My city-building strategy

[Nick Garai]

Okay, when I played on The ZONE back in the day I did the following strategy and EVERYONE I played with swore I was cheating.

I would build a settler, then once I had reached a pop 2 city I had another one. I went out three spaces in any direction and built another city. With two spaces between each city, you are very close.

I found that you can really grow fast this way.

The flaw in this is that your empire is relatively undefended, however, you build a nice empire that is easy to connect with little distance between cities. You also maximize all squares without worrying as much about a city getting so large that you have to deal with civil unrest.

This strategy is NOT good with someone who is aggresive or playing on the smaller maps.

 

[sethos]

This strat is known as ICS.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Actually ICS would have you build most of the cities even closer together.

 

[starlifter]

In GOTM 68, when I get time to make graphics and post after the submission deadline, you can take a look at ICS (modified slightly). I used the 2-space, due to the excellent terrain at the starting penninsula. However, I also plan which of those ICS cities will be killed one day (called x-cities in the log I posted). They can be removed in mid-game, to allow bigger trade cities and (if being played to the ultimate extreme, which is not possible in a GOTM), open up a city slot for a larger city (and therfore more points in an HoF game).

DaveV wrote a lot (authored a document) about ICS, but one of the main points is the math behind controlling more terrain with size 1 (&2) cities, for the given shield output. This propogates throughout the game. A side benefit that usually gets the attention is the happiness control at Diety, for minimal city improvement (e.g., no temples).