Comments/questions welcomed here, or you may choose to contact the author directly.

St. S. - There is no mention of the city tile being automatically worked. Is it? If it is, then ICS is alive and well, while if it works as you have written, but with the city tile included in the radius the same as any other tile, then ICS is dead.

Please let ICS be dead.

My calcs, if city tile is not auto-worked, assuming 1 resource per tile,

1 6 pop city = 9 resources
6 1 pop cities = 5.83 resources (tightly packed cities)

Here is the picture:

BBBBB
BAAAB
BAAAB
BAAAB
BBBBB

A= first ring, which includes the city tile itself in the middle

B= second ring

Quote from article:

"The amount of food, commerce, and production is totalled from the 9 tiles under the city's influence - the one the city's sitting on, and the 8 surrounding it."

UCCCCCU
CCBBBCC
CBAAABC
CBAAABC
CBAAABC
CCBBBCC
UCCCCCU

where
A = pop 1- 6
B = pop 7 - (17,18, or 19)
C = pop (18,19,or 20) - (40-50?)
U = placeholder

we also were told that there is another level, likely to the border radius (one more ring).

Old way:
pop=1 => 2 res
pop=2 => 3 res

New Way:
pop=1 => 1*1/6*9 = 1.5 res
pop=2 => 2*1/6*9 = 3.0 res

Can you give me a link to that screenshot?

Btw, did no one else notice this?

quote: Do you need to build some catapults in a hurry to defend your border?

Catapults are back!?!

Thanks for the article, Winnie.

1) each City aparently has an Exclusion zone For example a City size of 1-6 will have a footprint like this, (C= CITY, A= ring of the first 6 workers, X= Squares where a new city canot be founded( again asuming a size 1-6 city), Y being where a NEW city can be placed) granted, this will still alow you to place a citys close to eachouter, or

YYYYYYY
YXXXXXY
YXAAAXY
YXACAXY
YXAAAXY
YXXXXXY
YYYSYYY<<for example. for this kind of configuration
YYYYYYY
YXXXXXY
YXAAAXY
YXACAXY
YXAAAXY
YXaaaXY
YXacaXY
YXaaaXY
YXXXXXY
YYYYYYY

Resulting in a configureation simular to

(the (aca)tiles are tiles that belong to the new city on the block)

At best if this is the way the system works, you get a 9:1 City ratio,

Asuming a i misunderstood about the "no city buffer"(ie you can plant a City on any tile not curently being worked, but you canot place a city on a tile being worked)

your first City:
AAA
ACA
AAA

your second City

AAAaa
ACAca
AAAaa

your 4th city:

www
wcw
AAAaa
ACAca
AAAaa

your 5th City
wwwxx
wcwcx
AAAaa
ACAca
AAAaa

your 6th City

wwwxx
wcwcx
AAAaa
ACAca
AAAaa
vcv
vvv

your 7th:
wwwxx
wcwcx
AAAaa
ACAca
AAAaa
hcvcv
hhvvv

you have a ratio of about 35 tiles to 7 cities, or at best, a roughly a 1-4 ratio.

2)aparently, you are now also limited by a combination of Discoveries, and Goverment forms to the max mumber of citys you can keep under controll, once you go over your curent "max city count" all of your cities have a chance to go into full rebelion, based on your total number of cities,(Posibly this is kind of like having a ticking AI entity wonder in each city with the odds of an individual city going off being equal to the # of citys over the cap)

-BBB-
BAAAB
BACAB
BAAAB
-BBB-

Just look at the radius=2 sight of a warrior. It covers the same 20 squares.
For radius=3 it will look like:

-CCCCC-
CCBBBCC
CBAAABC
CBACABC
CBAAABC
CCBBBCC
-CCCCC-

A covers 8 tiles
B covers 12 tiles
C covers 24 tiles

Altogether we have then 44 tiles that a city may cover.
IF the city tile itself is treated specially (not counting as part of Ring A).

I'm not sure there's a difference in productivity of workers. Each worker works the "average tile" for a ring. The total resources of the ring are added up and divided by the number of squares in the ring to get an average number of resources per square. Each time you add another worker that worker adds the resources of an average square to your ring. That is, if I understand the way workers are being placed. It also depends on whether it will take the city 12 workers to move to the next ring (it takes 6 workers to work the 8 squares in the first ring).

It definitely seems to me that it would make sense to only add tile improvements in a ring that is being fully worked. Otherwise, you would not be getting the full effects of the improvement.

Now, ICS was something that concerned us a great deal, so it was at the forefront when we designed this system. Let's say you take a worker off the land and make him a Farmer instead. You have increased the city's food, but decreased the city's production and commerce. It's all proportional, so you can try to maximise each resource separately, but it's pretty hard to get a lot farther ahead in any of the resources because you're quickly limited by one or the other (so if you have lots of food, your city will take forEVER to build something, or if you have a pile of gold coming from the city, you'll have people starving left and right). Also, don't forget that you can have Entertainers and Scientists, both of whom do not contribute to the city's resource collection, but who both must be paid wages and rations.

Father Beast, I think that the "about the author" was a legacy bug

Ralf S - got your email, I'm answering it here because it's a good question:

Regarding tile improvements, you can still build Roads, Farms, and mines using Public Works. The AI leader reserves a specific amount of production for use by each Mayor. The AI uses mayors to govern its cities; the priority of each mayor depends on the AI leader's personality. The AI will build more farms around cities whose growth is slower than larger cities. It will build mines if it is trying to build a lot of units or wonders. It will build roads between its cities, especially if it is more war-like. The AI reassesses its entire situation on every turn, especially when it is engaged in some kind of diplomatic action. Diplomacy is very important in CTP2. For example, if you have a permanent alliance with an AI leader, you are allowed to move your units through his land with no repercussions (i.e. he won't ask you to leave because you're mates). However, it is more difficult to achieve an alliance, since the AI will remember all the mean things you have done to him, as well as mean things you may have done to other leaders.

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 11-06-2000 11:14 PM Now, ICS was something that concerned us a great deal, so it was at the forefront when we designed this system. Let's say you take a worker off the land and make him a Farmer instead. You have increased the city's food, but decreased the city's production and commerce. It's all proportional, so you can try to maximise each resource separately, but it's pretty hard to get a lot farther ahead in any of the resources because you're quickly limited by one or the other (so if you have lots of food, your city will take forEVER to build something, or if you have a pile of gold coming from the city, you'll have people starving left and right). Also, don't forget that you can have Entertainers and Scientists, both of whom do not contribute to the city's resource collection, but who both must be paid wages and rations. Anyway, I'm way off on a tangent. So I hope I didn't miss any questions about cities.

That was an understatment!

Is it just me, or did he anser the Question about ICS by changing the subject?

Ok Question

If i have a Size one city, and Take that individual OFF of being a worker and make him a Entertainment specialist,(who IS NOT workig any of the 8 surounding tials, Will the City radious Defualt to 1(the City Tile only) or will it stay at 2(the 9 tiles) AND what is the Closest Count, in squares from City center, that you can PLACE a new city to an existing Cities border???

2 What is the Maximum City Count under each form of goverment, and exactly what is the Penaties for going over that limit, If their is a Hard cap that canot be worked around Exept by diverting Masive resorces to keeping your 100 low pop cities in line, then you will STILL have problems with ICS

Drakenred

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 11-06-2000 11:14 PM Ralf S - got your email, I'm answering it here because it's a good question.

Thanks for the information! The questions for the curious ones, was:

Please convince us.

We all know very well from prior threads that if the city tile is worked then ICS is not dead. City caps effect non-ICSers as much as ICSers, ICSers just hit the cap first. So the ICSer rushes to the cap and waits for the non-ICSer to catch up. By that time the ICSer will have collected more from their tiles and therefore be stronger.

The problem is that in say, a size 6 city (I use 6 since I believe from the article that at 7 the city radius has grown to B) your 60,000 people go out and collect 100% from the 8 tiles
= SUM(tiles in ring) * pop working that ring / max pop that can work a ring)
= SUM(8 tiles) * 6/6

Who is left in the city to work the city tile? Hence it is free and hence ICS is not dead.

Furthermore from what I have gathered so far. The population working ring A is more efficient. Lets assume all tiles are equal and we assign the value of 1. One worker working in ring A will collect
=SUM(8 tiles) * 1/6 = 8/6 = 4/3
However in ring B
=SUM(12 tiles) * 1/12 = 12/12 = 1
So it is not only the city tile but the first ring also.
There are two possible corrections to this however:
1. The divisor in ring A is the # of tiles = 8 not the max # of workers = 6.
or
2. The limit of workers in a ring is fixed at # of tiles * 3/4
= SUM(12 tiles) * 1 / 9 = 12/9 = 4/3
The crux of this is that from blindly reading what has been said I do not get the impression that a worker is working the average tile (this would require correction 1 listed above). It looks far more like it is each worker is working each tile in the ring to some extent. That extent is #tiles/max#workers in the ring and is a higher value in ring A.
[I do hope that I am misreading this and if any believe I am I emplore you to point it out because I find this to be the most dissapointing and pro-ICS aspect of all].

Lastly there is the issue of city placement. With more cities (ie ICSing) you can have finer control over the terrain that is included in a city sphere. It appears from the article that if you have a pop 10 city with 4 specialists then your 60,000 workers go only to radius A. So you can mitigate the effects of radius overlap with the use of specialists.

Consider 9 good tiles surounded by dead tiles.
When your radius extends into the dead tiles what would you do? I'd have them work as specialists. Packed cities are no different from this.

Regarding government limits, each government type has limitations on the number of happy cities it will support as well as a growth modifier. The growth modifier affects the rate of city growth, but there are also the factors which involve overcrowding and food storage. If a city does not build improvements to alleviate overcrowding, the city will stop growing and become increasingly unhappy. Likewise, if food production drops below a threshold delta (i.e. a positive net in food), the city will stop growing.

So, to sum up: a city of size 7 will have a radius of 2 tiles (so the 'a' ring and 'b' ring from the previous examples), regardless of the number of workers. However, the limitations on growth due to food collection will greatly affect a city which does not have either at least a few farmers or everyone working in the field.

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 11-06-2000 11:14 PM OK, first ring has 8 tiles, 9 including the city tile. Don't think of it as 1 worker working 1 tile. Each "worker" represents 10.000 (ten thousand) people. So, you send your 70.000 people out to the fields to work. They bring back 100% of the resources from the 8 tiles around the city, while the city collects the resources from its own tile. When the city radius grows, it gets an additional 12 tiles. So yes, the 8th worker only gets 1/12 of the resources from that area, but there are a lot more (well, about 50%) resources on 12 tiles than on 8.

I understand the the 7 was probably a thinko. You likely meant 6. This is a minor point and of little significance.

And also from your article:

quote: Now I know the question that's burning in your minds: what happens when the city reaches 7? OK, let's say you have 7 workers and a city of size 7 (no specialists - let's keep it simple for now). From the original area of influence (that is, the area the city controlled while it was 6 people and less), the city collects 100% of the resources available. From the new territory the city gained when it increased to 7, the worker collects 1/12 of the resources available. Confusing? Here's a picture: city in the middle. The first radius (A) is a ring around the city. The second radius (B) is a ring around that ring (like the cross-section of an onion). 7 workers in a city means that the city collects 100% of resources in ring A, and ~8% of resources in ring B. And so on, as the city grows.

The significant point here is that from what has been explained so far it looks like the city collects 100% of the tile it is on, the first 6 workers collect 100% of the first 8 tiles and a 7th collects 1/12th of the next 12 tiles. Is this not correct? Your last post indicates something different. If specialists cannot reduce the city radius then the tiles in the radius must be independant of the number of workers and instead strictly a function of population.

Maybe we're getting all confused about worker vs. population. I (like most I think) consider
population = workers + specialists.

Assuming that, for a radius 1 city this can be summed up with the formula
tiles in radius =SUM(8 tiles) * population/6;
tiles worked = 1 + (tiles in radius) * workers/population;
(since of course there is the tile the city is on and specialists don't work tiles)

In order for ICS to be dead the formula must simplify to:
tiles in radius =SUM(9 tiles) * population/9;
tiles worked = (tiles in radius) * workers/population;

or in general
tiles in radius =SUM(x tiles)/x * population;

Here's a simple test.
Take a city, any size with no gold, science, production , whatever improvements except happiness, they do not matter (actually even any improvement that just gives a multiplier with no bonus per population). Make everyone a specialist. Does the city produce nothing at all.
If so ICS is dead. If not then it is not.

You are some Real Intelligent fellas and ladies out here with all you Pie R Squared routines and X=Y* the division of Apples /oranges!!..
LOL
Just a fair warning..me and Fat Jack(The Slaver Boss-Man) are headed your way to relieve you of some of your worries..Heh Heh Heh..so while you calculate the Dad Blamed co-efficient of the square route..Ill be allowing your civilians to work for me!!

old system 1 city with one worker will get 2 tiles

New Improved system, 1 City with one worker will get 2-2/3 tiles

old system,
1 city with 10 workers = 11 tiles,Vs
10 cities with 1 worker each = 20 tials

New Improved system,
1 city with 10 worker = ~13 tiles
10 cities with 1 worker each, ~25 1/3

suposedly the New system will make ICS harder, with 2 mechognisms
1) (basicaly you will spend 8* the cost to get the efect of one tile improvment, this alone may kill ICS, we will see)
2) the Max City count may have (fianly) been made more realistic for the game, Forcing you to spend hevily for "happy houses" if you want to overgrow your empire

we will see.