Ics

[jkillips16]

Here's another fairly noob question: What does "ICS" mean? I assume the last two letters are for City Spacing, but what's the "I" for, and where can I find an article explaining how to use it? I tried a search, but "ICS" is all I know, and that's too short to do a search on.

Thanks.

 

[wilbill]

Infinite City Sprawl - building your cities one, two, or three squares from each other so that their 21-square areas overlap. As opposed to Optimum City Spacing -OCS where cities are settled so that there's no overlap.

 

[Gengis Khan]

3 tiles from either other is not ICS, 1 tile is.

 

[fret]

A picture tells a thousand words. Like this or even tighter..

 

[jkillips16]

Your 1000 words are a big help. Thanks!

 

[Berrern]

Beware though, in the later stages of the game this will annoy the hell out of you as your cities can't grow.

It's very effective in the beginning, cause most cities wont expand beyond size 6 until you get an Aqueduct - but later on it's a pain.

The times I've used this tactic, I've tried to use OCS as a basis, then put cities in-between (so it'll become ICS) - and by the time their growth got limited, I abandoned all the cities in-between

 

[fret]

Originally posted by Berrern
The times I've used this tactic, I've tried to use OCS as a basis, then put cities in-between (so it'll become ICS) - and by the time their growth got limited, I abandoned all the cities in-between

This is good, but only really necessary for the core cities where you may need big cities for big production.

I'm not aware of any benefit at all of using OCP over ICS in 95% corrupt cities more than 20 or so tiles away from the Palace. All I can think of in fact are problems.. more pollution, less happiness, etc, etc.

Also consider that the overall differance in production between 20 towns at 12 population and 10 towns at 24 population will be very small indeed. Sure it takes twice as long to produce MI and MA's, but you produce twice as many because you have twice as many cities.

Its all swings and roundabouts IMO

 

[Berrern]

Originally posted by fret
Also consider that the overall differance in production between 20 towns at 12 population and 10 towns at 24 population will be very small indeed. Sure it takes twice as long to produce MI and MA's, but you produce twice as many because you have twice as many cities.

Interesting observation!
The main reason I like to keep my cities large, is to produce a lot more commerce for science and gold. When I reach the Modern Era, I normally make around 3-500 gpt, in addition to completing techs at 4 turns. However, the numbers might be the same with twice as many - but half the size - cities.

Has anyone done any experiments on this?
Would 40 cities at 12 population produce the same amoutn of commerce and shields as 20 metropols at 24 population?
I always thought that there was some kind of bonus in production/commerce when reaching a new city state (town -> city, and city -> metropol), but maybe I'm wrong?
Would be interesting to see some actual results of this!

 

[kb2tvl]

International Creamery Society

 

[jkillips16]

Oh, right, course. It's a Small Wonder for agricultural civs, right?

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by Berrern

Has anyone done any experiments on this?
Would 40 cities at 12 population produce the same amoutn of commerce and shields as 20 metropols at 24 population?
I always thought that there was some kind of bonus in production/commerce when reaching a new city state (town -> city, and city -> metropol), but maybe I'm wrong?
Would be interesting to see some actual results of this!

The real advantage to using your approach is in maximizing your score. You will get more points per tile using OCP as opposed to ICS as explained in this thread .

 

[Bamspeedy]

International Creamery Society

No, Infinite City Sprawl.

Would 40 cities at 12 population produce the same amoutn of commerce and shields as 20 metropols at 24 population?

That would be a little hard to test accurately. Depends how much corruption each city is getting (so would depend on how far apart the cities are, which won't be the same from game to game). Also, RCP would screw up the calculations in Civ3/PTW (with RCP, cities can share the same corruption rank, resulting in less overall corruption).

kind of bonus in production/commerce when reaching a new city state (town -> city, and city -> metropol), but maybe I'm wrong

Yes, there is a small bonus. It isn't a whole lot and depends if you are commercial (more gold) or industrious (1 extra shield at size 13).

But it takes a long time for metropolises to grow (requires 60 food/population point vs. only 20 food for a town), and then you also have the expense of paying for the maintanence of the hospital, and then the mass transit, and then trying to keep them all happy, etc.

In the long run (looking at the game ending power of the cities), the bigger cities are better (more efficient), but ICS is much stronger so much earlier in the game that it should win the game before the big cities reach even close to their full potential.

 

[planetfall]

FYI-- The more accurate name for OCP is Open City Placement, but OCP has been talked about as Optimum City Placement that either long label will explain what you are talking about. OCP is not "Optimal" because it all depends. In some games ICS is optimal, in most it is a hybrid between OCP and ICS.

PF