ICS - back with a vengeance?

[Horizons]

What are the disincentives to infinite city sprawl in Civ6?

In fact ICS seems like the best strategy to cope with the hugely annoying 'whack-a-mole' barbarian situation.

If every single patch of the world is not covered and locked down, enormous numbers of barbarians will continuously spawn from all directions, disrupting international trade etc.

And since new cities don't cause unhappiness elsewhere (Civ5), require gold to support (Civ4) or suffer from low production caused by corruption (Civ3), then there isn't really any reason not to plop down a city in every possible piece of land you can grab a hold on.

 

[Stringer1313]

The main deterrent to ICS for me (and I am not a skilled hardcore player) has been: 1) creating cities that I can't adequately protect from the hordes of AI units (when the AI actually uses them effectively) which cedes it to them; 2) each new city sucks up an amenity that I could really use for my existing cities. Also, the production costs scale so monstrously in later eras that new cities add no value. I don't mind the barbarians b/c they give my new units fresh experience, and it's easy to prevent it just by stationing a scout there.

After forming my core cities the only reason I create new cities are: 1) to grab a new amenity; or 2) to give me a foothold in a new continent so I can more easily invade.

 

[dexters]

I need to play more to firm an opinion but my initial feel is this game is closer to Civ 5 on that scaling costs of new cities deter ICS. After the core + a few satellite cities to grab lux and resources is set up it is cheaper to take AI cities with ready built districts aND improvements

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Well they technically can effect your core cities once they get large enough to start demanding amenities of their own. But I agree, in general rapid expansion is a great strategy...population brings you all the science you need (maybe build a campus or two), you have more opportunities for all powerful trade routes and you're more likely to get those scarce strategic resources.

I'm glad to be able to go wide again, the AI just needs to get on board with going wide too, or at least be better at stopping you when you over extend yourself.

 

[dfrani]

Production costs can be off-set with multiple trade routes in the new cities; let them focus on building an industrial district then buy the buildings. Its the only way to really establish late game cities.

 

[alpaca]

Within the game system it makes sense to build as many new cities as you can for a very long time.

Without the game system, tedium may keep you from choosing to do so.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

The safeguards against ICS are really weak. Spamming closely-packed cities regardless of terrain is quite viable. As the game is currently balanced amenities are not really a huge deal.

I think either city maintenance or having district costs escalate by # built (rather than tech progression) could be a fix, though I'd want devs to be VERY careful with either. I vastly, vastly prefer the current balance, flawed as it is, to Civ V encouraging only 4 cities.

 

[Ravenwild]

In a 4x game, there should always be a reason to get more territory but have diminishing returns which this game has.

 

[StittsvileJamie]

First off, it's not really "ICS", but just "lots of cities". ICS is a specific exploit, which doesn't exist anymore thanks to the 4 tile minimum city placement.

As for lots of cities being the ideal strategy, why is this a bad thing? In real life, we have tons of cities per nation. I find it way more fun than 4 or 5 cities max like civ 5.

 

[sresk]

ICS is really strong especially with the overlap from industrial zones/factories. I space all my cities as closely as possible while still being on fresh water... and then fill in any non freshwater gaps later. It's easy to get 150-200 production on all your cities with even brand new cities getting 50-80 production once you have your factories everywhere. As long as you have the military there is no reason to not build as many cities as possible.

 

[MyOtherName]

First off, it's not really "ICS", but just "lots of cities". ICS is a specific exploit, which doesn't exist anymore thanks to the 4 tile minimum city placement.

ICS is about packing as many cities in as possible, to get the most out of per-city benefits. Forcing cities to be more spread out doesn't make ICS nonexistent -- it just limits the extent to which you can exploit it.

 

[StittsvileJamie]

ICS is about packing as many cities in as possible, to maximize your per-city benefits. Forcing cities to be more spread out doesn't make ICS nonexistent -- it just limits the extent to which you can exploit it.

That's not what it meant originally, but I guess the meaning has evolved.

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?s=037bd4b4ab5a2b5f444dcf19fccbe7d0&t=4468
Interesting thread.

Technically ICS has nothing to do with spacing or speed, it is literally the exploitation of the "free city tile worker".

 

[dexters]

Yeah the classic ICS doesn't exist any more. And if the argument is ICS is back because of area effect district buildings, maybe we can invite those complaining about district costs into this thread.

Peripheral cities are time consuming to set up and they tend to upset the balance of amenities in the core once they grow out of their free pops. which by the way is further exacerbated if one uses internal trade roures to supercharge their production as those routes all tend to give lots of food.

ICS would be an issue of it can be proven lots and lots of cities tightly packed with no or minimal improvements in the periphery is better than fewer larger happier cities. For me there is not enough data to say so and I'm leaning towards a no, If pushed for an answer.

I think wide empires are back in the table but not ICS level wide

 

[sresk]

That's not what it meant originally, but I guess the meaning has evolved.

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?s=037bd4b4ab5a2b5f444dcf19fccbe7d0&t=4468
Interesting thread.

Well then Civ 6 ICS exploit is about have a 1 pop city that was just founded starting with 70 cogs due to overlap from neighboring factories. You don't even care about the worker you care about the overlap... then that city builds another factory and gives the neighboring 4-6 cities another +3 cogs (so 12-18 more cogs) do that with japan and it gets even more ridiculous

 

[MyOtherName]

That's not what it meant originally, but I guess the meaning has evolved.

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?s=037bd4b4ab5a2b5f444dcf19fccbe7d0&t=4468
Interesting thread.

Well, back in Civ 3, basically the only thing you could get from the cities is food and one shield (production unit) per turn.

These days, the corruption mechanic is gone and there is the potential to get more things out of each city. E.g. in Civ 4, there was a brief fad about combining a "religious economy" with ICS to maximize the per-city benefits you could get from religious wonders.

Here in Civ 6, your first two population points are basically free (i.e. don't consume your global amenities), so you can consider settling as many extra 2 pop cities as you can to get:

• An extra 1.4 science and 0.6 culture per turn
• More terrain within your borders
• More city center buildings (e.g. buy a monument for 2 culture per turn)
• An extra district
• A small amount of production

With the "small amount of production" kicked into high gear once factories come online.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Well, back in Civ 3, basically the only thing you could get from the cities is food and one shield (production unit) per turn.

These days, the corruption mechanic is gone and there is the potential to get more things out of each city. E.g. in Civ 4, there was a brief fad about combining a "religious economy" with ICS to maximize the per-city benefits you could get from religious wonders.

Here in Civ 6, your first two population points are basically free (i.e. don't consume your global amenities), so you can consider settling as many extra 2 pop cities as you can to get:

• An extra 1.4 science and 0.6 culture per turn
• More terrain within your borders
• More city center buildings (e.g. buy a monument for 2 culture per turn)
• An extra district
• A small amount of production

With the "small amount of production" kicked into high gear once factories come online.

This is a really compelling case. Not to mention that the newly settled cities will actually on the whole help the core cities, since they'll claim more luxuries for more amenities.

 

[King Jason]

REX is in - ICS, I don't think so. Covering the world to stave off barbs seems silly when you can instead do it with military units.

There's really no benefit to ICS at this moment because you'd just be wasting time doing it. The game can be beaten easily with 6-12 cities. Anything more than that stretches into the realm of personal taste, not optimization.

Something like what Sresk is talking about is so rediculiously tedious with so little a reward - you might as well just win the game; which if you're spending time executing a strategy like that, you can do.

It doesn't matter if it's possible to do - all that matters if it's viable to do. If the time it takes you to completely cover the world in cities that have perfectly overlapped cascading factories is greater than the time it takes you to achieve a victory - then it's pointless. Further, something like space race can be acheived with only a few core city's of production - so again, the above kind of strategy is pointless.

the time you're going to waste micro-ing it all doesn't translater to a quicker win. Even if it actually did in turns, it's still pointless; I'd rather take less than 1 minute managing my empire of 10 cities, as opposed to 3 or more minutes managing my empire of 50 cities, only to shave off what will undoubtedly be a marginal amount of turns off of a victory time - and likely add time played over the course of the game itself.

Basically, ICS is pointless. Your time is better spent actually winning the game - which will be done a lot sooner if you don't ICS.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

Each amenity can be spread to only four cities so there's that to keep in mind(6 with Monte). Each city will have to spend resources on establishing adequate housing too. In addition districts cost more production as time goes forward and how many you've already built in other cities. ICS is viable of course but without the proper infrastructure these will be small to medium sized cities but still reasonable enough to fit in core districts (commercial, industrial).

The game does seem to favor a wide play currently but it's not as lopsided as people make it out to be. Civs like Kongo and India can still make really tall strong cities that are competitive with ICS.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

If you want to build as close to compact cities as you can and don't really care about maximizing tile space then Japan probably does this the best. It's a fun civ to play because you can simply crawl your way to victory ( in addition, 3 of its district cost are cut in half). Japan's districts get really nice adjacency bonuses which make terrain requirement less of a hassle.

 

[dexters]

The suggested ICS also misses out on the opportunity cost of sprawl from fewer cities with more districts.

If you pack them in tight you won't have as many tall cities and almost no room for districts beyond the basic ones. Not to.mention losing out on tiles for adjacency bonus if those tiless are being used by another 2 pop city

I think there's a case to be made for the metropole and the periphery. That is a core of tall cities supporting an outer ring of newer smaller ones. But I haven't seen numbers to argue in favour ICS is overpowered vs. the alternative standard wide or tall empire