I'd appreciate if people could share examples of ICS.

[Yitzi]

Well Yitzi, I do have a possible solution to discouraging ICS.
But first, here is why ICS will always be better then making fewer bases.
 1) the ICS player gets faster tech, faster grouth, more units up untill mid game. After that , arguably the player who made more base facilities gains the advantage.

I'm not so sure that ICS is effective in the early game; colony pods aren't that cheap, so it might be better to spend the extra couple of turns to move them to a better spot.

2) #1 is wrong because when you get access to orbial enhancements, all the bases benefit, Sky hydroponics labs make your bases grow,  and look at Lazerus's picture, his bases have 14 population! And all that means SPECIALISTS. You see engineers give +3 energy +2 tech(multiplied by base facilities).So when orbital enhancements become available ICS bases start to build.

Yes; I favor delaying sky hydroponics labs until hab domes.

Also all those bases give near limitless support, and guess who has the bigger army(and probably better due to faster tech)

Admittedly, I think that ICS probably should have the army-size advantage.

My solution to this is to invert the base growth nutrient,Let me be more specific
   -Small bases grow slow, Large bases grow fast
   -so a small base population 1 will take 40 nutrients to get to 2, then 30 to get to 3 , then20 to get to 4, and after population 5 cap at 10 nutrients

Interesting, but that would mean they'd grow too slowly in the early game and too fast in the midgame.  It would hurt ICS, no question, but the unintended side effects would likely be disastrous.

-Also if its possible to only allow colony pods to be built at bases with 3 or more  population

One of my future plans will allow the population cost of colony pods to be tweaked, so building at 2 population can be made to work the same way as at 1 (i.e. it costs you the base).

Another anti-ICS approach that might work, if it proves necessary, would be making it so that population-based drones are affected somewhat by nearby bases (the closer, the more drones).

[NlmDth]

One of my future plans will allow the population cost of colony pods to be tweaked, so building at 2 population can be made to work the same way as at 1 (i.e. it costs you the base).

Well, when i play in single player i actually force myself to only make colonies at 3, or sometimes at 4 population, and i am also not allowed to build closer then 2 squares apart.
  And yes, it slows down ICS strategy, especially the 2 squares rule

-Small bases grow slow, Large bases grow fast
   -so a small base population 1 will take 40 nutrients to get to 2, then 30 to get to 3 , then20 to get to 4, and after population 5 cap at 10 nutrients

   This particular idea i had was not originally intended to counter ICS.I always thought that it didn't make sense that 10k people ---> 20k much faster then 20k ppl--->30k,     and that 40k--->50.I mean how much sex do your colonists have Oo? Do they go celibate when the base grows?
   I just thought that this change would make more sense,
   Oh and it will change gameplay radically, yes , first thing that comes to mind is Morgan's population limit, he would be nerfed big time by this. Lal would probably be boss. Although i would not call it "disastrous" , just a bit more realistic.

[Yitzi]

   This particular idea i had was not originally intended to counter ICS.I always thought that it didn't make sense that 10k people ---> 20k much faster then 20k ppl--->30k,     and that 40k--->50.I mean how much sex do your colonists have Oo? Do they go celibate when the base grows?

Its roots are likely in earlier Civ games, where the population grew roughly as the square of the city size (more precisely, as 5kXsizeX(size+1)).  I presume the same holds here, so a size 1 base is 10k, size 2 is 30k, size 3 is 60k, etc.  (From a gameplay perspective, it's fairly necessary once average nutrients per square exceeds 2.)

[NlmDth]

-Small bases grow slow, Large bases grow fast
   -so a small base population 1 will take 40 nutrients to get to 2, then 30 to get to 3 , then20 to get to 4, and after population 5 cap at 10 nutrients

Hey, umm,  can you help me make this happen in my own games? I've read the whole Alpha.txt i can't change it from there. Or, if its not too much trouble, make this an option in your future patch?
 not sure how the equation would be, my maths is a little rusty, and my programming skills are non existent

[Yitzi]

-Small bases grow slow, Large bases grow fast
   -so a small base population 1 will take 40 nutrients to get to 2, then 30 to get to 3 , then20 to get to 4, and after population 5 cap at 10 nutrients

Hey, umm,  can you help me make this happen in my own games? I've read the whole Alpha.txt i can't change it from there. Or, if its not too much trouble, make this an option in your future patch?
 not sure how the equation would be, my maths is a little rusty, and my programming skills are non existent

It would definitely be doable, but unless other people want it it's not going to be a high priority for future patches.

[Flux]

I just learned that ICS existed. Looks to be a fun challenge, although I may not be able to post my results...
My PRTSC button is broken, blame that.

[Nexii]

Making bases take less N as they get bigger would only favor ICS even more.  ICS depends on PS which is a harder SE to boom with.  You could run minimal N, which is hard with less land per base anyways.

One idea would be to take a page from Civ2's book and give larger cities an FOP boost on the base tile.  Satellites kind of do this anyways I realize, and there's a decent ramping up of N in the midgame (Tree Farm, Aquafarm, Condensor) also.  With raising out I modded FOP from terraforming a lot, and am now playing around with no resource caps, and condensor available from the start of game.  Taking out crawlers makes WP very strong, and something I've been trying to mod around.  Probably a cost increase to WP is the only really good fix.

[Yitzi]

One idea would be to take a page from Civ2's book and give larger cities an FOP boost on the base tile.  Satellites kind of do this anyways I realize, and there's a decent ramping up of N in the midgame (Tree Farm, Aquafarm, Condensor) also.  With raising out I modded FOP from terraforming a lot, and am now playing around with no resource caps, and condensor available from the start of game.  Taking out crawlers makes WP very strong, and something I've been trying to mod around.  Probably a cost increase to WP is the only really good fix.

A FOP boost on the base tile with population would be better than a flat FOP boost on the base tile, but would probably actually encourage ICS (which benefits heavily from high base-tile production) unless it were extremely strong (at which point it becomes similar to just having each population give resources).

[binTravkin]

I may make a point that has already been made before, but I don't think ICS should be discouraged at all.
It's a valid and fun strategy, but not with it's drawbacks - it requires a lot of micromanagement to do efficiently.
If anything, modifications should strive to create alternative valid and fun strategies which can counter ICS.
That would encourage players to use them and thus, indirectly, reduce occurences of ICS.

You don't have to look far to see what should be done.
Take, for example a game of Sparta/Gaians/Peacekeepers vs Hive.
A reasonable player will want to get these first three popbooming as soon as possible, while Hive will be ICSing.

That means building bases that have sufficient space and nutrients to achieve their popbooming potential of 14(16) pop.
Which means not ICSing.

I would say that for the mentioned two ICSing is less effective than popbooming in almost any circumstances.

Also, ICS comes in (at least) several forms.
The most dense form of ICS is a 2x2 grid, where each base only has 3 tiles to work apart from it's base tile, with exception of coastal bases, as the grid usually is not continued into the sea.
This can be modified for larger space for each base and while it would still technically be ICS, it would at some point require popbooming in order to achieve the full potential of each base.
I would say that for University a 2x4 grid (each base having doubled space from 2x2 grid), is preferable as they already have some infrastructure (network node) that can be turned in a popboom "helper" (via virtual world) and thus are able to achieve size 7 bases with relatively little investment in base infrastructure.

In ICS vs popbooming debate sometimes the effect of infrastructure on output per pop is being overlooked.
This is not a complete analysis, but to just give an example of what I am thinking
4 hive bases, size 4 = 4x colony pod (3 rows each) + 8x police infantry (1 row each) + 4 formers (2 rows each) = 28 rows of minerals
1 PK base, size 16 = 1x colony pod, 1x garrison (1 row assumed) + 4 formers + recreation commons (4 rows) + children's creche (5 rows) + holo theatre (6 rows) = 25 rows

You need to factor in that it will take longer to build all this with less initial bases but that rushing facilities is faster, if you have the cash.
Also, Peacekeepers will likely need to spend part of their economy on psych, but before tree farms their economy is like double per pop than that of Hive, so they can afford it.
If peacekeepers can get this far without being significantly behind Hive, they should have the upper hand in further development as there are infrastructure investment options (energy bank, tree farm) which will net them more return per investment than additional colonies that Hive builds.
And that's not factoring research in, as they are likely to have significantly higher energy output per pop.

[Nexii]

Sparta struck me as more suited to ICS due to +1 POLICE.  In PS that's +3 POLICE for much cheaper control than other factions.

There's also the Hab Complex cost, and PSY costs for PKs in your example, but generally yes.  This was sort of my point too.  There should be choice between Boom (vertical) and ICS (horizontal) pop growth.  I'm not sure that a size 16 base is a fair comparison to 4 size 4's though.  That size 16 takes a lot of tech whereas 4 doesn't. 

There's a lot of ways to tweak this balance.  Mainly most facilities being cheaper benefits ICS.  Exceptions to that are cheaper Hab Complex/Dome costing, and cheaper satellites.  You could say ecofacilities too but that depends if you play with clean minerals in or not. 
Specialists also play a big role, as they aren't hampered by EFFIC, stronger specialists tend to favor ICS.
Similarly you can tweak the SEs if you think one or the other is too powerful.  Taking out the easy boom of Demo+Planned has a big impact, as the GA boom is much more difficult.

[Yitzi]

Sparta struck me as more suited to ICS due to +1 POLICE.  In PS that's +3 POLICE for much cheaper control than other factions.

I think any momentum faction is fairly well suited to ICS.

There should be choice between Boom (vertical) and ICS (horizontal) pop growth.

You're leaving out "lots of territory (horizontal)".  ICS, as I understand it, is about not the number of cities but rather their density.

Specialists also play a big role, as they aren't hampered by EFFIC, stronger specialists tend to favor ICS.

Just the opposite: having low EFFIC penalties is better for non-ICS, since (a) it means you can more easily build your bases further away from each other, and (b) it means more focus on energy rather than minerals, and ICS tends to favor minerals since they are not as subject to multiplier facilities anyway, and ICS benefits more from SUPPORT, meaning a militaristic approach.  However, stronger specialists do favor ICS in that ICS has less land per base and will therefore more quickly use it all up and put the rest to specialists.

[binTravkin]

That size 16 takes a lot of tech whereas 4 doesn't. 

Ethical Calculus, Industrial Automation, Doctrine: Flexibility.
Not a lot by any measure.

Spartan +1 police is nothing compared to Hive's +2 police, +2 support, +1 industry, +1 growth.
And they have -1 industry on top of that.

Try ICSing with Sparta and see.

Best ICS-ers are Hive and Morgan in that order, because both are basically forced to ICS.
These two can do the max density ICS and feel good about it.
For the rest the max density ICS is not always best as they can popboom easily.
For some, such as Spartans, ICS is a really bad idea, provided you are playing against a competent Hive or Morgan ICS-er.

Talking about efficiency, keep in mind that low efficiency means more base number "hard" drones, which hurts ICS.
Boomers will also always build the Children's Creche, which raises efficiency by 1.

[Yitzi]

That size 16 takes a lot of tech whereas 4 doesn't. 

Ethical Calculus, Industrial Automation, Doctrine: Flexibility.
Not a lot by any measure.

Wait, shouldn't that third one be Planetary Networks?  And of course if you actually want reasonable drone control, that adds quite a bit more.

Spartan +1 police is nothing compared to Hive's +2 police, +2 support, +1 industry, +1 growth.
And they have -1 industry on top of that.

Spartans can run Police State as well, you know.  And Hive's -2 ECONOMY may be worse for ICS (since it's a per-base penalty) than the Spartans' -1 INDUSTRY.

Try ICSing with Sparta and see.

Best ICS-ers are Hive and Morgan in that order, because both are basically forced to ICS.

I don't think Hive has to ICS, though it's probably the best at it.  (A non-ICS Hive would probably play a lot like Domai does without pop booms).  As for Morgan, he actually probably shouldn't ICS, because the commerce bonus is far more useful when it's working off two sizable bases per pair instead of just one, and it's not like he's going to be making heavy use of police or free support anyway, and he needs multiplier facilities.  (Yes, I know, he can run Wealth/FM for +4 energy per base as opposed to other factions' +2...but if played as  should be, that will be much less significant than the extra commerce.  Morgan running FM/wealth has +4 energy per base, or +1 per square at maximum density.  But he also gets +5 commerce rating, which with midgame techs translates, with a treaty and no global trade pact, to commerce equal to ~8.9% of the energy income (excluding specialists) of both cities.  So if there is a global trade pact, with two treaty partners and two pact siblings, Morgan's boosts from commerce can be more than 2/3 of his total energy income.)

For some, such as Spartans, ICS is a really bad idea, provided you are playing against a competent Hive or Morgan ICS-er.

Spartans playing ICS probably isn't such a bad idea; the key, though, is that they need to remember that the goal of ICS isn't for a builder game, but to give the support for a sizable army.  If I were playing Spartan ICS, I'd make sure to grab the Command Nexus at all costs, get key military techs, then use my large number of bases to allow a switch to Fundamentalism for instant elite units (with that +1 movement) to overrun the enemy before they can get going.

To put it another way: Spartan ICS is all about synergy with rushing.

Talking about efficiency, keep in mind that low efficiency means more base number "hard" drones, which hurts ICS.

Thus, strong specialists make low efficiency builds stronger, and therefore ICS becomes weaker.

Boomers will also always build the Children's Creche, which raises efficiency by 1.

True; the effect of specialist strength is mixed.

[Nexii]

If you're going pure ICS then the low EFFIC causing B-drones doesn't matter.  The only drone control you'll have is from police units and perhaps punishment spheres (though default Punishment Spheres are overcosted versus Clean Police). So that's why Sparta benefits as they get +3 POLICE easier than other factions.  With -1 IND you need to save any minerals possible.

But yes I forgot that specialists get multiplied by facilities also, so I think using them as a lever on ICS vs Boom balance is mixed.

A few other ways to control Boom vs ICS would be the moddable support divisor (higher SUP costs favors ICS)
And also the much more impactful free minerals per base and colony pod costs and infantry cost.  Stronger/cheaper recycle tanks would also favor ICS

[binTravkin]

Wait, shouldn't that third one be Planetary Networks?

To get past the first pop limit, you need Hab domes, which come from IA.
If we're talking first pop limit, then either Planetary Networks or Industrial Economics, depending on your faction and other circumstances.
And Doctrine:Flexibility is in fact optional. You can go without it, if you manage to place bases in areas with large amount of moist/rainy tiles.
I use kelp farms to compensate for some of the tiles being forests.

So even less techs required than I initally mentioned.

And of course if you actually want reasonable drone control, that adds quite a bit more.

Not really.
You can use massive investment in psych during the "boom" periods (size 3 -> 7, then size 7 -> size 14) to create the necessary local golden ages and after that you can use smaller psych investment to sustain that pop.
Or you can boom using Planned economy and then switch to Free Market and use the extra energy for sustaining.
Depends on your energy output and other bonuses from faction or secret projects.

The maxed out pop is such a massive boon that spending even 50% psych while being @ Free Market on it is still worth it.

I usually play with blind research and tech stagnation and by the time I end the 2nd boom, I can usually also afford research hospitals in those large bases as Gene Splicing is an essential "2nd wave" tech for boomers.

Without techstag and/or blind research acquiring the needed techs and more should be no problem at all.

One needs to bear in mind that pop booming only requires that you have the +6 growth somehow and 2 extra nutrients in bases you are attempting to boom.
Forests are popular, but if you are going to boom early, you likely build some farms/solars as well just to keep that extra nutrient thing going.

Spartans can run Police State as well, you know.

They don't have the efficiency immunity, thus they would still end up being significantly worse off.
I admit I have to try this, but somehow it has always seemed to me as a waste and intuitively feels that in any competitive ICSing Spartans would be out-ICSed by Hive by a huge margin.

And Hive's -2 ECONOMY may be worse for ICS (since it's a per-base penalty) than the Spartans' -1 INDUSTRY.

Early game ICS is mostly about industry.
While ICSing as Hive you don't even "feel" that you have -2 econ, because you get huge so fast, that you simply have double the bases which "cancels out" this malus until others get their infrastructure up, which may be too late if you play Hive right and just probe dry and conquer everyone nearby.

I don't think Hive has to ICS, though it's probably the best at it.

This depends on background.
In a competitive MP game with good players Hive is probably going to lose big time if it's not doing maximum ICS.
And vice versa.
When I played SMAC a lot, I've seen 2 games with Hive max ICSing. In both the endgame was "everyone vs Hive".

As for Morgan, he actually probably shouldn't ICS, because the commerce bonus is far more useful when it's working off two sizable bases per pair instead of just one, and it's not like he's going to be making heavy use of police or free support anyway, and he needs multiplier facilities.  (Yes, I know, he can run Wealth/FM for +4 energy per base as opposed to other factions' +2...but if played as  should be, that will be much less significant than the extra commerce.  Morgan running FM/wealth has +4 energy per base, or +1 per square at maximum density.  But he also gets +5 commerce rating, which with midgame techs translates, with a treaty and no global trade pact, to commerce equal to ~8.9% of the energy income (excluding specialists) of both cities.  So if there is a global trade pact, with two treaty partners and two pact siblings, Morgan's boosts from commerce can be more than 2/3 of his total energy income.)

My logic behind "forced" was that he has so little pop limit that, in order to use the available land efficiently, he has to put a lot of small bases.
Yes, he can get to IA fairly quickly, but it's still just 11 pop limit - a normal "half-max-density" (2x4 grid) ICS base of 7 workers + 4 specialists.

I didn't really catch you at "two sizable bases per pair instead of just one"?
Did you mean that the other factions would not have enough bases to have commerce with?
If so - yes and no. In a SP game or not very competitive MP game, yes, that's a point.
But he still gets a MASSIVE amount of energy from each base tile gratis.
In mid game your point is valid, but in early game that +6/7 energy from just the base tile is what is going to count.
You aren't having a lot of contacts and trades anyway and have to wait until Build 6 tech Planetary Economics + a council decision for commerce to really become effective.

In a competitive MP game, two scenarios are common:
1. Someone else is ICSing and you can have a "twin city" to trade with.
2. People realise that they are getting (much) less from commerce than you and refuse treaties. I've had this not only as Morgan, but also other factions when ahead in commerce rate.

Spartans playing ICS probably isn't such a bad idea; the key, though, is that they need to remember that the goal of ICS isn't for a builder game, but to give the support for a sizable army.  If I were playing Spartan ICS, I'd make sure to grab the Command Nexus at all costs, get key military techs, then use my large number of bases to allow a switch to Fundamentalism for instant elite units (with that +1 movement) to overrun the enemy before they can get going.

To put it another way: Spartan ICS is all about synergy with rushing.

Yes, this is a valid strategy, but it is also circumstantial:
1. You need to know you are reasonably close to someone. So you can't ICS right away, but have to postpone it until you have scouted enough.
2. Someone could be either Hive who's pulling off the same (but with 50%+ more bases due to extra growth/industry) or someone who's also ICSing and/or is ahead of tech (quite likely if you run Police State or Fundamentalist), which could quickly negate your quantitative advantage.

Thus, strong specialists make low efficiency builds stronger, and therefore ICS becomes weaker.

Yes, you're right. I seem to have misread the original comment.
Basically a high-density ICS relies on "hard" drone control (police, -X drone facilities), a small number of workers and rest being specialists.

A few other ways to control Boom vs ICS would be the moddable support divisor (higher SUP costs favors ICS)
And also the much more impactful free minerals per base and colony pod costs and infantry cost.  Stronger/cheaper recycle tanks would also favor ICS

My thinking is that if it's going to be changed, add in some extra early game bonuses for booming which change as little as possible if you are not their target audience (like, not booming or at least not early game booming).
Some things that come to mind:
 - cheaper farms/solars - nobody seems to build them and they don't spread
 - reduce the negative efficiency modifier of planned economy to -1
 - easier local Golden Ages through psych (psych modifier +25% for rec commons?), generally make psych facilities "scale" better (they should not really be "pop-limited" anyway, but increase "happiness" of entire pop by some %)
 - reduce the negative effect of Democracy to -1 support - changes nothing for most ICSers, I think?
 - remove the limitation that condenser and echelon mirror are in conflict with farms and solars (if possible) - they are still expensive anyway, possibly instead add a limitation that they can't be adjacent, similar to boreholes (changes nothing as people already rarely put them side by side)
 - rework Biology lab facility, the +2 labs bonus is useless, make it, say +25% labs AND +1 food in nearby farm & fungus tiles (improvements in edible flora and fauna), failing that - +1 food in base tile (small but still useful at the cost); the entire Biology lab->Centauri preserve->Temple of Planet could be come an alternative TreeFarms->HybridForests route for those who rely on either farms of fungus for food production.
 - add +25% labs bonus to Skunkworks? (another fairly useless facility save for a single high-mineral base)

Some of those changes I propose are more or less directly encouraging pop booming, others - adding more "weight" to the vertical base building argument by improving the multipliers.

What do you think?
Some of these are definitely possible, but not sure about the building bonuses.
I gather you are modding the exe, so you probably have a good idea of possibilities.
I don't know whether this is stored in exe, apart from SE effects which are in a text file.


EDIT:
I had some thoughts about this and realized that my ideas of less support penalty or +1 food per base for Biology lab are bad.
Biology lab should +1 food for each farm tile.

Here are the reasons of these thoughts
1. ICSers benefit the most from per-base bonuses. So anything that improves "per-base", should not be boosted.
2. Boomers benefit from per-pop bonuses, or, by proxy - per (worked) tile and per-output (labs/psych/econ) modifiers.
Thus, in order to boost boomers, we should really work to increase early (because if they get to mid-game they can do fine) pop, tile-based (flat) bonuses and output modifiers some of which I already mentioned, but there may be more good ideas along these lines.
I was also thinking about specialists, which generally benefit ICSers more (at least early on) and realised that the doctor specialist gives +2 psych while librarian and engineer both give +3 labs and econ, respectively.
Why not boost doctor to +3 psych?
He is useless for ICSers as they rely on "hard" drone control, but useful for boomers as "soft" drone control.

Also I was thinking about the logic of reducing or eliminating ICS here and in other games.
Generally it follows along the lines that someone who is doing a lot of micromanagement (ICS generally has more units and bases) can become significantly more powerful than those who don't, thus taking away fun from them.
So, eliminating it would restore fun to those who don't ICS.
However, this is a zero-sum operation as you take away from some (there are people who like to micromanage and ICS as a strategy) to give others.
The solution is just to give those others (boomers) a viable counter while not boosting the ICS while doing so.