whereas a large civilization, that is a very difficult - an almost impossible task.

[UltraSonix]

"The ultimate ICS thread: analysis and solutions" would probably be the mother of all ICS threads... it was where I learnt about the issue. Perhaps that was where Firaxis got their ideas from...

edit:bad html

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...
[This message has been edited by UltraSonix (edited October 21, 2000).]

[Simpson II]

Bigger is always better? Huh? Someone hit AC the other day in 1516 with one city on Deity level... barring ICS, the drive in teching fast has been to build few cities. There was more of a tendency to expand in SMAC because CPs cost only 30 minerals and gave 10 back when you founded a city, but in Civ? Anyone care to enlighten me?

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Simpson II on 10-22-2000 12:01 AM Bigger is always better? Huh? Someone hit AC the other day in 1516 with one city on Deity level...

Perhaps "someone" was talking bull**** - i dont know. Theres a big difference between simply surviving the game with just one city, and actually winning it.
Maybe the game-AI concludes that 1-3 human cities is to insignificant in terms of military threat and orders the AI-civs to fight among themselves instead. This (maybe) allows one to actually accomplish some of the lesser known methods of winning. This little flaw can however easily be fixed simply by tweaking the AI to *always* fight the human player (one way or the other**) no matter how insignificant he is in terms of military might.

** A good Civ-3 rule would be that if the human player becomes to cocky in *any* area - the AI automatically stops all internal AI-civ quarrels. The 2-3 AI-civs closest to the human player join forces and goes to war against him, while the other ones further away concentrates almost fully on growth, science, economy and terrain-improvements - living peacefully side by side, for the time being.

However, this guy´s supposed achievement brings the searchlight on an important subject:
He *must* have nurtured very good logistics for that city (maximal city-area-, city-improvement- and unit-improvement strategies). If the programmers of Civ-3 only could find ways to imitate civilised civ-veteran strategical logistics - when our luck is made.
I they achives that; then i wouldnt mind some erratic AI unit pathfinding problems here and there. I can live with it - thats of less importance.

Finally: Your "try to win the game with as few cities as possible" concept have obvious flaws. What if everone - human player or AI-civ alike, adopted this strategy?
Part of the fun is in *expanding* and share mutual borders with each other. Its not that fun being surrounded with continental-sized uninhabited wastelands for the major part of the game.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 22, 2000).]

[Matthew]

Let's look at a few actual cases.

United States of America:

Population: 275 Million

GDP: $9.3 trillion (Dag freaking nab !!!!)

GDP per Capita: $33,900

Land area compared to U.S.A. /

People's Republic of China:

Population: 1,261 Million

GDP: $4.8 Trillion

GDP per Capita:$3,800

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: About the same.

India:

Population: 1,014 Million

GDP: $1.805 Trillion

GDP Per Capita: $1,800

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: about 1/3

Japan:

Population: 127 Million

GDP: $2.95 Trillion

GDP Per Capita: $23,400

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: about 1/25

Germany:

Population: 82 Million

GDP: $1.87 Trillion

GDP Per Capita: $22,000

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: About 1/24

Mexico:

Population: 100 Million

GDP: $865 Billion

GDP Per Capita: $8,5000

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: about 1/5

Russia:

Population: 146 Million

GDP: $620.3 Billion

GDP Per Capita: $4,200

Land Area Compared to U.S.A.: 1.8 times larger.

Note Especially the Disparities between India and Japan, and Between the United States and China. India has close to 7 times the population of Japan, probably about 8 x the land area, Yet Japan,. even after the Asian Economic Crisis, has an economy about 1.7 times as large. Since this is spread over a much smaller population, there is a lot left over after basic sustenance in Japan.

Now compare the U.S.A. and China. China has 5 times the population, same land area, yet only half the economy. And again since the chinese resources must be spread over the larger population, the disparity is even greater when subtracting out basic sustenance costs.

Now compare Russia to Mexico.With about 7 times the land area and a population 1 and a half tome larger, the Russian economy is substantially smaller. And about 1 15th the size of the U.S. economy, with 1/2 the U.S. population. Or more to the point, 1/5 the economy of Japan, which has the same population and about 2% or so of the land area.


Let's look at the Military aspect. Nukes aside (the chinese arsenal is much smaller anyway), in spite of the much smaller population of the U.S.A., while the chinese could certainly defend themselves against an invasion by the U.S.A., there is no way in hades the Chinese could mach our industrial might in such a was so as to be able to gain the naval superiority necessary to successfully invade the U.S.A. Not without growing their economy first.

In short, in the modern world larger population, even by a huge margin (speaking in terms of actual people, not in the interresting civ 2 math where 1 pop = 10,000, 2=30,000, 3=60,000, etc) is not at all decicive. Of course in the modern world holding large international empires has also proven to be difficult, if not impossible in the long term. Complete world domination, without nuking the Earth into a nuclear winter and killing everyone, just isn't possible.

I'm glad they are making the bigger is better thing in civ III more realistic.

[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited October 22, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited October 22, 2000).]

[Jorrit Hansson]

Hi there, I'm new so I didn't actually read ALL the treads. I am a CIV2 veteran, though. I even played Civ1 and Colonisation

Ralf says:
In theory, one should be able to create a tiny 4-6 city perfectionist "17th century Netherland" type of empires. A few really HUGE cities absolutely brimming with financial surplus and Einstein-figures.

The Netherlands is a bad example. A major influence in the scientific success of the Netherlands in that age were 'enlightened people' fleeing the catholic nations and winding up in the swampy (and hard to invade) protestant refuge Holland. Among them were a lot of (duh) protestants, (portugese) Jews and rich merchants from what is now called Belgium. They gave the Netherlands its finest hours. To put it bluntly, it was a matter of circumstances and luck, nog careful empire building. This should only be realisticly simulated in CIV9 (in 2100 perhaps?). Might be fun as an event to help the small threatened civilisation in the game and boost its (science and money) level above the looming big giant empires. This could be quite 'realistic'.

Ralf says:
Your captured mega-city looses upto half its citizens in a single turn distributed to all the remaining and still resisting cities in that invaded empire. If the invaded empire refuses to take them (food-problems) you can choose to simply kill them off.

EEP..(for the killing) Well, if those refugees bring in knowledge, money and craftmanship I think I might agree here.. good thinking !


By the way, my 2 cents for the BAB problem is this:
1) Historically really big (especially conquested)
empires ALWAYS fall apart.
Alexander, Rome, Spain, to name but few...

2) BIG empires get lazy
Big empires get to much interrested in their own material wealth (need luxuries increase every lot of turns for being OVERLY SUPREME world leader ?) and are not interested in applied sciences any more (there is no need...)
China is a very good example here... It should have ruled the world from 500 AC and up, but they felt no need to do that.
USA is a big empire for just 100 years; that's peanuts in historical terms. USA has things going for it though: the united states Federal concept has it's ups (low curruption) and downs (almost no taxes, very much luxeries, right to arm bears, criminality). And maybe the capitalism system is the right way to confront the lazyness of big empires... capitalism is the perfect way to stay paranoid ! and work your butt off.

3) Communications hold an empire together. With drums and fires it's hard to keep contact across the oceans.
Horse messengers increase the size. Even doves and fire-towers increase your critical mass size. The telegraph, radio and internet increase the possibilities to world-governement.
Maybe you should not be able to direct your militairy units into attack if they are beyond your critical mass range.

There should be other things along this line... like science not being a 'more bulbs will make it go faster' kind of thing, but more like 'necessity (?? how's that spelled) makes the inventor. Think arms race. You can spend ages trying to invent the perfect way to cut grass if that is what is most important thing in the world. Only if you have just lost a battle or war you might want to go and invent some new stuff (that might finally kill those annoying enemies). And only by trying them out you get results.

Ok, enough
Cya
Jorrit Hansson

[Simpson II]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 10-22-2000 04:11 AM Perhaps "someone" was talking bull**** - i dont know.

If someone was then most of the Civ2 forum is - check out the OCC threads. Many newbies are now complaining that they cannot win the game with more than one city, so advanced is the technique!

quote: Theres a big difference between simply surviving the game with just one city, and actually winning it.

Like landing on Alpha Centauri, as this person did? Bear mind that this is the second-fastest Alpha Centauri landing ever claimed, and there is probably a 2-3 century window where the time can be pushedback - still with one city. The only faster landing involved the rehoming of caravans, a fairly blatant cheat.

quote: Maybe the game-AI concludes that 1-3 human cities is to insignificant in terms of military threat and orders the AI-civs to fight among themselves instead. This (maybe) allows one to actually accomplish some of the lesser known methods of winning.

Putting a SS on AC is a lesser-known way of winning? Isn't it, like, the whole point of the game?

quote: However, this guy´s supposed achievement brings the searchlight on an important subject: He *must* have nurtured very good logistics for that city (maximal city-area-, city-improvement- and unit-improvement strategies). If the programmers of Civ-3 only could find ways to imitate civilised civ-veteran strategical logistics - when our luck is made. I they achives that; then i wouldnt mind some erratic AI unit pathfinding problems here and there. I can live with it - thats of less importance.

It's a technique that's take some considerable time to develop, and which may not be entirely applicable to CivIII, but yes, they ought to draw a lot of lessons from things like this.

quote: Finally: Your "try to win the game with as few cities as possible" concept have obvious flaws. What if everone - human player or AI-civ alike, adopted this strategy? Part of the fun is in *expanding* and share mutual borders with each other. Its not that fun being surrounded with continental-sized uninhabited wastelands for the major part of the game.

I wasn't proposing this as the best way to win the game, it stinks militarily. I'm saying that there's a tension in civ between building lots of cities for military and security reasons, and building the best few cities you can... that's an important part of the game balance. It doesn't sound like it's one that CP is recognizing, though.