So... What will stop ICS?

[JuhQman]

Then you still end up with some players who are big and get ahead and some players who are small and stay behind. The magic "We all expand at the same rate and then the borders move constantly because everybody is losing cities left and right!"-gameplay just doesn't happen - at least it hasn't happened in past Civ-games. If they found a way to fix the fact that large empires just get ahead so quickly that they can easily stabilize and actually have to spend a considerably time defending themselves, then that may be a different issue (Although at that point it's questionable whether it's still the game most Civ players want).

In a scenario with controlled expansion you still bump into each other in the midgame, and at that point Civ V did a horrible job encouraging warfare, so I hope the less strict system of Civ VI fixes that and actually brings the "Conquer to keep up with others who conquer"-gameplay.

Civ VI does a little bit of forcing careful expansion by making Cities not being able to defend themselves on their own, but I highly doubt that will be enough to force the gameplay we're looking for to make such a scenario realistic. Especially given that the AI would be a LOT worse at it than human players.

I think you kind of got my bigger point which, to be fair, I did not really disclose earlier.

The main point is that we can't criticise civ 6 based on our experiences of civ 5. Which is why I don't think ICS is even the right term. ICS had to do with being able to found cities that had enough happiness to counter the cost of founding a new city. That won't be a problem in civ 6.

The opportunity cost of building your 10th settler, compared to whatever else you could do with the same production will slow down the expansion, at least in the early parts of the game. But the more production the cities have, the less significant the opportunity cost will be. REX will still be a viable strategy but it will have a cost associated to it; you won't be able to do something else.

I'm sure expansion will be encouraged but there will be different strategies on when, where and how to expand.

Having said all that, I think warfare will evolve quite alot in the first add-on, just as in the previous iterations. So it might not be up the scratch in vanilla. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

E: I didn't really enjoy how the mechanic worked in civ 5. And I don't know whether civ 6 will do it better. But to criticise the game a priori, based on our experiences of civ 5 isn't really the way forward either. Also, having watched quite a few LP'sof civ 6, I've not seen a big problem regarding REX.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Settlers are not free and not always the best economical investment you can make in the highly competitive civ VI world.

 

[Danzo_87]

plus now i think building a settler will reduce your city pop by 1? Building too many settlers in succession might hamper the growth of your capital

 

[maedden]

ICS for me would mean "plot down cities at minimum distance as soon as possible". That might be feasible, but is it worth it? Cities without campus will produce only very low science i.e., and you need population for districts, so you need food and housing, but if there are cities and districts all over the place where will you build your farms?

So I think there doesn't need to be a special mechanism to counter that, as long as it's not the best strategy. Actually if it is like that it would be great game design.

 

[mzprox]

We can expect that almost each land will be taken, but that's not=ICS.. cities can not be that close to each other to even have a chance to ICS..

The question is what will be the disadvantage of being wide vs tall

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Tall and Wide are probably obsolete.

 

[nzcamel]

Tall and Wide are probably obsolete.

I'd like that. More nuance...

 

[Leyrann]

I've never bothered playing tall in CiV because I like wide so much more, and on top of that I've only joined these forums for CiVI, so can someone maybe explain me what ICS is exactly?

 

[Paramecium]

I think ICS is depending on what kind of victory you want to achieve and yeah, it is highly map depending. The biggest problem will be that those new, small cities will be in the most cases not that strong in production. Even if you just plan with one district per city, it will take a considerable time to construct those districts. You can only help those new cities to get it faster if you chop down forest/jungles or harvest bonus ressources. Or on the other hand send trade routes to them, but then you have to handle the food in that way, that it wont get to big so the amenity lack penalty kicks in. Or yes, you are the Aztec who can hard build districts with their builders...

And if we look on the victory conditions, there are different motivations where you want to settle. If you want to max out science and faith, you probably want to found as many cities as possible on spots where they get a good to big adjacency bonus. Same goes for production with the Industrial Zones, when build right and with enough workers putting down mines and quarries, you can get a lot of small cities with some (good?) production, which will be in that case best suited for domination victory.

But when we look at culture victory, there is still the point, how the tourism is produced besides relics/artifacts/great works etc and wonders. I think you will need a couple or a lot of theatre districts for it. And if you want to max those, most civs will need some wonders for it which are in general an expansion limiter.

The big question will be, how fewer bigger cities with the general adjacency bonus for adjacent districts and more districts in them in general will play out against more smaller cities with few, but highly productive districts. And how good you will handle your amenities through out your empire, when you are only able to indirectly handle the department of luxuries.

And yeah, cities are now in general way more vulnerable then in civ 5, but not as much as before that like in civ 4. So you will probably need a big enough military to not invite the AI to grab your new small cities.

But we still have to see how much space there even will be that you can found enough cities until you run in the danger to get in a war with the AI. And on the other hand, the war weariness will be higher in conquered cities so we have to see how it will play out if you can conquer cities left and right.

In general I think the civs with UD are better suited for ICS then others. England can get a big number of trade routes with just a lot of "coast villages" and can use them for what ever they want. And germany can a lot of smaller towns who pumping out a lot of production and gold compared to other civs if it places hansas and commercial hubs left and right and best adjacent to other cities' districts.
And yeah, you have the Aztecs ...

 

[nzcamel]

I've never bothered playing tall in CiV because I like wide so much more, and on top of that I've only joined these forums for CiVI, so can someone maybe explain me what ICS is exactly?

In short ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) is placing as many cities as fast as possible to tie down as much land as possible.

In a 4x game it is the expansion part, so it's a legitimate strategy; but if there isn't a significant enough cost attached to it, then it will break many a game.

 

[Oleary]

In short ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) is placing as many cities as fast as possible to tie down as much land as possible.

In a 4x game it is the expansion part, so it's a legitimate strategy; but if there isn't a significant enough cost attached to it, then it will break many a game.

Wasn't it also as close as possible to each other? There wasn't much skill in it (perfect for me )

Probably why you said "In short" and then I expand on it... lol. I need more coffee...

 

[JuhQman]

In short ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) is placing as many cities as fast as possible to tie down as much land as possible.

In a 4x game it is the expansion part, so it's a legitimate strategy; but if there isn't a significant enough cost attached to it, then it will break many a game.

I always thought that ICS means creating a situation where founding a new city will not create any unhappiness, thus being able to spam cities without getting a "penalty" for it.

 

[nzcamel]

I always thought that ICS means creating a situation where founding a new city will not create any unhappiness, thus being able to spam cities without getting a "penalty" for it.

Well no, because it existed in Civ II where (from memory) there was no inbuilt mechanic to stop it; and in III where corruption was the mechanic to stop it, and so on. Happiness didn't come into the equation.
If you manage to overcome what ever in built mechanic is slowing you down (be it unhappiness or an upfront charge for infrastructure), then you have paid the required cost. You still aren't able to pump out cities as fast as if there was either no mechanic to slow you down, or a very weak one.

You may be producing cities faster than others; but not at a rate which breaks the game. Civ is a 4X game after all!
Or should be. V made it feel not 4X at times lol

 

[nzcamel]

Wasn't it also as close as possible to each other? There wasn't much skill in it (perfect for me )

Probably why you said "In short" and then I expand on it... lol. I need more coffee...

I think that depends. Swinging wide and settling cities in such a way that you cut off a chunk of land from your opponents could mean that -at least to begin with- some of your cities would have a significant gap between them.

 

[beorn]

ICS for me would mean "plot down cities at minimum distance as soon as possible". That might be feasible, but is it worth it? Cities without campus will produce only very low science i.e., and you need population for districts, so you need food and housing

Yes, that's my take on it. It looks to me like wild expansion might take a long time to produce benefits, and, in the meantime, you could be vulnerable and fall way behind. At least, that's my hope.

 

[elitetroops]

I always thought that ICS means creating a situation where founding a new city will not create any unhappiness, thus being able to spam cities without getting a "penalty" for it.

Technically there is always a penalty, as long as you don't get unlimited settlers for free. You always give up something else in order to build a settler. Civ is a game of choices between options that all can be rewarding, with different returns of investments over different times. The interesting choices are usually about weighing short term benefits vs long term benefits, and figuring out which choice will pay of best over the course of the game. ICS only becomes a real problem if building a settler is the strongest choice as long as there is free space available to settle. Civ VI seems to fight this mostly with rising settler and district costs, we'll see how it works out in practice.

 

[nzcamel]

Yes, that's my take on it. It looks to me like wild expansion might take a long time to produce benefits, and, in the meantime, you could be vulnerable and fall way behind. At least, that's my hope.

With the overlapping benefits of districts, I can see people keeping their cities much closer together, which should remove the more traditional forward settling ICS.

I'd almost like to see a deterrent against them getting too close, where land mass isn't an issue. It'll be very immersion breaking if the new thing is cities all cramped together in the early/mid game. I guess a lack of farmland may keep that in check....hopefully.

 

[nzcamel]

Technically there is always a penalty, as long as you don't get unlimited settlers for free. You always give up something else in order to build a settler. Civ is a game of choices between options that all can be rewarding, with different returns of investments over different times. The interesting choices are usually about weighing short term benefits vs long term benefits, and figuring out which choice will pay of best over the course of the game. ICS only becomes a real problem if building a settler is the strongest choice as long as there is free space available to settle. Civ VI seems to fight this mostly with rising settler and district costs, we'll see how it works out in practice.

You can say that, but would you actually go back to Civ II where opportunity cost was the only brake? If the hammers that a settler costs are the only hindrance then they're way too cheap imho lol. Rising settler costs may be about right then...

 

[elitetroops]

You can say that, but would you actually go back to Civ II where opportunity cost was the only brake? If the hammers that a settler costs are the only hindrance then they're way too cheap imho lol. Rising settler costs may be about right then...

Not sure where I implied I'd want there to be no negatives at all of founding more cities... I want interesting choices. I don't want a settler to be clearly the best choice for as long as there is empty land around you, but I don't want games to reach a point where settlers are clearly the worst choice either. I hope that the game makes it possible to develop effective strategies around both small 3-4 city empires and absolutely massive empires. I think that a larger empire should always have potential to be more effective than a smaller one, if you can manage it effectively. But it shouldn't be easy and it shouldn't be so overpowered that all other strategies become obsolete.

 

[nzcamel]

Not sure where I implied I'd want there to be no negatives at all of founding more cities... I want interesting choices. I don't want a settler to be clearly the best choice for as long as there is empty land around you, but I don't want games to reach a point where settlers are clearly the worst choice either. I hope that the game makes it possible to develop effective strategies around both small 3-4 city empires and absolutely massive empires. I think that a larger empire should always have potential to be more effective than a smaller one, if you can manage it effectively. But it shouldn't be easy and it shouldn't be so overpowered that all other strategies become obsolete.

Implied is too strong a word

No, I agree with most of what you say. I've never been comfortable with anyone who wants small empires to survive no matter what...but if there's a way to build Switzerland like mechanics into the game (which 1UPT does bring with it); where the strategic location etc of any small Civ can give it a fighting chance, then I'm down with that.