View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0016456 | Stars Beyond Reach | Balance Issue | Apr 30, 2015 6:28 pm | May 22, 2015 11:26 pm | |
| Reporter | GarathJJ | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 0.808 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 0.840 (Pollution/Crime/Teleporters/Blueshirts) | ||||
| Summary | 0016456: ICS appears to be optimal for crown production | ||||
| Description | ICS is a Civ-ism for Infinite City Sprawl. That is, packing in cities literally as tightly as they will go. The Civilization developers over the versions have tried very hard to stamp down on this with mechanics like corruption based on number of cities and (very crudely) a minimum distance between cities. Given Chris' description in early articles that we might have 4 or 5 cities at most, I'm pretty sure that ICS isn't the desired behaviour in this game. However, as the save I attach shows, it very much is *possible*, and I believe it's (by far) the most efficient way of generating crowns in the current build. Given that crowns are the economic basis of everything - if you have more crowns, you can get more of anything else you want as well - this seems like a problem. I have here a save demonstrating a fairly early (and badly optimised) example of this ICS strategy - just 7 or 8 extra cities, at a few hundred population each. I've badly mismanaged them so that they are dying from growth without enough meals, and they're also being killed by the Zenith and the Burlusts, but I think this is still enough to demonstrate my point. I have 110k crown income at turn 91, and I really haven't been trying that hard. I have no particular intention of trying this again, or playing further in this game, unless we need more evidence, though. Anyway, I believe the core game principle which makes this ICS valid, as it stands, is the free copy of each building you are allowed to build without needing population requirements. My small satellite towns are designed to be just big enough to each work a Bank, a Stock Exchange, a Fighting Arena, and all they need other than that is some very basic meals, food, water and housing. 7-8 structures each, counting that you need about one Riot Police per 2-3 cities, if it was actually optimised, and you get some 12000 crowns from each one before multipliers. I don't mean to say that we should just immediately do away with the requirementless first building, of course - this is a far too complex problem to be solved so easily. At the very least, if you did that, you would need to change all of the requirements numbers at the same time so that it was possible to get any crowns at all. It has to be brought up, though, since in the long run I'm sure this is something that needs to be dealt with. It's certainly something I can discuss further, here or elsewhere, if necessary. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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Very interesting point, thanks for that. I'll have to think about this, but in large part the Planet Rage mechanic is supposed to work kind of like an auto-adjusting AI Progress mechanic, sort of. So when you do something like this, the planet should be getting pissed and coming after you. Main problem right now is that the Planet Rage mechanic is tuned so incredibly tamely that that never comes into play. So in some respects it would be like playing AI War without AI Progress having any real meaning, which of course would make that game ludicrous. I definitely think what you're talking about is an issue, and possibly not giving "the first one is free" for various buildings would be a good thing. Certainly the stock exchange and other more expensive buildings, for instance. That would be a good start, and sensible in general. A bank or other small things make sense that you can have your first one for free. Maybe just in the first town, though, even. Not sure on that, will have to mull. So in the absence of Planet Rage doing its thing, I'd like to throw some balance work at this anyway, because this should be having a semblance of balance even without Planet Rage. Then hopefully Planet Rage will seal the deal. If not, then more mechanics incoming. ;) Thanks for bringing this up, and for the abusive save! Those sorts of things where people intentionally try to break it is SO incredibly useful. Obviously it's not useful again until I put in a fix and we see if you can still do it, so as you say there's nothing more for you to do just yet. But I'll be interested to see what we can do in a little arms race between you players and I over the coming months. :) |
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Planet Rage as it stands is per-city, though, right? So all of these individually tiny cities don't *get* any Planet Rage. For that matter, they have enough spare population that you can build a Shrine or so if you need to anyway - it's really easy to go up to 600 population and have a second bank and most of a mall, which gives you more leeway to tweak them in other ways as well. As for arms race... I'm a mathematician and computer programmer with a couple decades of strategy game experience, and I doubt I'm alone even in the first dozen of us. I'm sure we can 'help' with that... |
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Right, the fact that it's only per-city is a problem for sure. And my feeling has been iffy on shrines in general -- being able to wallpaper with one type of tile too much has never been a goal of mine. I like when players have to build up in some semblance of balance, but I don't want to make this an over-complicated math formula as to optimal build order (because of theoretical lengthy nearly-circular prereqs) for players to get large cities at all. So... that's where some other mechanic(s) come in. Those are more what I consider middle-game issues, and my brain is just getting to that point. As to the arms race, I absolutely love that you guys can help with that, and that so many of you have those sorts of credentials. Because it's not just me vs you or something, you guys come up with half the awesome ideas yourselves. "Hey I broke your game like this, and I think X would stop me from doing it again!" If you want to know why AI War is as well balanced as it is, you have to look to the playerbase as much as the devs. That's a process I absolutely love. |
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Unless things have changed dramatically, the stock exchange and other higher level buildings are not that important. They are typically more trouble than their lower level counterparts, with generally marginal relative efficiencies. I'd much rather build the lower level buildings only, but the population requirements force me to build anything I can get my hands on instead. The weakness of ICS is when bonuses are internal to cities and multiplicative. The strength of ICS is when you have global multipliers and get initial cities bonuses. It's the difference between (5X+C)^k (as one mega-city) and 5*((X+C)^k)) (for ICS). With current scaling, shrines are almost a lost cause in a megacity. They just can't keep up with the amount of planetary rage that population and energy produce. |
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Thanks! * Previously, for buildings of types where you have to have a certain number of citizens in housing of various sorts, it was always giving you the first building for free in every city. ** In some cases, that was fine: City Park, Shrine. ** In other cases, that was fine but only in your first city: Science Lab, Linguistics Research Center, Philosopharium, Inventor's Workshop, Broadcast Station, Literati Society, Shopping Mall, Bank. ** In other cases, the first one should never be free anywhere in order to really make them balanced right: Middle-Class Eatery, Fine Dining, Lager House, Stock Exchange, International Bank, History Museum, Opera House, Fighting Arena. ** This won't completely stop the "ICS" issue, not remotely, but this is a good first pass at the easiest part of it. |
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What about requiring levels in Government for each new city (you need more bureaucrats), or some minimum population in your smallest city before you can build another (all the pioneers already have a place they can go), or something along those lines? |
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Coming along: * A bunch of buildings now give adjacency bonuses: ** Police Station, Riot Police, and Molecular Security Control hugely reduce crime from even starting next to them (in addition to stopping it once it does start). *** This makes the precise placement of the first two a lot more relevant now. ** The various levels of housing and meal preparation give bonuses to the same levels of housing and food (so dense apartments benefit both dense apartments and cheap diners, and vice-versa). ** City Parks now provide a big bonus to adjacent buildings giving appeasement. And they also provide a boost to all adjacent housing. ** Shrines provide a smaller bonus to adjacent buildings giving appeasement. ** Wind turbines now benefit others of their sort next to each other, and all types of solar panels work best in big fields of themselves, too. ** Rural arms now give a boost to other farms, and wells boost other wells. ** Hydroponic farms now give a boost to farms and water wells. ** All of this, plus the resource and natural wonders stuff, is ultimately aimed at soon making it so that cities are by nature smaller, but more carefully planned. *** That said, the whole thing with the planet reacting when your city is too large isn't yet there, so that does somewhat limit this for the moment. |
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I have no words to describe how awesome this is. |
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Have to agree! Time to start again (again) then! |
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I'm very glad that you guys are so pleased with this. :) In line with that, 0.827 should absolutely wreck and hopes of ICS: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.827 The way that crime from buildings has changed, the way that teleporters are now useful, and the way that natural wonders and resources work in concert with that, all combine to make ICS not the ideal strategy. Or if it still is, then please prove me wrong in a savegame started in 0.827 or later. I'm open to the fact that this is still a problem, but I think if it is a problem then it is based on an entirely different premise and probably warrants a new discussion/issue around whatever crops up next. Because it's definitely night and day between this initial report and the new version. :) |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 30, 2015 6:28 pm | GarathJJ | New Issue | |
| Apr 30, 2015 6:28 pm | GarathJJ | File Added: ICS attempt 1.save | |
| Apr 30, 2015 8:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0040367 | |
| Apr 30, 2015 8:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Apr 30, 2015 8:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => confirmed |
| Apr 30, 2015 8:12 pm | GarathJJ | Note Added: 0040368 | |
| Apr 30, 2015 8:29 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0040369 | |
| Apr 30, 2015 9:26 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0040370 | |
| Apr 30, 2015 9:38 pm | ptarth | Note Edited: 0040370 | |
| May 4, 2015 8:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0040479 | |
| May 5, 2015 2:04 pm | jerith | Note Added: 0040518 | |
| May 20, 2015 5:05 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0041021 | |
| May 20, 2015 5:17 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0041022 | |
| May 20, 2015 6:26 pm | GarathJJ | Note Added: 0041023 | |
| May 22, 2015 11:26 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0041080 | |
| May 22, 2015 11:26 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | confirmed => resolved |
| May 22, 2015 11:26 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 0.840 (Pollution/Crime/Teleporters/Blueshirts) |
| May 22, 2015 11:26 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => fixed |
