Another cryptic back-answer from Chris Pine

[Ralf]

I was sending over this e-mail to Firaxis, and quess; i got the following answer in return (not much, but i thought you guys would like to be notified anyway):

------------------------------------------------------ Firaxis respond letter:

I didn't say anything about city-area.

Anyway, that feels like a very non-fluid and counter-intuitive set of rules. I think we have a better set of solutions. Want to know what they are?

(chuckle)

Chris Pine

------------------------------------------------------ My e-mail to Firaxis:

Hi there (Ralf, Sweden)

The MAIN idea of below suggestion is to give the Civ-3 game an added anti-ICS dogleash.

And thats perhaps necessary: im not shure that city-area related anti-ICS prevention is going to be enough. Check out this thread over at the CTP-2 section:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum35/HTML/000313.html?45

The idea - city-improvement related max number-of-cities limit:

- To expand beyond 10 cities; you must build marketplaces in at least 5 of them.
- To expand beyond 20 cities; you must build marketplaces in at least 10 of them, and courthouses in at least 5 of them.
- To expand beyond 30 cities; you must build marketplaces in at least 15 of them, and courthouses in at least 10 of them.

In dont know if the ratios are perfect, but at least consider the overall idea. It can also be .txt-file tweakable.


------------------------------------------------------ A few summarising words:

Now, that guy nows how to reveal information without actually reveal any information

Anyway, note the ICS-related key-sentence here:

"I didn't say anything about city-area".

[head scratching] Any ideas and theories what the man is aiming at?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 19, 2000).]

[Tical_2000]

Quick question Ralf: What the hell is this chaotic post about and what significance does it have to anyone who posts in these forums???

[Thunderfall]

hey Ralf, you should post your email to chris along with the reply. so other people can anazlyze Chris's reply better.

------------------
Thunderfall
Civilization Fanatics' Center
http://www.civfanatics.com

[Ralf]

Tical_2000:

It seems to me that you are ignorant about the fact that Chris Pine is the LEAD PROGRAMMER of the Firaxis team, and that you dont have a foggiest clue what ICS stands for.
ICS means Infinite City Sprawl (or Infinite City Sleaze). Use the thread-search function to find threads about this problem.

Tical_2000 and Thunderfall:

Read the post carefully, dont just skim through it, BEFORE you post replies.

- FIRST, my introduction
- SECOND, Chris Pine´s respond letter
- THIRD, my e-mail to chris Pine
- FOURTH, my summarizing words

Its not *that* hard to understand thanks to the dotted separating lines, is it?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 19, 2000).]

[yin26]

Ralf,

Thanks for the info. But try to remember that not everybody knows all the background to this kind of thing, so please take a few seconds to clarify just in case new people show up. You wouldn't have to do much more than what you did in your last post...and try to be patient. Thanks again.

[Thunderfall]

I don't think it's a good idea to associate max # of cities with city improvments; you should be able to build 100 cities even if you have zero # of marketplace or courthouse. What they can do is to make the marginal benefit of an additonal city smaller and smaller, so it becomes not "profitable" to build too many cities.

------------------
Thunderfall
Civilization Fanatics' Center
http://www.civfanatics.com
"I can not be defeated yet..."
[This message has been edited by Thunderfall (edited November 19, 2000).]

[Christantine The Great]

quote: I didn't say anything about city-area.

Maybe he meant that if you build two cities near each other if City A is better then City B the citizens of B will move to A and if you tried to build a blanket of cities one city would suck up the other cities near it if it has better terrain around it.

[Tiberius]

Ralf, to understand the situation better, could you answer me 2 questions, please:

1. You said in your letter "I'm not shure that city-area related anti-ICS prevention is going to be enough".
What city-area related prevention?

2. Chris Pine said: "I didn't say anything about city-area".
This means he said something. What?

[Ralf]

THUNDERFALL:

Well, my idea was if the player had these non-negotiable improvement-related expanding-rules, he would tend to adjust automatically in advance, in much the same way that he prevents city-unhappiness before it actually happens, by precociously building happiness-improvements. Also; the whole idea could be tweaked (or bypassed) in the .txt tweak-files.

Anyway, i feel confident that Firaxis really HAVE found "a better set of solutions", so i definitely dont mourn the fact the above idea was rejected. Hence: "that feels like a very non-fluid and counter-intuitive set of rules".

Your quote: "you should be able to build 100 cities even if you have zero # of marketplace or courthouse".

I really *dont* agree! Historic quote:
"You can conquer an empire from a horseback, but cannot RULE an empire from a horseback".

I think this have been said about the Hunns, but im not sure. Anyway, in order to keep and maintain a huge empire you MUST have an civil infrastructure. Why should it be different in Civ-3?


CHRISTANTINE THE GREAT:

Now, thats an imaginative idea! Well, who knows...


TIBERIUS:

1/ I was merely refering to the Activision CTP-2 solution of the problem. They have implemented expanding city-areas and more anti-ICS preventions, mostly related to the city-areas. Read about it in above shortcut.

2/ He have only answered me two times. The first response was to my ideas about workarounds for a better and stronger Civ-AI. Click below:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001752.html

The second response i have reproduces in this thread. I guess he was just leading me away from the wrong track. I took for granted that the Firaxis-team perhaps adopted a similar solution to the ICS-problem as the Activision-team did, you see.
If you read about how Activision dealt with the ICS-problem, you see that they have choosen a rather "technical" city-area percentage-calculating squares type of solution.

Chris Pine´s response:
Who says we have dealt with this problem the same way as Activision has?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 20, 2000).]