Which is Better???

[Nick Garai]

Okay, if you build cities so that you MAXIMIZE all of the squares around a city without any city cross overs who thinks this is better than placing lots of cities down even if they cross over?

Who says which is better? Largest possible city sizes but fewer cities or lots of cities but no chance of absolute maximum city population size?

?????

:ee

 

[The Judge]

Personally, I like large cities so wherever possible I try to minimise the amount of overlapping between city tiles.
Of course it is all down to individual strategy and gameplay but towards the endgame I like to have at least 30 or 40 huge cities with large production and trade capacity.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

This issue has been debated for years. A lot of it comes down to style.

 

[Ace]

Ali is right. Its the old story of ICS vs HOF style of play. Do you want lots of small cities to expand rapidly without worring about happiness or do you want large cities with all the improvements and max population? Or any variation in between the two extremes...There is no one "right" style, just what you like best and what works best for your plan for each game.

 

[Peaster]

I agree it depends on your goal and your style. But experience shows that ICS wins in most competitive situations, such as GOTMs and probably most PBEM/MPs. A lot of people don't like it, saying it requires lots of micromanagement. But that's not really true - you can stop your fast growth anytime you want, to focus on trade, conquest or whatever.

 

[Ace]

Experience only shows that ICS has a better chance to "win" when winning is definded as EC, ignoring civ score. The GOTM games are so slanted in favor of early finishing that "score" is meaningless. IMHO, ICS is comparable to Alexander the Great's empire, while the HOF style is comparable to the Roman Empire. One is flashy and yields great gains quickly, but has no staying power, while the other makes the gains slowly, but has enormous staying power.

 

[Peaster]

Of course, you can play civ2 for fun, and can choose any goal or plan you want. But IMO fast growth pays off in most settings, including both EC and EL games. Maybe not HOF games, which I haven't tried [they appear interminable]. If we want an objective score-free test of which style is "better", we could look at PBEM/MP games.

AFAIK the MP experts have never told us much about the best Civ2 MP strategies. From my limited experience, and from reading the few threads I can find, it seems ICS wins in MP games, unless an opponent guesses it is being used, and attacks very early in the game. In other words, in an empire-building MP game, the ICS style wins out over slower styles.

 

[Ace]

"Of course, you can play civ2 for fun, and can choose any goal or plan you want."

And that is exactly what makes Civ2 such a great game. It is fun! This is the precise reason so many of us are still playing it years after it came out.

 

[Millman]

Large large large. Expand or die. I always put my cities four spaces away. The minimum before they would overlapp. Only when I do not have a choice do I overlap the cities(that pink square). If there is a small island that could fit one city great but two cities with one square overlap, chances are I'm going to build the two cities.

Population is a factor in your civilization score, and I want as many people as possible. I don't know how others do it, but if I defeat an enemy civilization and their cities were too close together, I would starve one of the cities out and build it in a more suitable place.

 

[Weird_bug]

Personally I'd say spaced out core, bunched up edge, but there's a problem: the core is usually established first. Cities are more important in the early game than later, so you'd like to do the reverse, or all bunched up. There is a soloution, though, if you'd like spaced core, bunched border: ICS in the early game, then starve the extra cities out later. There! All settled!

 

[ElephantU]

Depends on your goal: ICS is good for fast-finish games, but not high-score.