HtH Ladder Earthmichael vs. Kirov - TTT

[Kirov]

Yeah, quoted for truth. This is why SMACers hated Civ3 so much - we really expected it to be more fun and more complex than SMAC, and the end result was rather... disappointing.

[Earthmichael]

Not just Civ 3, I don't think any of the Civ series is a worthy successor to SMAC.  Even the very last Civ with all expansions is still not half the game that SMAC is.

I wrote a review today for Gog since they now have SMAC/SMAX bundled together for a sale price of $3 (regularly $6), explaining how amazing SMAC is.

[Kirov]

Yep, I bought the GOG copy as well. Just remember it's not patched, we had discussion about it in the other thread.

Well, Civ4 has better game mechanics in at least 3 aspects: 1) it solves ICS and forces vertical expansion, 2) puts air power in its proper place 3) as far as I can tell, has less obvious tech beelines, or at least doesn't punish you that much for swaying from them.

I don't really know civ5, when it was issued it had very bad reviews, and tended to crash on the top of that. How is it right now?

What I can definitely agree is that no civ game has the same feeling and ambience like SMAC. But it won't ever be possible as long as they have "wheel" where we have "doctrine:mobility".

[Earthmichael]

I installed the Gog version to check it out (to make sure it really had the expansion), but I am not playing it.  I will have to look up that other thead to remind myself how to patch it.

As for the game mechanics that you suggest are better in Civ4, I disagree:

1) I have never lost to ICS, and I doubt I ever will.  I have analyzed in many times, and always come to the same conclusion: it is not the best strategy.  So I do not need ICS "solved".

2) I fix the air power problem by banning copters.  Copters multiple attacks are either a bug, or was not thought out very well by the designer.  Without the multiple attack unit, air power is useful, especially for patrol and support, but is not devestatingly so.

3) All the Civ games have obvious beelines, because all of the games have unique structures (wonders of the world, secret projects, ...) that only one person can build.  So players tend to race toward what they consider the best structures.  This can be helped by banning some of these structures.

For myself, I could get used to a stone age ambience, as long as the game had the variety of options of SMAC in so many ways. 

For example, a competing game needs a similarly powerful set of terraforming options, and not just the typical farm, road, forest.  This does not necessarily need science fiction level tech to justify.  People have been building dikes to recover land from sea for thousands of years.  People can dig rivers (canals).  Paved roads should definitely allow faster travel than dirt roads.  Farms could have greatly improved versions, just as our current technology driven megafarms.  We can build solar collector farms today.  We can drill geothermal wells. 

Similarly, there is no reason that the multi-faceted government approach of Civ could not be adopted, or the inclusion of a similar number of city structures, or a complex tech tree, etc.

2105 to 

[Kirov]

Re. 1) I'm sure we just have a misunderstanding when it comes to the definition of ICS, it can't be anything else. On the one hand, ICS is that very specific strategy of tight spacing, city-borehole-city, low infrastructure but keep building enormous numbers of colony pods up to 150 or 200 cities. And here I understand how you can disrupt this process. What I really mean by ICS is that SMAC (or CIV2) favors tight spacing and horizontal development, almost unhindered by such petty measures like bureaucracy. People do tight spacing, they crawl nuts, they keep building bases even after the 20th one - that alone fits the definition for me. What I would like to see is a civ/smac-game where you're better off with 6-10 well-developed cities.

2) A given approach /strategy/unit is OP for me if you do it most of the time. Of course cancelling choppers will considerably slow us down (remember they're out in our game;) ), but jets will still comprise most of our armies if only for their movement points. The war will still be in the air, only not so drastically OP.

As for 3) I can't say, I played some civ4 but I'm no expert. Wonders seem to be significantly reduced, to the point where the Oracle looks like a good wonder, although in SMAC an SP which gives one free tech would suck. The same go for others - there is no "free building per city" wonder, and these were usually the best (Pyramids = free granary everywhere in Civ2, that was cool.

[Earthmichael]

Don't have time to chat right now.  Here is the turn.

[Yitzi]

While we're on the topic of ICS, a couple of questions (mainly for Kirov, but Earthmichael too when he does have time):
1. By city-borehole-city, I assume you mean a borehole every 4 squares (minimum spacing) and a base every 4 squares, so what goes in the other two squares?
2. For the second type of ICS (tight spacing, crawl nutrients), is that high-infrastructure, or low-infrastructure?  And what's the terraforming involved?

[Earthmichael]

Re. 1) I'm sure we just have a misunderstanding when it comes to the definition of ICS, it can't be anything else. On the one hand, ICS is that very specific strategy of tight spacing, city-borehole-city, low infrastructure but keep building enormous numbers of colony pods up to 150 or 200 cities. And here I understand how you can disrupt this process. What I really mean by ICS is that SMAC (or CIV2) favors tight spacing and horizontal development, almost unhindered by such petty measures like bureaucracy. People do tight spacing, they crawl nuts, they keep building bases even after the 20th one - that alone fits the definition for me. What I would like to see is a civ/smac-game where you're better off with 6-10 well-developed cities.

In my analysis, one IS better off with highly developed cities verses lots of small cities.  That also has been my result in gameplay as well.  However, the expectation that 6-10 cities will do the job depends on map size, and I don't think you can actually make use of a significant portion of even a medium map with only 10 cities.  I don't try to artificial limit my cities, but I do try to make sure each city controls enough land to have significant size and leverage, certainly much more than the 4 squares per city common in ICS.

To me, the question is, to maximize the use of the land I have available, what approach is best?  Speed of development is also an important factor here, since the amount of available land can be expanded by terraforming and conquest.

Since ICS analysis is a complex topic, I think it deserves its own thread.  So I will start a new thread to address this analysis.

2) A given approach /strategy/unit is OP for me if you do it most of the time. Of course cancelling choppers will considerably slow us down (remember they're out in our game;) ), but jets will still comprise most of our armies if only for their movement points. The war will still be in the air, only not so drastically OP.

My approach is always tailored to the situation, i.e. my faction, competing factions, map, special rules, etc.  That being said, just like in chess, there is an opening book of a few strategies that are reasonable for the initial turns in various situations.  It is after this point that the game truly develops (just as with chess, only much more varied).

I intend to have a decent air force, to provide scouting and flexibility.  But I have found that without copters, your air force of needlejets leading an attack is very easily subject to a devestating counterattack.  So you will need a lot of land units to help defend your air units.  Furthermore, since needlejets can only attack every other turn, you will need other units to help press the attack, or at least hold the field for a turn until the air units return.

Air units do have the advantage of being able to be brought forward quickly from your rear bases, but even still, needlejets typically only comprise about half of my military force, and the air units tend to have much higher attrition and much less staying power.

As for Civ, I bought and played Civ 5 including the Warlords and BTS expansion packs, and I found the game just boring and frustrating compared to SMAC.  One of the most frustrating aspects is that you have to be very careful about conquest, because once you have too many cities, whether by building them yourself or seizing them, the beauracracy cost will kill you!  I don't like to have to follow a scortched earth policy to avoid bankruptcy from beauracracy!  You can subdivide your empire to try to manage this, but I found this difficult to implement and artificial.  It also seemed historically inaccurate, that seizing another city would make the rest of your cities so much less productive that the final result would be much lower income than before you seized the city.  I could understand having a loading factor based on distance and number of cities would provide diminishing returns for each additional city, but I cannot understand a system where taking another city substantially decreases the income for the empire as a whole.

To me, after the first 20 turns or so of a SMAC game, things start happening really quickly.  And I rarely have a game go past 150 turns.  In Civ 5, I would call 150 turns a good start.

I am not trying to badmouth Civ, but I can't really think of a single area where I think Civ 5 has truly improved on SMAC.

[Kirov]

turned to you.

[Kirov]

While we're on the topic of ICS, a couple of questions (mainly for Kirov, but Earthmichael too when he does have time):
1. By city-borehole-city, I assume you mean a borehole every 4 squares (minimum spacing) and a base every 4 squares, so what goes in the other two squares?
2. For the second type of ICS (tight spacing, crawl nutrients), is that high-infrastructure, or low-infrastructure?  And what's the terraforming involved?

I was going to describe to you that screenshot Petek, thank god he helped me out. As you see:

BCBC
NNNN

Of course this can only happen in single player, where you can do all sort of crazy stuff without minding anybody. I wouldn't recommend such stuff in multiplayer. If other players don't disrupt such expansion, shame on them.

As to the other option, I'd call it semi-ICS and it's really just tight spacing and heavy crawler reliance. Right now I'm using my gf's laptop, in a couple of days I'll be back home and try to find you a relevant savegame or play some to present it. Basically with most factions (not Lal) I use 1x1 spacing, but will always skip a tile to make it wider if there is rocky/fungus in the way.

I try to be adaptive with terraforming, which is why I adapt my spacing to terrain and not the other way round (which is why 1x1 is never so strict). I can go a tile farther if needed. Flat, arid, rolling/moist and rainy/flat usually get forested. I almost never level down rocky squares, they go for mines. Coast is for boreholes. With EcoEng I build some condensers, but soon after I'll try to build tree farms. I never build echelons and shun collectors. Bonuses matter a lot, but even the energy bonus I'd rather forest than put a collector there.

Infrastructure: core bases improve vertically, peripheral ones build more colony pods.

This is all single player stuff, I haven't completed a standard multiplayer game in years and of course it depends on the situation. I can't really predict how many bases I'll have in this game here or in any other MP I'm in, because exploration, scouting and combat readiness is much more important than in single player.

1x1 spacing is also very good for defensive reasons, be them the number of patrolling units or the cost of mind controlling a base you lost.

It took me a long time to get convinced to this, because I'd rather have a game with wide spacing preferred, where most tiles are worked and not crawled, where the placement of bases matters more. In my opinion it doesn't so much in SMAC, when in doubt just dump your colony pod 1x1 and you can't be really wrong. And I saw MP games with ICS very similar to what Petek presented and what I can say - you won you bore.

[Kirov]

As for Civ, I bought and played Civ 5 including the Warlords and BTS expansion packs, and I found the game just boring and frustrating compared to SMAC.

As you said, ICS is a long story, and air power is probably a matter of wording, we're probably more similar than it sounds, although one question comes to my mind - do you use SAM ground units? You sound as if you do. I need to have a specific reason to build that.

Don't you mix up civ5 with civ4? It's c4 which comes with warlords and BTS. Or maybe they're that unoriginal with expansion names... Anyway, you can tell the difference easily as Civ5 is based on hexes not squares and accepts only one unit per tile.

[Yitzi]

I was going to describe to you that screenshot Petek, thank god he helped me out. As you see:

BCBC
NNNN

Where N means farm/condenser (and enricher once you can)?

I try to be adaptive with terraforming, which is why I adapt my spacing to terrain and not the other way round (which is why 1x1 is never so strict). I can go a tile farther if needed. Flat, arid, rolling/moist and rainy/flat usually get forested. I almost never level down rocky squares, they go for mines. Coast is for boreholes. With EcoEng I build some condensers, but soon after I'll try to build tree farms. I never build echelons and shun collectors. Bonuses matter a lot, but even the energy bonus I'd rather forest than put a collector there.

Why do you specifically build boreholes on the coast but not inland?  Also, once you get thinkers (or better yet engineers) I think crawling nutrients is more efficient than forests even with Hybrid Forest.

Infrastructure: core bases improve vertically, peripheral ones build more colony pods.

And even with tightly spaced bases, the boost from facilities is worth the maintenance cost...perhaps a good step to weaken ICS would just be to increase maintenance costs slightly (which will of course cost more for strategies with more bases.)

It took me a long time to get convinced to this, because I'd rather have a game with wide spacing preferred, where most tiles are worked and not crawled, where the placement of bases matters more.

And, of course, where you can't easily reduce drone problems just by spacing your bases close to keep them small.
The game you'd prefer sounds a lot like what I'd prefer (but I'd also add "ecodamage is a real concern"), which is why I'm working to make it possible.

[Kirov]

Where N means farm/condenser (and enricher once you can)?

Yep.

Why do you specifically build boreholes on the coast but not inland?  Also, once you get thinkers (or better yet engineers) I think crawling nutrients is more efficient than forests even with Hybrid Forest.

I'd love to build more boreholes inland, but in most cases that slope thing interferes. And I'm not that fond of lowering terrain, but it's my style rather than efficient approach. Perhaps I should've mentioned it before - in singleplayer I play high rockiness, high humidity, high native life and medium water. The first three are the best settings for AI as it doesn't forest. As to nut efficiency - I really like 3/2/4 output you get with Hybrid Forest and FM. Worth working rather than crawling, you still need some industry even in your energy bases. To put it shortly - it sustains popboom and gives you some mins and energy to live with.

And even with tightly spaced bases, the boost from facilities is worth the maintenance cost...perhaps a good step to weaken ICS would just be to increase maintenance costs slightly (which will of course cost more for strategies with more bases.)

I can agree we share the same concern, but increasing maintenance will rather boost ICS. What should be remembered about ICS is that each subsequent base, even an empty one, is beneficial to your empire for energy and industry reasons. For example, Zak should ICS simply because it means 'yet another Network Node' for him. Morgan should ICS simply because it gives him 5 or 6 (I can't remember) energy points per base tile. Aki because she's less worried about Efficiency. So you want to encourage upward movement rather than lateral, i.e. bulding improvements than colony pods.

[Yitzi]

I can agree we share the same concern, but increasing maintenance will rather boost ICS. What should be remembered about ICS is that each subsequent base, even an empty one, is beneficial to your empire for energy and industry reasons.

But not as beneficial as spending that territory to make your existing bases larger.  Zak might get free Network Nodes, but the benefit of a network node is directly proportional to the research output of that base.  Morgan will get a lot out of ICS...but he'd probably get even more out of building the same number of bases as everyone else in order to maximize commerce boosts (which are his real strength.)  And while Aki might not be as worried about bureaucracy, she's still going to have to pay maintenance costs.
Keep in mind, discouraging ICS doesn't mean discouraging lateral movement completely; expansion is a natural and important part of the game.  Discouraging ICS means discouraging lateral movement when it doesn't mean expanding your territory, i.e. encouraging spreading out the same amount of territory over fewer rather than more bases.  And for that, increasing maintenance costs seems it will discourage larger numbers of bases, since it makes ICS a less effective use of limited territory.  (It's already a less effective way of grabbing territory, since the further away you build your bases the more territory they grab for you.)
So in short:
-Higher maintenance costs favor building new bases outside your territory (expansion) over improving your bases (vertical growth), but (as long as they're not so high as to make facilities fairly close to not worth it) favor vertical growth over building new bases near existing ones (ICS).  Lower maintenance costs favor ICS over vertical growth, but vertical growth over expansion.
-However, expansion has natural limits anyway, namely your neighbors and inefficiency.  Thus, once you hit that limit, higher maintenance (together with other stuff such as weakening recycling tanks) will favor building in the bases you have rather than making new ones.

Or so it seems to me anyway.  ICS isn't about having a lot of bases; that's just known as having a large empire.  ICS (at least the objectionable sort) is about having a large density of bases.  And yes, that does mean that in the later game, you might have well above 6-10 bases (a normal map has room for roughly 20 bases per faction to fit comfortably if you count sea bases), but they won't be the ugly tightly packed ICS style, and it'll be 20 (more if you're good at grabbing territory), not 100, so there will still be plenty of resources for vertical growth.  (Remember, even with ICS, you said that the core bases improve vertically; a 50% increase to maintenance costs isn't likely to change that much, especially if it means that your bases are now going to be 4-5 times the size (and thus get more from facilities).)

[Earthmichael]

You're right!  Civ 4 was the last Civ I played.  I never did try Civ 5.  I guess I found Civ 4 such a boring waste of money that I was discouraged from even giving Civ 5 a try.  Perhaps someone can comment whether Civ 5 is worth a try or not.

The issue with ICS even with nothing but boreholes and soil enrichers is that it is very expensive to build all of the multiplying buildings in every base, and it is the multipliers that make the large city approach much stronger than ICS.  With a 4 square per city ICS verses a 24 square city, it takes 6x as much resources to buff the 6 ICS cities, for very little extra return verses the single 24 square city.  I am hoping we can start a separate thread tomorrow to go over this in detail.