Is Infinite City Sprawling (ICS) strategy finally defeated???

[Marquis Mark]

why do developers think they have to take away a way of playing the game?
what is their PROBLEM?

if i choose to do something that they consider bad/stupid/unwanted it is MY decision to do so.

good thing they didn't manage, ICS is still very possible, otherwise i'd stop playing NOW.

Because game balance is an organic process. Playing a game the same way everytime because it's the obvious best path is a poor element in strategy game design. The developers realized that in Civ III, ICS was the most powerful strategy. It didn't mean it was one way to play of X different ways to play, it was the only way to compete.

This means they've changed it in Civ IV so you have options. You can fast expand -- at the expense of security and/or technology. You now have more interesting choices to make, other than "make a whole lot of settlers."

So, by all means, continue to do fast expansion if that's how you like to play, but don't complain to the developers for fixing former imbalance and klunky gameplay elements. Adapt and adjust to a more deep strategy game.

 

[warpstorm]

ICS is mostly gone. That is not to say that bigger empires are worse. In general, the bigger you are the better you are. What is gone is the cheesey tactic of pumping out lots of worthless cities packed as densely as you could as fast as you could. That will send you to the poorhouse.

 

[skadistic]

I like the new setup with population increas halted while building settlers and workers. It cuts out settler factories in the early stages. One thing I don't like about 2 tile rule is when I'm trying to block other civs and still get a 5 tile spaceing between cities. But it does make a more interesting game.

 

[HiroHito]

if you dont want to use a cheap tactic, you won't, and in mp I dont think you would have the time anyway. All the rest is rhetorics, but thats what forums are for eh ?

tchao !

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hmmm, there seems to be some REAL confusion as to what ICS REALLY is. As I understand it, it is the concept of 'Bigger is ALWAYS Better', and the exploit of creating 'settler pump' cities that just push out settlers at the same rate as they create the new population. The first part was because the more cities-and land-you controlled the better off you were which-in turn-made it easier to obtain even more, and the second was because how many settlers a city could pump out was largely related to how many people-and surplus food-the city had. In Civ4 this has seemingly changed a lot. A city WILL eventually generate cash, but initially it will cost you money. Therefore, it behooves you to build the city up with city/terrain improvements first. In addition, bigger cities means better revenues from trade routes, rather than the 1 road=1gold per turn exploit. Lastly, a city with a big population and lots of specialists/improvements can produce more great people-which can turn the tide for even a very small civ by allowing them to shoot ahead in a number of areas in just a couple of turns at most. On the other matter, you don't LOSE population from building settlers, but how long you go without new population depends on a combination of both the food AND hammers a city produces. So, the automatic advantage of the 'Settler Pump' city is lost-as a highly industrial city can probably churn out a settler as quickly as a highly agricultural city.
So, on this basis at least, I would say that even if ICS is not DEAD, it is most certainly in terminal decline.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[polypheus]

From what it sounds like so far, they've simply made it more expensive to expand but still expansion rather than perfection is the name of the game which would mean that ICS is still at the heart of the game. You're still in an expansion "race" it seems like to me. If that is the case, then they have not solved ICS just slowed it down.

Now the obvious question would be, well bigger should be better right? How could you come up with a game where "perfectionism" was rewarded???

Well consider the classic game "Colonization". Here was a game where ICS strategy would be completely stupid because a whole bunch of small villages would be useless. You WANTED instead to have maybe just 8-10 cities at MOST but you wanted to "perfect" each city. For one thing cities didn't just "grow", but for another thing it was simply a LOT MORE productive usually to put in a free colonist or specialist into an existing city than to start a brand new village.

So here is my take, where 0=perfectionism is optimum strategy
5=completely balanced is optimum
10=ICS is optimum

Civ 1: 10
Colonization: 2 (if you've played it I think you'd agree)
Civ 2: 10
Civ 3: 10
Civ 4: ?????

Where does Civ 4 stand?

 

[Yzman]

I don't understand how people can still call ICS a good strategy. With all of the maintanance costs on cities initially, it is a terrible idea. Plus the fact that if you have a city constantly pumping out settlers, it will never grow.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Polypheus --- It depends on the map

If you're on a large continent with a few other civs, I'd say it's 6 or 7...

Smallish continent or luck placement, I'd say 4 or 5...

On your scale, of course...

YOU CAN STILL DO ICS --- THE AI DOES IT! You just have to do it PERFECTLY

 

[Iceman_IX]

Polypheus, why don't you play the game? ICS is not a problem that needs to be solved but the nature of any Strategy game. Resources are important. Having more resources is an advantage. Cities are the only source of production/output/utility in Civilization... it's just the nature of the game. In RTSs, it's the number of "peons" you have. In other games, it's how much money you have. Maximizing that resource is the dominant way to go about playing it and allow you to be most competitive.

Stop cooing about this construct you've created. The Devs have limited the effect of overexpansion in this game, without a doubt. Not sure what you are so worried about.

 

[Tarkeel]

Just a FYI, cities will not share their inner ring anymore, which cuts down on the number of fishing-villages you can place as well.

 

[Wardog]

So is it now possible to win the game with an EMPIRE of four cities?

 

[Double Barrel]

I've only built 6-7 cities in my first two games, although I won with 14-18 cities at the end. War has it's purpose, too. It's a good way to expand without all that troublesome settler business.

As mentioned, there are many ways to win this game, and each has their chances of success and failure. ICS is now just another strategy path instead of the known way to win the game like previous Civ games.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Polytheus, if you TRULY mean the Early-game ICS exploit, then from all I have read from other players it is either (a) completely dead or (b) no more than a 4-6 on your scale of importance. You could probably get away with a mid to late ICS strategy, but ONLY if you have an economy to back it up. Also, any attempt to 'rapidly' expand your empire at any point in the game is going to have to be done in an intelligent and thoughtful manner-which is the very antithesis of ICS.
Here are the keys: Bigger cities are now better than smaller cities-on average-at producing settlers and workers, because they no longer are so dependant on extra population AND they are producing sufficient hammers/food to produce them quickly.
Bigger cities are more likely to get great people-which can advance your financial, productive, cultural and scientific progress very fast.
Tech whoring is gone. Even if AI civs are prepared to trade techs with you, they will usually not do so for cash-but for resources and/or other techs which they lack. So, building lots of cities to get lots of cash to buy lots of AI techs is now a thing of the past.
Tech trading and gold trading don't even become available for many turns, meaning that players can't afford to send themselves broke in the early part of the game, or else they are going to fall WAY behind in tech-a sure invitation to more aggressive civs to swallow your nation whole!!!
There is a greater emphasis on highly specialised, high population cities with access to ample resources and lots of improvements, rather than dozens of cheap and nasty little cities with little to no improvements in or around them.
Can you start to see how the mindless exploit of ICS is gone-WITHOUT removing the ability for players to build big empires?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[AsnoT]

If you're on a large continent with a few other civs, I'd say it's 6 or 7...

then the barbarians eat you. period.
and it's not a pretty sight either.

 

[Double Barrel]

Aussie_Lurker hit the nail on the head with both posts. Well said, man. I agree 100%

 

[Ravinhood]

People say ICS is gone because they want to believe it is. The truth is it's still the best way to go. Once you have two cities you can pump settlers out of one and units out of the other and get ten cities for every three the AI gets. It's that way on Noble anyway. I haven't played a higher dificulty yet. It's an even more essential stragety now with the emphesis on resources. Grab them all and choke the life out of your rivals.

Yup, on Monarchy difficulty which is what I play, I start out building a settler right after I get my 2nd warrior. When that settler settles, same thing, and on an on an on until I get 10 cities. I play HUGE PANGEA maps though, so, it's pretty possible to get 10 cities easily, but, that maint cost is the kicker, it's very hard to tech up and control so many cities. Then you have the "jealous AI's", that wait till you get a city nice and sweet and then they declare war on you and proceed to take it or at least something.

Bit of a strategy tip: Do not open your borders to anyone who isn't friendly, damn Egypt ImaHO***** slide 4 or 5 units over toward my best city and then decided to declare war. To my shock her units weren't thrown out of my country at this declaration, but, allowed to attack my best city. Fortunately I barely was able to hold them off with my archer units (3) and (1) warrior.

She also made a 3 prong advance into my territory and had a field day PILLAGING my good chit too and taking my western most city that was near ALL her best cites of strength. I hate that CIV they get those damn 5 combat chariots and all I can do is defend and pray. They eat my chariots up like they were toothpicks.

Personally I don't think ANYONE will defeat this game on Diety level World Conquest playing on a PANGEA MAP HUGE with 14 civs. With only 550 turns it just takes too much power really to take just (1) city. Now imagine 140 of them out there to have to take in 550 turns. It takes 100+ turns just to get to catapults in the normal game, then you gotta build up the force and still defend your territory as you advance into others and try to prevent 3 front and 4 front wars. It's practically impossible against the AI.

The main key really in this game is "religion", if you can get religious friendships with lots of civs, then you can piecemeal take out the smaller less worrysome civs and then work yourself up to the larger ones. You take some pretty big hits to your standing though when you attack a religion that many other civs are related to.

Heh, and if you play a game with 14+ CIVS and raging barbarians and "aggressive AI" settings, you can forget getting anywhere, soon as you make peace with one civ two more will attack you and those raging barbarians will be relentless and you will just eventually become a puny scrawny beaten human by the computer.

 

[Mujadaddy]

If you're on a large continent with a few other civs, I'd say it's 6 or 7...

then the barbarians eat you. period.
and it's not a pretty sight either.

Are you sure you read the post I was replying to? That answer refers to the decreased viability of City-Spamming (ICS) when there are many AI neighbors...

...and I don't know why people are having trouble with Barbarians-not-on-Raging ... they obviously didn't play Civilization (One, naturally) enough... THAT game was BRUTAL

 

[AsnoT]

...and I don't know why people are having trouble with Barbarians-not-on-Raging ... they obviously didn't play Civilization (One, naturally) enough... THAT game was BRUTAL

i felt i WAS back in civ1 when they started taking my cities....shudder
not on raging, mind you.

and i meant playing that setup wasn't really an enviable option, because the barbarians...etc

 

[Mujadaddy]

i felt i WAS back in civ1 when they started taking my cities....shudder
not on raging, mind you.

and i meant playing that setup wasn't really an enviable option, because the barbarians...etc

I know --- ---- this game makes it feel like the first time .... "feels like tha very first time"

Actually, the CLOSER the other civs are to you, and subsequently their own Lines-of-Control, the FEWER barbarians I find there are... If you had quoted the OTHER part of that post (something like --- " a landmass with only 1 ai neighbor") I would have totally agreed that THEN barbarians are a problem b/c of all the unclaimed territory... but you quoted the situation when I find there are fewer barbarians

Anyways...I'm about to get off work and go finish an internet Multiplayer game wiff me M8

 

[Wodan]

Game I just started (my 3rd) is Epic/Noble I didn't ICS but I -did- expand as much as reasonable with each city at optimum distance (5 spots away). Like someone else posted, I ended up having to drop my Sci down to 40% to pay for all the cities, and got 6-7 techs behind. Part of the reason I got so far behind was because the AIs took all the easy religions fast and I wanted one so I beelined for Christianity.

But, once I got pretty much max the available room, I concentrated on courthouses and markets, and I'm back up to 70% now. Also, I got a tech nobody else had and traded it for most of the techs I was missing. I'm now about 1.5 times as big as anyone else (I have maybe 20 cities), still a little behind on tech but that'll change as my cities get libraries and such. And, I still have some courthouses still coming in, so I should be able to increase to 80% soon.

Personally, I think the 1- and 2-spot-away ICS cheese is gone, and good riddance. I still think getting real estate is very important, for resources if nothing else (who knows where that coal or oil is going to pop in?) Plus, even with the cash penalty, more cities IS a net long-term gain.

And, I kind of like having the AIs ahead of me... it makes it more challenging.

Wodan