The ultimate ICS thread: analysis and solutions

[The diplomat]

I think we can divide ICS into three sub-problems:

1) eternal expansion

To solve this problem I want to propose my own version of the "bureaucracy points" idea. It involves an administration costs. Put simply, each city (the capital city would be exempt), proportional to its population, would require a certain amount of money to be paid from the national budget. This administration cost would vary depending on the government type. The more totalitarian your gvt was, the higher the administration costs would be. Expansion should not be impossible but it would require careful planning. Also, administration costs would simulate managing an empire pretty well, so it would deal with the discussion about how to portray the rise and fall of empires. If you could not pay the cost for a city, that city's loyalty would decrease until you resumed payment or it would eventually revolt and declare independance.
(note: the specific amount for the administration cost could easily be changed by the user in a .txt file. You could increase it to make expansion harder, if you wanted a challenge, or even set the cost at 0 to "turn off" this rule)
The main advantage of this idea is that it is fairly easy to implement since it is similar to the maintenance cost for city improvements. And, it simulates empire management pretty well.

2) small cities being better than large ones.

The simplest way to make a village less "useful" than a larger city is through an accurate pop growth method. Let's say for example that each "farmer" citizen produces enough food for 1.5 citizens. This means that 2 farmers produce food for 3 citizens. This would mean that a city of pop 3, would have two citizens producing food and one citizen free to do something else (like building a city improvement). But a city of pop 2 could only produce food. Therefore, under this example, a city of 2 or less pop would be unable to produce things until it grew. So for example, 12 cities of pop 1 could only produce food for themselves, compared to 1 city of pop 12 which would have 4 citizens free to build something or wage war. So, a player would want to build up the population rather than just settle new cities. Especially that you could only send out a new settler once you had a "free" citizen. So, with the previous example, only a size 3 city could send out its first settler.
The number of people that one citizen could feed would increase with certain technologies. it might be 1.2 for example at the beginning of the game but in modern times it might 3.5 (one "farmer" citizen can feed 3.5 citizens). Like in reality, in modern times the percentage of your pop that has to produce food for the rest would be smaller and smaller.

3) supporting units

It has been said before but I think a unit should require food, gold and shields as support, not just shields. This is a realistic limit on unit production. Furthermore, the number of units a city can support should be limited by the total pop. How can a city have a larger army than its total population ?!


last, I think that disease should definitely be modeled in civ3. It could be a random event.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.
[This message has been edited by The diplomat (edited February 27, 2000).]

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by raingoon on 02-27-2000 04:01 PM Also here is an idea for something you all have been discussing and seem to grasp better than I -- the problem with the population model. One word, really -- GERMS. I've been reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel," a book about why civilization evolved down the peculiar paths it did, and why North American Indians, say, did not discover Spain in 1492, rather than the other way around. Very interesting. But truly profound is the effect that germs have had on population growth and migration over the years. The title of the book is no accident -- germs are right there alongside guns for exactly the reason you would think.

So you finally got around to reading it, eh? I don't suppose you could do me a favor. Go to the MISCELLANEOUS thread and look over my Diseases & Plagues idea- and then apply what you learned from "Guns, etc." and tell me what you'd change (written before I read the book).

[Theben]

"I don't think giving advanced cities the possibility to build two things at the same time would solve anything."

If the city can buy the item(s) then the larger city can get 2 tanks in 1 turn.

[Dienstag]

Well, I spent a good long time writing my feelings on ICS, especially the population component of it, and then I spent a not-quite-so-long time reading the contents of the very next thread which deals exclusively with population and renders most of my post obsolete. So now I've edited it into a little explanatory note and I'm not entirely sure why, except to say that you guys have some really neat ideas and I'll get back to you when I've had time to think (and read) a little more. Sorry.
[This message has been edited by Dienstag (edited February 28, 2000).]

[MadWoodster]

Surely the easiest way to solve this problem is to take away the FREE WORKER.
THe free worker is where you have just built a city but have two workers, the one working in the "production centre" and the one working somewhere else on the map. This is where the main problem lies take away this and lower some of the values to balance it all and I believe you would reduce the problem big time.

[raingoon]

Theben, I still haven't FINISHED the book, but I've read enough of it -- and of your disease and plague section in the Misc. forum, to believe you pretty much are in line with what the book is saying.

Tying disease to climate is a singularly smart idea and right on the money. It's just one of those things that should be in the game, somehow. It really happened that way and nobody realizes how important it really was to civilization's development (or lack thereof).

I think the criticism that you've got a bit much complexity for what is gained is a valid one. But it's a rough draft. Have you made your nominations yet? I'd second a Disease and Plague nomination for sure. If nothing else, "Guns, Germs and Steel" ought to be required reading at Firaxis.

[korn469]

i have been thinking about the base square and i think i have the solution...

a base square generates nothing on its own, but it would add a matching amount of resources up to 3-3-3

here is what i mean

if you have a person working on a 0-0-0 square the base square would produce 0-0-0

if you had a person working on a 1-0-2 square the base square would add 1-0-2

if you had two people working on a 1-2-1 and a 3-0-1 square respectively then the base square would produce 3-2-2

if you had 20 population each working a 5-2-3 square then the base square would add 3-3-3

that system would solve lots of problems...i will put up a new summary later tonight with most of the new ideas incorporated into it

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited February 29, 2000).]

[Xin Yu]

OK. If we set the city square to be 0-0-0 and use 2x production we should end up with the same results? Just set a limit that 2x prod can not give more than 3+3+3+.
[This message has been edited by Xin Yu (edited February 29, 2000).]

[The diplomat]

korn469: your idea is very innovative but could you tell me how it reflects real- life? It seems very abstract to me.
I do have a counter-suggestion: how about a city of pop 1 would only have a worker in the base square, a city of pop 2 would have a worker in the base square + a worker in another tile, pop 3 would have base square + 2 workers on tiles etc... It seems simpler, less abstract and would also solve the problem you mention.


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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[korn469]

Xin Yu

could you explain your idea better? i do not understand what you mean when you say 2x production do you mean on a per square basis? even if you did cap the per square productivity at 3-3-3 this could lead to two problems...

one is that if productivity was capped at 3-3-3 per square all of the squares would become very similar and civ3 would suffer from SMAC's big problem...that you basically only need one set of tile improvements (forests)

the second problem is that while the base square is needed, a big ramp up in total base output is not needed

the diplomat

my idea has as much to do with the real life as any civ game does...absolutely nothing

the basic problem is that the base square is needed for little cities to do anything

the goal of this thread is to solve the problem of ICS but not introduce a new problem...namely that the super city strat would become best

ok if a worker works the base square, and it only yeilds 2 food, then a city could never grow...if it yeilded three food, then every size one city would grow at the exact same rate, in fact if every first worker had to work the base square then every single size one city would be identical...which should not be the case

the best part of my idea is that the way it works, there are some locations that could not support cities at first until some form of irragation takes place...my idea would introduce a great deal of variety in size 1-3 cities, much more than either having a normal base square like in civ2 or having the base square being worked by the first worker

here is an comparison of my idea to SMAC (i forgot how much a base square in Civ2 produces) and to the diplomats idea

the wastelands: each square produces 0-1-0

my idea, a worker produces 0-0-0, the base square produces 0-0-0, the city will die of starvation

SMAC, the worker produces 0-0-0, the base square produces 2-1-1...the city experiances no growth

the diplomats idea, the worker produces 2-1-1, the city experiances no growth

the badlands: each square produces 1-1-1

my idea, the worker produces 1-1-1, the base square produces 1-1-1, there is no growth

SMAC, the worker produces 1-1-1, the base square produces 2-1-1, the city will grow in 40 turns

the diplomat's idea, the worker produces 2-1-1, the city experiances no growth

green pastures: each square produces 2-2-2

my idea, the worker produces 2-2-2, the base square produces 2-2-2 the city will grow in 20 turns

SMAC, the worker produces 2-2-2, the base square produces, 2-1-1 the city will grow in 20 turns

the diplomats idea, the worker produces 2-1-1, the city experiances no growth

the fertile cresent: each square produces 3-3-3

my idea, the worker produces 3-3-3, the base square produces 3-3-3, the city will grow in 7 turns

SMAC, the worker produces 3-3-3, the base square produces 2-1-1, the city will grow in ten turns

the diplomat's idea, the worker produces 2-1-1, the city experiances no growth

my aim is not to base my solution on real life, but it is to base my solution to ICS on good game play fundamentals...

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited February 29, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

Hello Korn

You really raised really fundamental problem of all civ-style game and we all think the ICS problem should be solved. with you!

What about we approach this matter from different angle. Why did Roman empire stopped to expand? Romans did not want to take any more military liability for its client state and they knew exactly what point they should stop its expansion at maxium benefit of trade under the cover of Pax Romana.

One thing that bothers me is that current civ-style game does not offer any human inhabitants on the globe but only pikced civs themselves. What about the Barbars from goody huts? No! they are temporary they make one sweep and disapear. We need more interaction with those goody huts like the Indian tribes of Colonisation.

We might counter countless number of primitive or nomadic tribes in that way. Just think about how many goody huts we can have!
Historically, many civs interacted with tribes like Romans and Numidian.

What am trying to say is that most of habitable land should be occupied with some local tribes. So when we expand, a struggle with that locals should be inevitable. Many players will have to think about thier proper defense against its tribal neighbours thus they simply have to build more military units rather than building another settler.

Building a simple military unit like warriors would not solve the defense dilemma against tribal neigbours since they(locals) can have similar mil unit or perhaps more advanced(horsemen)one. A city which has proper infra should be able to do all the sophisticated production or research then the production of more advanced units will be possible.

So easy expansion after the production of few phalanx or legion? Maybe easier than with warriors but that still shoudn't be like walking in the park because the locals learns from You. See all the Indian tribes mounted and armed with rifles after some interaction with whiteman.

No more empty land filled with dead goody huts! No more easy settlement! We need alive goody huts which can represent a tribe that can talk,get angry,be happy and form even military alliance with us.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I was thinking... look at the Sid Meier's Dino Diary #5 (just came out). They have a great plan to contain ICS (watering holes). Perhaps they can use the watering hole idea to keep ICS from being the great problem by restricting civs from growth because of food supply problems.

[Paul]

Korn, to answer two of your questions: in Civ2 the base square produces what the underlying terrain would produce. The base square automatically gets irrigation and roads which are upgraded to farmland and railroad when the appropriate technology is discovered.

2x production is an option in Civ2 Multiplayer to speed up the game by having all food, production and trade that are produced on a square being doubled.

[MadWoodster]

Dipomat : You've got my point exactly.

Korn: I know that some balancing would be needed. If we keep to the system whereby irrigation is automatically added in. Then grasslands will produce 3 food allowing for growth in 40 turns. Then after this there would be differences between size 1 cities. Of course if we could have the terrain slightly more complex allowing for a + or - of upto 0.5 for each terrain square, decided at the beginning of the game but not known to the player. This would represent the fact that you don't know how fertile the land is to begin with. There could of course be someway to find this out. The programmers would probably multiply all values by 10 as this allows integer maths rather than slow floating point maths so in the example below I will do the same.

City 1 on grassland (automatically irrigated) that happens to be very fertile so has 35 food produce. One citizen requires 20 food so 15 is available for growth and 400 food is require for growth. So thats about 27 turns required.

City 2 on grassland that happnes to be normal so has 30 food produce. 10 food available for growth and 400 food is required. So thats 40 turns

City 3 on grassland that happnes to be less fertile so has 25 food produce. 5 food available for growth and 400 food is required. So thats 80 turns

Of course 1 and 3 would be extreme rare cases and values between 28 and 32 more normal.

[supremus]

Well, Well, very good stuff here. Firstly we should know if civ 3 will be historically inspirated like civ 2 or will be a free assumption of the future (very good assumption btw) like SMAC. If it will be historically accurate I see no wrong with ICS. When europeans started the american collonization, they did ICS a lot. Spanish defined the occupation of California coast founding one city per distance of a horse walking day. There's no wrong with this strategy to dominate a terrytory and you can use it in Civ II or SMAC. The problem is the disadvantage of a perfeccionist strategy and I think it is a real problem, but, maybe, It could be solved with money $$$$$$. Yes, the larger cities could have an additional amount of money per turn to compensate that.
I think it is simpler and remain ICS as it is now, what I think is good. And it is accurate too, when compared to real world. And with money you can do what you want (make faster improvements in your city, buy more units, go faster to a Wonder etc. etc.).What do you think ?

[MadWoodster]

I still think it is unrealistic to work two tiles with a size one city (that is 2tiles per citizen) and only 21 tiles with a size 20 city (that is 1.05 tiles per citizen)!

[korn469]

MadWoodster

that is one of the problems that must be addressed before ICS will go away...what to do about the base square...we know that...

the base square is evil, stupid, unrealistic, and causes ICS

that without the base square most small cities don't have a chance of growing or building anything

ok so if we do go with the diplomat or madwoodster ideas about the first citizen works the base square, then what are we going to do about city growth?

maybe have the land under the base square count as fully upgraded and then possibly give a 1.5 times food in the square

so if you built in a desert you'd get 1 food +1 times the bounus or if you built on a food special you might get 4 food plus a 2 food bonus...this small bounus amout of food would certainly be better than the current ICS situation...especially if all cities require the same amount o food for growth...do you think that is a good compromise? the one positive is that cities would get to work up to 21 citizens now

youngsun

i like your idea about barbarians limiting civ expansion...i think this thread is spawning ideas about three different areas of civ gameplay

1. ICS (Infinite City Sprawl): a technical study of how the rules of growth, production, and support make it better to have 10 size one cities compared to 1 size ten city

2. ICS (Infinite China Syndrome): a study of how empires last from 4000bce to 2000ce virtually intact, and that over the course of hundreds of games less than ten cities will declare indepedence or revolt out of the thousands of cities you build

3. ICS (Infinite Civ Stratofication): ok i was reaching on that one but what i mean is that once a civ gets to be a certain size about mid way through the game then that civ will win in almost all cases...the fact about civ is that a small civ has no advantages over a large one...this makes for boring games

youngsun i am mostly just concerned with the technical issues of ICS in this thread but i think i am going to open a thread for the other two ICS problems...as for barbarians, maybe they could work like this...

when civ starts off each civ has borders like in SMAC, however most of the land outside of those borders are divided into different barbarian territories...there would be no cities in barbarian territories but barbarian units would roam this territory with a number of units...barbarians would start out with just horsemen but they would steal military technology by osmosis (kind of like the great library, when it comes to a military technology the barbarians could build any unit that three civs could build)...when you sent units in barbarian territory barbarian units would head out to attack unit units, and if you built cities in barbarian territory, barbarian units would come and try to attack it...if you had a city in their territory for long enough it would assimilate the territory, and push the barbarian borders back...barbarian units would rarely leave their territory but they sometimes would go on raids into the nearest civilized territory...you could sign treaties with the barbarians and ask them to attack your neighbors...barbarians would have around a fixed number of units...though massive settlement of their ands would cause them to spawn even more units, after a barbarian unit died a new one would respawn in a few years (5-15) time...there would be a random chance of a barbarian area becoming civilized...if it did, cities would pop up in that barbarian's territory and then they would be a civ

how does that sound?

korn469

[The Mad Viking]

Great thread!
I agree completely that the problem lies in the giving a new city founded by one settler, two squares to work. It's illogical and non-sensical, and it's the main reason why ICS works.
As discussed, an additional 1 food bonus would suffice to provide growth. You could also reduce the number of food required to grow from size "0" to size 1.
I think, however, that the notion of food surplus as the population growth is another problem. Cities grow because of trade and jobs (prodution) Food is needed, and may be quite important in ancient times, but a modern city with tons of trade and production not growing because it doesn't generate enough food? Please!

Also, I think small "cities" should suffer from limitations on square production like Despotism. Up to a certain size, can't get more than two trade or production from a square. Because only larger cities become centres for Trade and Industry. That will kick the s*** out of ICS.

O/T? A lot of people complain about the 21 square model and the relative scale in miles it represents. I think the base square represents the actual urban centre, with all the improvements, and each square worked is a nearby village or suburb, economically linked the the city.

Korn - your Barbarians ideas are great - but maybe take it a step further - and all rival CIVs start as "Barbarians". Have 30+ tribes and you don't know which ones will become major civs, minor tribes or stay nomads until they're wiped out.

Megalopolis - I think once cities are connected by rail, they should automatically link their windows, and pool all their resources. And yer, if production is high enough, you should be able to build a spy, an Armor and a libary in the same turn. (This doesn't solve ICS)

[Xin Yu]

Korn: Paul has answered your question for me. You play SMAC so you may not be familiar with double production.

Now I have another proposal.

Let me start with a population model:

dP/dt=A*P-B*P*P

where P is the current population, dP/dt is the rate of change in population at the current time. A and B are positive numbers: A is normal in scale but B is quite small.

The model basically says that, when population is small (thus B*P*P is neglectable), the population growth rate is proportional to itself (dP/dt=A*P); but if it grows to a certain size, then due to 'competition' (the term -B*P*P), the growing rate will decline and finally halt.

We can impliment the model to the game. Let A be proportional to the total resource available in the city radius, and let B be proportional to the number of cities in an area surrounding the city (say a 10*10 square). The size of the food box is proportional to 1/(A*P-B*P*P). Thus if there is more resources (can use 'food + 1/2 trade') in the city radius, A is bigger hence the food box is smaller; on the other hand, if there are more cities in the surrounding area, B is bigger and the food box is bigger.

An example: Suppose A=100 and B=#of cities in surrounding area (including the city itself). Food box=1000/(A*P-B*P*P).

A perfectionist puts 4 cities in the area, hence B=4. A size 10 city will have a food box size 1000/(100*10-4*10*10)=1.33.

An ICS player puts 40 cities in the surrounding area, B=40. A size 1 city will have a food box size 1000/(100*1-40*1*1)=13.33, or ten fold the perfectionist's food box at size 10.

[wheathin]

Awesome thread! 2 Observations:

City growth is indeed totally unrealistic - in fact, Civ/SMAC/CtP gets it backwards! Until modern improvements in public health, most cities only maintained size thru immigration - the city was a totally unhealthy environment, with disease, fire, and crime, and deaths greatly outpaced births. Rural areas had to continually replace the losses of cities with new workers. And those workers only came to find jobs. So if there were no jobs in an town, it would not grow. In fact, if the employment base dried up, the city would shrink very rapidly as many died and more fled.

It follows that the presence of so many people creates a demand for food that must be met. Rome imported vast supplies of grain from Egypt to feed its people, and most of the large Medieval cities maintained population with food imports, usually from central europe via the Baltic Sea, or thru the Med.
Jobs draw people, who demand food. Not Food creates people, who work jobs.


As to ICS, the problem is indeed based on the free base-square. The 2-for-one deal creates the exponential ICS growth rate. To combat it, you need to reduce it to an arithmetic growth rate (or very close to it). At that point, the natural economies of scale that infrastructure improvements afford will tilt the balance to non-ICS strategies.

But giving, say, +50% to the base square only gets you back where you started: all those additional base squares get the same +50% bonus. I think the answer is three fold:
1. eliminate the free base square, (you can work it like any other square, and can be improved - a city is never the size of one of the map squares)
2. make city growth at least flat: same food for each pop point, and
3. provide a limit on the size required to build settlers - maybe 3? No community of 20,000 is going to send half the pop away to found a new city.

One obvious result is that it takes a while to get cities up to speed because of slower growth - so then just make food/nutrients more abundant!

...or just recognize the underlying flaws and abandon the model altogether.

[korn469]

wheathin

if you adopt the the upgraded base square and give it +50% to food production, this means that the base square would produce between one to three extra food, which with an arithmetic growth system would make that small amount of extra food per base insignificant...fourty size 1 cities compared to one size 40 city would produce between 37 and 119 extra food a turn compared to 80 food 40 minerals and 40 energy a turn (in SMAC)

in SMAC it would take 800 food for those size fourty cities to grow from size 1 to size 2, and 800 food for the size 40 city to grow to size 41...under our flat food growth system it would take 1600 food for those 40 cities to grow from size 1 to size 2, while it would only take 40 food for the size 40 city to grow to size 41

i like your idea that a city can't produce a settler until it reaches size three

Xin Yu

i think your growth model might tip the scales back to far in favor of Super Cities...but please tell me more about it ok?

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 02, 2000).]

[korn469]

The technical ICS Issues Summary:

Growth: the nutrient(food) box should be the same size for all cities, and once that food box gets filled the city grows in size by one population. I propose that this nutrient box be size 40 nutrients(food). This is the growth box.

In a side note, after building a granery, cities should be able to direct some of their food into another box. This box can hold up to ten food per citizen. This represents the stored food in your city. If for any reason you run out of food in the growth box, then your city will drawn on food stockpiled in this granery box. This will allow you to stockpile food in case of sieges, droughts, famines, ect. Until the discovery of refrigeration, a very small percentage of the food in this box will be lost to decay. This loss should be around one unit of nutrients per turn.

Cities should have to be size three before they can build a settler.

Support: The amount of free support generated by your empire should be based on three things. One is population. Two is support generating facilities. Three is your civs Social Engineering Support level. Your SE Support level would act as a modifier to the first two categories. We would use the following formula to calculate support.

S(P+I)

Where S equals SE support level, P equals population and I equals support increasing infrastructure. Units would not be supported by cities. Instead your civ would generate a number of support units based on the three categories. Each unit would cost so many support points. After your civ had exceeded the number of support points it generated, then shields from random bases would be converted into support points. SE Support leves would determine exactly how many support points each shield would generate. This process would happen automatically and the player would not be involved in it. Support generating facilites should be military structures (barracks) and advanced manufactoring structures (factories).

Production: Take away the free base square. Instead have it where the base square can be worked. The base square counts as an irragated square and produces 50% extra food.

Also when a city builds an advanced manufactoring facility it should add in another production slot. So that a civ that had a nanoreplicator could make two units at the same time. A city that had a nanoreplicator and a quantum converter could produce three units at the same time.

Happiness: For cities size 1-4 there should have to be one worker for each pysch specialist, with there always having to be one worker. If the worker was discontent(a drone) then the city would riot and revolt. For larger cities, size 5-20 there would have to be one worker for every two specialist, with a minimum number of three workers. If these workers were discontent they would riot and revolt. For the largest cities, size 21+ there should be a minimum number of seven workers but an unlimited number of specialists. If the workers were discontent the city would riot and revolt. Now only police, happiness spending, or happiness facilities could pacify this minimum number of workers. They could not be turned into happiness or any other kind of specialists.

Additionally all specialists should take three food to support instead of the normal two food for workers.

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 02, 2000).]

[korn469]

The Infinite China Syndrome Summary:

-The chance of civil wars raised if you were a large civ. The chance would be even higher if you had a very polarised civ (like great difference between the individual cities in wealth etc), which would also be more likely in a large civ.

-Every civilization should spend part of its research points on education, just to preserve the knowledge it has: a larger civ should always spend/pay more on education just to ensure that no knowledge disappears; if it spends too little, doesn't have enough libraries, advances/knowledge will disappear (like a substantial part of the knowledge of the Romans after the Great Migration); as it has more people in it, it needs more administrators, more priests, more lawyers, more scientists just to run the empire!

Assimilation: This should definately be included, but I think it should be done by including nationalism, and not just have it so that after x turns a city is assimilated. Assimilation should be gradual, and determined by your actions against the ethnicity the city belongs to, the happyness in the city, the use of police, the amount of improvements you build in the city etc. A city should be able to concist of 20% americans, 70% Germans and 10% Russians.

you have alot of good ideas! they have got me thinking...how about this...use a modified prototype system like in alpha centauri...

when your civ discovers a new technology
then a check is made by checking your sphere of influence

a sphere of influence is this, 5 times the speed of your fastest unit. then apply that distance like how borders are applied in SMAC

the check follows this preliminary flow chart

1. does your civ have the strongest military?
if no prototype cost is normal

2. does the second strongest military have at least 80% of your strength?
if yes prototype cost is normal

3. is your civ twice as strong as the second place civ?
if yes add 50% to cost of prototype

4. is your civ twice as powerful than the second and third place civ?
if yes add 100% to cost of prototype

5. is your civ more power than all of the other civs in your sphere of influence?
if yes add 150% to cost of prototype

6. is your civ twice as powerful as all of the other civs combined in your SoI?
if yes add 200% to cost of prototype

7. do no other civs exist in your sphere of influence?
if yes add 300% to cost of prototype

in addition i think that prototype costs should be higher than in SMAC, somewhere between +100 to +200 percent

so in that model your first unit could cost up to six times the cost of a normal unit...the same system could be applied to technology and everything

going to edit this

[korn469]

David versus Goliath: Small states triumphing over large

summary up soon

[Youngsun]

Korn

I was waiting to see your last summary and it never came up. what happened? I know you are very busy and have so many posts to take care of but I hope you did not forget this one "David vs Goliath"

[korn469]

Youngsun

no i haven't forgot, i have been busy lately, and i am waiting for the EC3 final drafts to come in so i can pull ideas together from it into the eternal china and david versus goliath sections

korn469

[supremus]

I respect all the posters in this thread that once indentified a problem worked hard and with creativity trying contribute to solve it. But I would like to assert again I SEE NO WRONG WHIT ICS. So the problem is not a problem, or, at least, the problem is in another area.
A large state that made ICS a lot in its history is more powerfull than smaller ones. That's what history tell us. In the WWII USA and Soviet Union won because they had a immense territory and it gives them much more critical mass than Germany or Japan. (Of course it is a simplification, for several other important nations won too among the allies.)
The overall production is always higher when you dominate larger areas, mainly in agriculture and simpler industries where technology is not essential.
Otherwise, Japan and Germany are two economical superpowers and it gives them critical mass in the economical battlefield.
So, If we eliminate the advantages of a great terrytory (ICS) in CIV 3 we are going to be inaccurate historically. 20 cities of size 1 are obviously much more powerfull (even in a military strategical sense) than one city size 20, because 20 smaller cities gives you control over a much larger territory. Economically a size 20 city is more powerfull than 20 size 1 , and that's what can be improved in CIV 3, because that is the point where the real problem is. The solution should be giving to larger cities some additional financial advantage.
With this economical plus, players who prefer a perfeccionist strategy can use the extra money to import goods that he/she does not produce, to buy military units, to influence the global diplomacy, etc. etc. , exactly like in real life. And of course they can win, exactly like in real life.

[korn469]

The Joker

thanks! so besides having SE influence the growth rate here is what else should...

commerce (money from trade routes)
hospitals (maybe have this building take the food box from 40 to thirty to represent how much faster a population can grow without disease)

the prototype system is completely hammered out but i am going to work on it more...there are about five EC threads that i am looking at for ideas right now in my last two so look for new summaries on thursday or friday!

Xin Yu

i am going to have to look over your growth model more and see exactly how it counter balances large versus small but it sounds like you have been doing some research!

supremus

quote: But I would like to assert again I SEE NO WRONG WHIT ICS. So the problem is not a problem, or, at least, the problem is in another area. A large state that made ICS a lot in its history is more powerfull than smaller ones. That's what history tell us

this is not a history thread it is a gameplay thread...but i do dispute your "historical" evidence...how about great britian throughout the 19th century? i could give more examples but it is pointless to argue over history which is subject in it's interpretation

ICS is a problem because in the highly unrealistic game of Civ it is almost always better to expand that to build up your territory...the same amount of population spread out through more cities is always better than having it concentrated into a few cities, and that strategy is simply unbalanced

plus civ is incredably boring because strong states always grow more powerful and weak states always get weaker, once a human player who has beat the AI before gets on top they stay on top...it is just a matter of time before the human grinds the AI into dust with no challenge at all

there needs to be a better balance between building up and spreading out (the first summary) and there needs to be a better balance in the rise and fall of civs (my second summary) and there needs to be a way to simulate a relatively new civ (the US) who is weak, growing to be a world Super Power in less than two hundred years instead of once the romans got on top, they stay on top and send a space ship to Alpha Centauri in 1600 because they crush their competition

we are trying to fix ICS and make civ gameplay better, i would also like to make it where it is virtually impossible to win with a One City Challenge also but i think ICS is more of a problem than a OOC victory right now

summary: to have a large happy empire that stands for centuries and remains a super power throughout the game should be hard but not impossible to do. there should be a better balance between building up and spreading out with both strategies being valid

korn469

[The Joker]

The idea of having all cities grow the same way (with a 40 food box that needs filling for the city to grow) is great. If we include, that this box's size can be increased/decreased due to the SE growth rate, the happyness and the amount of trade per pop in the city this system could truly revolutionize growth in Civ games.

I also like the idea of a city having to be size 3 to grow. It not only solves some ICS problems, it is also realistic, as people don't move out of cities untill they become overpopulated.

I like the prototype system, all though it would propably be most useful for research. It would make you need other civs in your area. Great idea!

Looking forward to more summaries!!

BTW go check out my thread on the x10 model. It could really be a great addition to civ3.

[Xin Yu]

Korn: The basic model of Malthusian theory is assuming that population growth rate is proportional to the current population:

dP/dt=A*P

This means, suppose a city grow from size 1 to 2 in 5 turns, then it will grow to size 4 in another 5 turns (the speed of growing at size 2 is twice of that at size 1), and to size 8 in another 5 turns, and so on. This is called a geometric growth. According to the original theory, since consumption goods increases at a much lower rate, people will become starving and standard of living will decline. War and epidemic desease will be the only things to reduce population.

A later theory adds a term of 'competition' to the equation:

dP/dt=A*P-B*P*P

The competition term has little effect when population is small but will be more and more significat in reducing the population growth rate when the population is larger.

Carefully chose A and B will give a balanced growing for large and small cities. My previous example was, eh, just an example. If you feel it was an overkill, you can scale it back. You can add government type as a factor in deciding A and B, thus allow population grow faster in better governments.