I am an expansionist in 4x games myself but I'd like to see expansion be a strategy, not the only strategy. Currently the only deterrent to expanding is that population growth is split between your cities. Even then you don't lose growth, just spread it around. This inconvenience is minor compared to the benefits of reckless expansion. Overall growth actually improves through growth methods at extra cities such as the growth enchantments and more food buildings. The bottom line is that currently every extra city gives extra automatic research, cash, production, and opportunities to add more buildings without any penalty. The more one expands the more powerful one is, with no balancing deterrents.
Here are some ideas for limiting unrestrained city expansion while leaving it as a viable strategy:
A ) Take away the "free research incentive." Each city currently provides one free research as soon as it becomes a village. Someone with two cities has double the base research as someone with one city without building any structures in either city. Ten cities means ten free research.
Step 1) Give the capital one automatic research and all other cities get NO automatic research.
Step 2) Make studies provide two research instead of one.
This allows your starting city to be at one research just as it is now. The incentive to add more cities just for the automatic bonuses is taken away but you can still eventually end up with as much research in each city through constructing buildings. You can even end up slightly ahead by making a study in your capital but you've had to invest in building up your current cities, not just spammed more city sites. If this idea was considered too restrictive "free research" could instead be blocked from contributing in cities that weren't connected to the captial. Distant places can't contribute to the cause if they have no way of collaberating with the captial can they?
NOTE: The same procedure for doing away with "free research" could be used for any other free aspect new cities provide such as cash. Example, non capital cities could start out providing no free cash but the starting merchant building could add three instead of two, etc.
B ) Beauracracy is a beast. After a certain number of total cities, let's say four, the penalty for not being connected to your capital is doubled (-30 to unrest instead of -15).
This allows growth beyond a small kingdom size without penalty if it is structured...ie...cities are properly connected. It also allows the reckless expansionist to still do his thing but with an immediate penalty. A penalty that could later be wiped away as they become more organized and connect their cities.
Variations on this idea:
1) The total number of cities before the unconnected unrest hike could be adjusted higher or lower than four
2) There could be an unrest increase every multiple of four cities...-30 at four towns, -45 at eight cities, etc.
3) The unrest penalty could be based on how many unconnected cities you have...first unconnected city is -15, second is -25, third -35, etc. for all unconnected cities. Lack of connection to the capital by so many cities brings about chaos.
4) Unrest could rise everywhere based on total number of cities owned...one city equals no penalty, each extra city adds 2% to unrest everywhere.
The purpose of this thread isn't to debate whether people like expansionism or not. It's to modify expansionism into one possible strategy rather than virtually the only strategy due to it's overwheleming benefits.
These are just broad ideas. Details would need to be ironed out. If Brad and company want to make some adjustments to current expansionism maybe these ideas could be a starting place.
What difficulty are you playing on? The major deterrent to expansion is the capacity to defend it all, and AI opponents not liking you settling right up next to them. On the lower difficulties it's not such an issue, but I've learnt to be very wary not to overreach too early - it works at first and then suddenly you are fighting wars on two fronts that you can't handle.
Yeah I agree about unrestrained expansion being a big problem, and in fact I would say it seems to me to be by far the main problem of the game in its current form. And the problems spread even further than you mention. At least playing on challenging/challenging, I can say that in every game in which I've expanded as fast as I can, and completely ignored my defense, the AI has taken this as a sign of strength, and then PAID ME to go into non-aggression treaties out of fear of the power that I really don't have. I don't know, but I have presumed that this means that perhaps your city defenders count towards your percieved faction power? In any event, you shouldn't be considered more powerful for expanding your borders with a limited mobile military. It should be the exact opposite. For every city you make, you should lose a couple points towards your percieved power. Half of faction power should be measured by concentration of power, and half by total mobile unit power. None should come from basic city defenders or number of cities. Maybe fortess upgrades could be counted in some small way, and maybe saved gold (which can be used to rush units) but that's about it.So reckless expansion gives you more research, more gold, it lets you get all the spots on the map, and (in my experience seems to) make the enemies afraid of you, which makes them give you money to have a non-aggresion treaties, which then means you can keep expanding without the tiniest defense on your borders, since they then can't attack you.And the only downside is less growth. A lot of people have posted saying that they wished city level upgrades meant more, and I agree with that, which would make the growth hit more meaningful. I would also add that I think you should get some small bonus based on you population per city, even past level 5. In fact here's an idea that would do that, and also help slow city expansion a tad:Any city at exactly 150 population makes 0 population-bonus gold. but every hundred population above/below that number loses/makes 1 gold per turn. So a city with 220 population makes 0.7 bonus gold per turn and a city at 40 population loses an extra 1.1 gold per turn. This is about the only kind of bearacracy/maintenance type system that I could get behind, because it's transparent and not technically based on how many cities you have. I LOVE that FE doesn't have a penalty system like that.I was listening to the latest episode of Polycast and Kael was the guest host and, strangely enough, they talked about this very topic for like ten minutes, and Kael mentioned that a build of FE, that isn't the current build, has a penalty on unrest based on how many cities you have. I didn't play the beta, so I hope he was referencing a past build and not a future one. Like a say, I love the lack of a system like that in FE. I think it's really bold, but it needs to be balanced out elsewhere, in places like I've mentioned, and like the research idea you mentioned, which I think I liked, too.Another idea that makes sense to me is some sort of escalating price on pioneers the faster you make them without waiting for a certain amount of seasons to pass. But there are lots of interesting new ways to deal with this big problem without going to an unrest-per-city hit, which I think of as a version of the old, tired, not-super-fun standby. so I would much prefer seeing all the other ideas tried instead.If you want to listen to that podcast it's episode 161 over here: http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/polycast/season6.php It's only a few days old, but be warned it's 99.89% about Civ, and only mentions FE in passing a couple times.
random ideas:
Disable all city output/growth when building a pioneer - all efforts towards expansion! (i.e. no research, cash, growth, mana, etc)
Each city ALWAYS has people that want to migrate, so there is ALWAYS a non-rushable pioneer building that is worth say 20 pop.
Once completed it becomes a stationed unit.
Each city can only have 1 active at a time and production of the next does not commence while the pioneer is active.
Pioneer production does not affect city production, its essentially a separate function
Pioneers can be consumed by another (or the same) city to increase population
So there would be constant steady expansion for all civs, the further you are expanding the longer before you can build another.
Possibly have techs (path of governor) that modify this slow/speed up, etc - expansionist as a sov trait, etc
Also adds options for getting that key city to level 5 - do not expand to more cities, grow existing ones - specifically say you are fighting 2 fronts, clear one up and have a fortress on the other front you can attempt to level it up with pioneers from the other front.
One of my peeves with the game and one reason why I don't find FE has nearly as much strategic depth as Civilization 4 (which really nailed this aspect). Rapid expansion should make you weaker short term but strong long term if you can survive that long. Right now there is very little downside to it.
Would be great if Stardock could fix it in a nice way. It has been asked before tho with little response so Stardock might be happy with how it is. Rapid expansion being the best strategy doesn't wreck the game, it just makes it more one dimensional than it could be.
Droghar, I've never beta tested or played at lower than Challenging. Neither me or my one buddy that plays have ever had less cities than the AI's since the start of beta by turn 50. The irony here is that many of the AI's are pushing reckless expansion themselves. They just aren't great at it but they start up any city they can. In games where the instant build queue bug doesn't pop up some nations will have no buildings in their cities for ages as they push all settlers and soldiers. Note that their soldiers mostly get made to protect the citiy they are made at, not shipped in from elsewhere to protect new villages. Most new AI cities sit unprotected for ages. The AI's are not in a position to attack anyone and can't even defend themselves from any early mid powered force. They don't typically go to war until they have no where else to expand to either. If they are in the way they aren't difficult to vanquish. Even if reckless expansion ends up costing you a couple unprotected cities at some point it's a cheap price for what you still gain. There is so little downside compared to the upside that it's out of balance. It's not a ground breaking new game aspect it's a current weakness.
I'm not playing atm (until the instant build queue bug is actually fixed) but my fanatical buddy is at 11 cities on turn 85 at challenging difficulty, double any AI nation. Even if he lost several cities he'd still be the biggest. He is more likely to take their cities than they are his though. His sheer size gives him more to work with and he is pulling away. The only aspect that threatens changing the course of the game are the instant build queue bug or dragon level critters getting woke up and randomly stumbling into the wrong places. His game does crash almost every turn so the instant build queue bug is an ever present danger but he is fanatical about FE. Brad and company are working on upgrading the AI's and the game. I'm not knocking their effort. I also don't think they are far off from making FE ROK. It only takes one significant hole in a game though to degrade it from great to average or mediocre or broken.
ReturnofTheZach and Jutetrea, good ideas! I don't really care which ideas they implement so long as they do take action. The more ideas the more likely something inspires them to a great system. Hopefully more and more of us can give them food for thought.
Mistwraithe, I agree it isn't a gamebreaker like the instant build queue bug is. Undeterred expansion is a game diminisher. If one strategy is significantly stronger than other strategies a game becomes one dimensional if you want to have high success. A fundamental aspect of 4x games is expanding (it's the second "x" in 4x isn't it?). The eventual winner will expand. Having good balances on this mechanic are essential to a strong 4x game. Having no balances on this mechanic doesn't destroy the game but it makes it one dimensional and diminishes the quality and shelf life of the game. All three of you already know this but I'm saying it again to register with the Department of Redundancies Department.
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