What does ICS stand for?

[Bestbank Tiger]

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Infinite City Sprawl.
The practice of building a lot of cities close by.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Infinite City Sprawl.
The practice of building a lot of cities close by.

Some would say it means Infinite City Sleaze as well, because they considered it a somewhat unseemly way of taking advantage of the game mechanics. However, it's proven to be one of the most successful and dependable strategies for playing single player games at just about any difficulty level.

The strategy has been tweaked a bit over the years but DaveV's ICS site is still the single best source.

 

[Ace]

Define "most successful...", Just how many infinite city sleeze games appear in the Civ2 HOF, at any level? Granted it is a way to beat the AI consistantly, but, ignores most of the goodies in the game. Where is the glory (and score) in having 250+ cities of size 2-4 with none of the improvements available, like stockexchanges and superhighways. Delivering freight for 3-5k gold, going for lots of future techs, building large cities of size 25+ and generally running up one's score is where its at. ICS is like playing chess only using pawns.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Define "most successful...", Just how many infinite city sleeze games appear in the Civ2 HOF, at any level? Granted it is a way to beat the AI consistantly, but, ignores most of the goodies in the game. Where is the glory (and score) in having 250+ cities of size 2-4 with none of the improvements available, like stockexchanges and superhighways. Delivering freight for 3-5k gold, going for lots of future techs, building large cities of size 25+ and generally running up one's score is where its at. ICS is like playing chess only using pawns.

I said one of the most successful. It is a reliable way to win the game consistently at any level. (In its own way, I've found OCC to be one of the most successful approaches, too. And it doesn't get much different than that. )

There are definitely other ways to play that can give higher scores, prettier cities, bigger payouts, more elegant expansion and domination, etc. Few other approaches can produce a win as quickly - maybe I've just been brainwashed by the GOTM.

And as I mentioned, it's called Sleazing for a reason

 

[Ace]

I cannot argue with that logic. You are right on all points.