So...Impressions?

[gwillybj]

... War gamers tend to be very resistant to change.

[Yitzi]

Well... native life can be quite a deterrent for ICS.
I just tried to settle a third colony in the wild lands (first time I got sofar to get a second colony pod out), and all of a sudden my third outpost and its marine defense were attacked by hordes of drones and a manticore.

They didn't last long.

Wouldn't that be more reason to have a lot of small, tightly-packed bases (what's usually meant by ICS)?  It's a reason not to have a large territory, but not to not have a high base density in your territory.

[BlaneckW]

It's just another bloody deterrant to the expansion quesion that plagues Civ games.  Doesn't mean you don't do it, you just do it better.  A real solution would be to stop using the city-states engine.  Paradox games don't have this problem.

[Yitzi]

It's just another bloody deterrant to the expansion quesion that plagues Civ games.  Doesn't mean you don't do it, you just do it better.  A real solution would be to stop using the city-states engine.  Paradox games don't have this problem.

You mean replace cities with a different system?  That would do it, though it'd require completely redesigning how things work.

But I'm more interested in the question: Given X territory available after alien life, other factions, etc., one can choose a low base density (bases distanced 5-6 tiles from each other) or high base density (bases distanced 2-4 tiles from each other).  Is BE more friendly to high base density than earlier civ games, or less?

[sisko]

Well... native life can be quite a deterrent for ICS.
I just tried to settle a third colony in the wild lands (first time I got sofar to get a second colony pod out), and all of a sudden my third outpost and its marine defense were attacked by hordes of drones and a manticore.

They didn't last long.

Not content with that, native life kept surrounding and attacking any unit trying to go beyond the ultrasonic fences.
The last couple of demo games, I tried that method to get my military units experience (to the 30 xp cap), but this demo for some reason native life was literally overabundant and, if no fences would've been present, I'd been obliterated.

What difficulty level are you playing?

[Othniel]

It's just another bloody deterrant to the expansion quesion that plagues Civ games.  Doesn't mean you don't do it, you just do it better.  A real solution would be to stop using the city-states engine.  Paradox games don't have this problem.

You mean replace cities with a different system?  That would do it, though it'd require completely redesigning how things work.

But I'm more interested in the question: Given X territory available after alien life, other factions, etc., one can choose a low base density (bases distanced 5-6 tiles from each other) or high base density (bases distanced 2-4 tiles from each other).  Is BE more friendly to high base density than earlier civ games, or less?

Overlap kills a city's production time as you need to work tiles as much as possible. Most of the time you want to have your cities working as many different resources as possible and are best off when your cities are about 6 tiles apart. The highest density of cities you can have is at 4 tiles apart and the only reason to do that is if space is tight already.

[BlaneckW]

Is BE more friendly to high base density than earlier civ games, or less?

The emphasis on the health system would suggest less.

[BlaneckW]

Overlap kills a city's production time as you need to work tiles as much as possible.

which only matters if the game stagnates instead of your growth winning out....  ICS, where possible, is the fastest means of working more tiles, and thus expanding.  Firaxis tries to weed the strategy out using stupid deterrants, because, I guess, people like the city-states engine, or you don't want to scare people with something different.

[Yitzi]

Overlap kills a city's production time as you need to work tiles as much as possible.

And you don't make it up just from having more cities with recyclers, autoplants, etc?

The highest density of cities you can have is at 4 tiles apart and the only reason to do that is if space is tight already.

So you want to maximize density once you can't expand outward?

Is BE more friendly to high base density than earlier civ games, or less?

The emphasis on the health system would suggest less.

It would suggest they tried to do "less", but there are so many one-per-city health bonuses that I think it might actually come out to more.

[Geo]

They didn't last long.

What difficulty level are you playing?

IIRC, that was a Gemini game.

[Othniel]

I've played two games so far. The first was a Purity focused Kavitha Protectorate on a Terran world. After I put down four cities fairly early I continued to grow and became the largest territory holder in the world, which limited the 3 other civilizations around me pretty severely. After a war where Polystralia, and my ally the Slavic Federation betrayed me, would not accept peace I became the world's warmonger and everyone hated me. I ended up building the Promise Land victory and colonized the world with many an earthling. My impression after this was that it was pretty easy to snowball, especially with a Prosperity-focused Kavitha. In my head cannon universe the world has been renamed Sanctuary and is now a place of refuge from religious persecution on earth, and has a bunch of Templars in battlesuits protecting the faithful.

In my second game I decided to mess around with the intention of a one city challenge, but I couldn't find the option, so instead I set the map to Dwarf (a four player map) and upped the number of AI to 6. I also turned the difficulty up to one under the highest level, while I was at Vostok for the first scenario.  I made the map equatorial and arid, and the results were fantastic. I'm on a desert moon as the PAC going a Harmony path with lots of focus on spying. There is an alliance between myself and the KP. I've wiped out the Slavic Federation. The African Union is neutral but supremacy, Supremacy Polystrialia is huge with I think at least nine cities, and the  Purity Franco-Iberians have settled islands to the east and are now working on their own Purity Victory.  The world is at war with me and Kavitha vs. Polystralia vs. Franco-Iberia. This has been an insanely fun game. I can't wait to try and stomp out the Franco-Iberians before turning around and joining them to the planet.

I think for my third game I'm going to set up a new Unity, on a massive map and have everyone deploy as once. This should give everyone room to expand so that proper empires can develop.

[Geo]

3 coastal colonies, a fenced off territory, and a carrier navy later, the timer ran out on me again.
I was lucky to have Adept Blue in the game, it have me two later techs. The one that lets you construct the Floatstone improvement, and the other was giving me Terrascapes.

Is there any system in when the Ultrasonic Fence quest pops up? It did this game almost on the heels that two fences were finished.

[Othniel]

Overlap kills a city's production time as you need to work tiles as much as possible.

which only matters if the game stagnates instead of your growth winning out....  ICS, where possible, is the fastest means of working more tiles, and thus expanding.  Firaxis tries to weed the strategy out using stupid deterrants, because, I guess, people like the city-states engine, or you don't want to scare people with something different.

The easiest deterrent was to just not allow settlement within three tiles which they did. Also they made it so your population doesn't grow while the settler/colonist is being built.  With the exception of an Industry-Prosperity KP or a every-trade-route-to-your-capital Polystralia, the game just slows down if you try to spam without trade route support. You could do it, but there are problems with it and the quality of tiles you'd have.

[lifehole]

It's essentially a civ 5 sci-fi spinoff. I just want a sequel to AC

It's a good game but lacking depth/features. Not worth full price, imo. It has much less depth than civ 5 + expansions, and only slightly more depth than civ 5 vanilla.