Ics?

[Metamorph]

Hi, my name is Metamorph. Maybe you've heard of me. I coined the term 'ICS', which stands for 'Infinite City Sleaze.'

I have never, of course, purported myself to be the inventor behind the concept. This lesson was taught to me, painfully, during the early days of CivNet, when Chariot swarms roamed the world, and no one was safe. And the concept has lived, throughout the days of Civ I, Civ II, Civ IIb (you might know it better as 'Alpha Centauri'), Civ II.1 (ToT), and CtP I and I.5 (the rumors of there being a CtP II being highly exaggerated).

Not only lived; but thrived, dominated, utterly ruining whatsoever any miniscular hope in wrenching a decent game from the mire. Despite the hordes of lemming Sid-ites, ICS has always been an integral component in every Civ and Civlike game.

The strategy (sleaze, really) goes something like this:

Let's say Johnny has a city of size five. Mary, on the other hand, has five cities of size one. They each have an equal amount of population. And Mary, obviously, has been scurrying around making silly settlers, stunting her growth, while Johnny has been pumping out technological advances, terrain improvements, city improvements, and Chariots! Right?

Wrong.

First of all, Johnny is producing on six city tiles (the city, plus five surrounding tiles) while Mary is producing on a total of ten (five city tiles, plus five adjacent tiles). This is due to the fact that cities produce on their home tiles for free. Thus, Mary has an effective 66% (!) production edge on Johnny. Yes, really.

Now add on the fact that cities (in some of these games, anyway; pick whichever one you want) get an inherent terrain improvement of some sort in the terrain in which they're constructed -- free irrigation, free road, free shield, whatever.

Now add on the fact that Mary, who can place her cities anywhere in the area she wishes, can take advantage of every single 'natural resource' in the area. You know, those stupid bonus squares that produce extra food, trade, shields, and God knows what else.

Now add on the fact that Mary's population is growing *significantly* faster than Johnny's. In about ten turns, each of Mary's size 1 cities will be size 2 (total population 10 now, producing on 15 tiles!) whereas Johnny is still struggling to make his city size 6.

And let's not ignore the bazillions of huts Mary's been able to open with all of the settlers she's been pumping out. Free military units (to open yet more huts), free tech, free money (for more settlers), blah blah blah.

Now imagine applying this strategy not only with five cities, but with ten. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. An exponential explosion in power in every respect. A ridiculously huge economic engine.

How huge, you ask? How does a space launch in 700 BC grab you? How about 1400 BC?

No, you cannot simply 'wander in with three spearchuckers' and take over this huge monstrosity. Any time she wants, Mary can switch from pumping out settlers nonstop, to pumping out Phalanx nonstop. Fortified Phalanx are stupidly powerful. Swarms of them are insurmountable. If it amuses her, she can make some offensive military units as well, and hurl them mindlessly at her opponents. And this, of course, only applies in the first few turns, before Mary starts blowing through the technology tree like confetti. (Of course, fortified Phalanx can hold their own even against Armor, so what's the difference?)

Difficulty level? Are you kidding? Difficulty level *helps* the ICSer. Low-population cities thrive in high difficulty settings; it's the big cities that are punished.

On, and on, and on. ICS is real. The creators of Civlike games acknowledge and embrace that it is real. "So just don't do that!" is a pointless, mindless retort; if the game is broken, then it is broken. It is up to the designers, not the players, to fix it.

Thus, I have poked my head out of my cave, one last time perhaps, to ask the Civlike gaming world one question. What of ICS? Has the insanely huge 'List' actually managed to ooze its way into Sid's brain? Will he finally, FINALLY get with the program, and address what is clearly the absolutely worst 'feature' of this game series?

Or will this game, too, disappoint its [non-lemming] fans five minutes after the box is opened?

- Metamorph

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Metamorph
Let's say Johnny has a city of size five. Mary, on the other hand, has five cities of size one.

With 2 population points to create a settler in Civ3, Mary has only three cities of size one. Both Johnny and Mary are producing on six city tiles.

OTOH I´m a newbie. Maybe I´ve ignored something.

[Metamorph]

"With 2 population points to create a settler in Civ3, Mary has only three cities of size one. Both Johnny and Mary are producing on six city tiles."

Hmm. This is certainly promising. It significantly stunts the exponential growth of the classic ICS model; so much so, that I'm tempted to believe that it renders it impotent.

Let's see what happens when I pull some numbers out of my ass...

Turn 1: Johnny and Mary plunk down a city someplace lovely. Plunk!

Turn 11: Johnny's city is size 2. Mary's city is size 2. Ordinarily, Mary would be able to produce a settler now; but by this new rule, she can't. So therefore...

Turn 26: Johnny's city is size 3. Mary's city is size 1, and she has 1 settler.

Turn 28: Johnny's city is size 3. Mary's first city is size 1, and she now has a 2nd city of size 1, 2 squares away. (Side question: is 2 still the 'minimum safe distance' for cities?)

Turn 36: Johnny's city is size 3. Mary's first city is size 2, and her second is size 1. We'll hold off analysis until...

Turn 38: Johny's city is still size 3 (edging up on 4, though). Mary has two size 2 cities.

At this point, we have 3 squares of production vs 4. Noting, of course, that Mary is also receiving an extra, free city-tile bonus (free road or shield or some such nonsense), plus is harvesting an extra uber-tile (whale, buffalo, whatever).

But this has taken a loooong time, far longer than it normally takes to achieve the same goal. In the meanwhile, Johnny can be pumping out military units -- and with that much time on his hands, Johnny can pose a much more significant military threat.

This analogy seems to hold throughout the (still, admittedly, exponential) production curve. ICS growth is violently stunted. Very interesting...

It's only a band-aid, but it's a huge mother of a band-aid. I lack the ability to foresee its ramifications; I'll have to idiot-test it. And I'm the best idiot for the job!

"OTOH I´m a newbie. Maybe I´ve ignored something."

It's been my experience that the newbies, generally, have a much more objective (and therefore perceptive) view of these sorts of games than some of the so-called, self-purported 'veterans' who turn out to merely be Sid lemmings. Part of me is tempted to assess this to the natural human compulsion for vindication; the other part of me is tempted to believe they're just morons. But who am I to judge?

Thanks for your info.

- Metamorph

[lockstep]

And it took you only 19 minutes to write all this stuff down? I´m quite impressed.

BTW, here´s the link that provided the original info: http://www.civ3.com/asktheteam_040601.cfm. Also note the sentence: 'Making the settler cost 2 population points was also a conscious design consideration aimed at preventing players from winning by utilizing the ICS ("Infinite City Sprawl") strategy.'

[Inverse Icarus]

metamorph, also, the enroaching culture model will hamper ICS, whereas bigger, developed cities can peacefully "subvert" less cultured enemy cities.

also, the unit support form central gold supply.

and the neccessity of roads makes it so you have to work a bit harder developing/protgecting your road / resource network.

[Metamorph]

lockstep: "And it took you only 19 minutes to write all this stuff down? I´m quite impressed."

Nah, no biggie. I type 140wpm (or more; haven't been rated in a few years) and this stuff's been on my brain for quite some time now. I used to rant about ICS regularly, back in the day. Nobody listened, but I ranted nonetheless.

'BTW, here´s the link that provided the original info:" [snip]

Aha. I missed that article -- well, actually, it didn't look like it contained the information I was looking for, so I skipped it. I'm glad to see that my prayers have been answered, and at least a genuine *attempt* was made at addressing ICS. Whether it works sufficiently remains to be seen, but I'm more confident now than I've ever been -- which, I assure you, is saying something.

UberKruX: "metamorph, also, the enroaching culture model will hamper ICS, whereas bigger, developed cities can peacefully "subvert" less cultured enemy cities."

That sounds like an interesting principle as well, not to mention realistic (for once ). I'm skeptical that this alone would have had any significant impact upon ICS, as the ICSer tended to get vastly farther ahead of his enemies in short order, city size notwithstanding. Given the above, however, this too does seem to pose an impact on the scenario, as the ICSer will take longer to accomplish his goals.

"also, the unit support form central gold supply."

This actually would strike me as something that would help the ICSer rather than hinder him. Having to turn toward the military was an annoyance to the ICSer for some government types, since supporting those units cramped the efforts of every single city. With a central gold supply, however, the ICSer could simply bend a few cities toward trade, keep up the supply requirements, and still have the rest of his cities 'sprawling', to coin Sid's phrase.

"and the neccessity of roads makes it so you have to work a bit harder developing/protgecting your road / resource network."

I'm not sure what you mean here. In a careful ICS scheme, a settler could spend an extra turn or two sticking roads here and there before building a city, guaranteeing that *every* worker in the entire country was harvesting on a trade square, without significantly hampering the exponential growth. This yielded tremendous cost effectiveness as pertains to scientific achievement. Is there a deeper level to the Civ 3 economic model that gives the principle you named more weight than I'm seeing? I'm very curious.

"if you expect the worst, it only gets better."

That's pretty much been my angle on Civlikes games since as far back as I can remember.

- Xaxyx

[Bleyn]

Uhmm... Wouldn't building the worker unit needed construct the roads also cost a city 1 pop.? And am I right in thinking that the settler unit will not be able to construct roads?

Admitedly someone need only build one or two workers, but that could also help slow down ICS.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Metamorph
I'm not sure what you mean here. In a careful ICS scheme, a settler could spend an extra turn or two sticking roads here and there before building a city, guaranteeing that *every* worker in the entire country was harvesting on a trade square, without significantly hampering the exponential growth. This yielded tremendous cost effectiveness as pertains to scientific achievement. Is there a deeper level to the Civ 3 economic model that gives the principle you named more weight than I'm seeing? I'm very curious.

Settlers no longer work the land, a seperate unit called a 'worker' does this now. Workers also cost population to produce, I'm not sure if it is 1 or 2, though.

[TCO]

Yeah...you're the guy who said you had tanks running around in the BC...And we finally pulled it out of you that you play on Prince! How come we never see your tough ass in any of the challenge game discussions in Civ2 Strategy?

[Skanky Burns]

Assuming that there is a minimum 2 distance between each city (as in Civ 2), it really wouldnt be too hard to build roads between each city. And once this network is up, almost impossible to destroy.


.X. .X.

.X. .X.



- An ICS city
- Unoccupied terrain
X - A road connecting up to four cities together.

In this example, you only need four roads to connect a total of 9 cities... Even getting 2 roads destroyed would still have 7 cities connected. But hopefully the *other* measures will kill ICS sufficiently

[tniem]

Skanky,

You will have amazing overlap in that example. You will be getting like three squares of production. Not possible in the new way of playing.


Metamorph,

Firaxis appears to have done so good things to curb ICS. Settlers cost 2 pop and cannot do any tile work. That takes a one pop worker. Than on top of it you only get 8 squares to start with a new city that slowly expands. And because culture is important to defending your nation than you need more developed cities.

ICS is taking a beating.

[yin26]

Metamorph:

I promised you waaaaaay back (remember my pleading e-mail to you about 2 years ago?) that if you gave me your best arguments against ICS, I'd make sure that they got considered very carefully for Civ 3. Of course, when I made that promise, I was writing checks I knew I probably wouldn't be able to cash...but it looks like you have, at long last, been listened to.

My friend, many thanks for your ICS help on the List. That ONE thing may well have revolutionized this game. Let us hope.

[yin26]

Some List "Best Moments":

ICS solutions
The problem of ICS, meaning one city size, has been discussed heavily over the forums. Mainly, the problem relies on the fact that small cities, usually one pop size, are more profitable then large cities, making it unprofitable to spend money on expanding, beyond hampering realism. One, or a few, of the following solutions could be used:
13.1) Increasing the production ratio of workers at a geometrical rate. For example, the first pop gives 10 labor, second 20, third 30, etc. So, a 3 pop size city would produce 60 labor, instead of 30. This is fitting to the fact that the level of population in real numbers also increases geometrically. If this incremental increase seems to steep, maybe 10-15-20-25 system is better used. Like the above idea except increasing trade profit. 1 pop city produce 10 trade, 2 pop city produce 30, etc, etc, etc...
13.2) The city center tile won't produce anything, just give a +1 food/+1 prod/+1 trade to all surrounding hexes.
13.3) The effects of specialists (which are usually only used on large cities) should be much bigger.
13.4) You can put several workers on the same tile, but it with reduced efficiency (up to a max of 3 workers per tile). This will allow big cities to put more people to work, and further increase their power.
13.5) The number of population that can be put on tiles is city size -1. Meaning, a size 1 city would just work on the city center tile production, size 2 city would only have 1 worker, not 2, etc.
13.6) The maximum number of production increasing buildings that can be built is the size of the population. So, a size 1 city could only support 1 market/factory/bank, making bigger cities more profitable.
13.7) World-wide wonders that give "+1 happy citizen per city" unbalance things in favor or the smaller nations. Maybe it could be replaced by "+10% happy citizens in city".

ICS Problem
In the context of Civ 2: "Infinite City Sleaze" was the term for the infamous strategy of mass producing cities in order to overwhelm the opposition. Solutions for ICS abound, and many were discussed throughout the Radical Ideas thread. They can be found here under "Population and Migration," and elsewhere. Like in this discussion here (the benefits being obvious):
Discussion: "¡¦Maintaining a large empire, especially in ancient times, should be a difficult, yet not impossible, task in Civ 3." Here is a series of increasingly severe penalizing effects designed roughly according to what historical Rome experienced. For the more cities you own:

¡¤ increased unhappiness [starts when # of cities goes over limit]
¡¤ increased corruption = less science, money, production
¡¤ low military unit morale
¡¤ chance of spontaneously falling to anarchy = civil war, or throne war, can happen several times
¡¤ increased military unit costs = military service less appealing to populace
¡¤ chance of massive barbarian hordes invading = they are looking for an opportunity to plunder a weak, overextended empire; may happen several times and they may found their own civilization if they capture your city.
¡¤ chance of empire breaking up [may occur when you have more cities than three times limit]

Also the strength (or chance) of each effect would increase with increasing number of cities. New inspiring ideologies (and religions) and more advanced forms of government would increase the city limit and thus reduce or perhaps finally eliminate the penalizing effects.
There are those who believe the above proposal would rule out global conquest as an option until late in the game, which isn't desirable.

[yin26]

In the end, it looks like Firaxis' decision was (in the Sid tradition) a very simple and elegant one. However, as many of us suspect, this might represent a band-aid solution...and we might yet need some of those two-year old List solutions in upcoming patches.

[Harlan]

Also regarding ICS, wasn't there something in one of the previews about building Temples that had an impact? I vaguely remember thinking "hey this will really help stop ICS" but I'm not sure on the details!

If the hazy memory is correct, it goes like this. When a city is built, it only uses the tile it is on. To even gain the benefit of tiles one away, you need to have 10 culture points. To do that, the city needs to build a Temple. So the city is pretty much dead in the water, and slow growing (the second and third pops are useless until you can use that next ring of tiles), until the Temple is built.

Therefore, you'd want to build a Temple first thing. Unless you're rush buying all your Temples, that means your city is going to be undefended for a while (and by the way, wasn't there some info to the effect that rush buying doesn't really work anymore - you can speed up production but you can't build something in a turn?). So new cities are less able to grow on their own. You need to bring a unit to defend it, and central resources to speed up production.

Also, with a city able to eventually work the land five tiles away, cities are going to need to be farther from each other to be able to grow, more than ever before (even more so than in CTP).

A huge question to me, though, is if government types will have natural limits the way CTP did or even if there's increased unhappiness with more cities like Civ2 (but hopefully better implemented). If there are natural limits like that, then I think ICS is well on its way to the scrapheap.

[Metamorph]

GP: Your opinions weren't worth spit back in the day; clearly, they still aren't worth spit now. You're still just a small-minded, lying, manipulative, misrepresentative dork. Yawn. Go find somebody else to play with.

Sheesh...

Skanky: True, but you still need citizens (guess I can't use the term 'workers') assigned to make use of the trade produced by those tiles. Of course, building the extra roads for the in-between tiles won't take long, even if it does require hiring workers (which cost 1 pop each, evidently); but that takes us to...

tniem: Yes, the production would be minimal; but that's sort of the idea behind ICS. Small population in a vast number of cities, [ab]using the 'free stuff' attribute for each extra city you own. But the other factors you mention do seem significant as pertains to curbing ICS. In fact, there seem to be *lots* of factors *explicitly* designed to curb ICS. Better and better.

yin: I am, quite simply, stunned at this turn of events. I would have bet pints of my own blood that Sid would never deign to change the basic economic model in a sufficiently drastic manner to curb ICS. I gave up on the whole idea of chasing them around with plans and suggestions long ago. And it looks like I deserve to get kicked in the ass for it! *bends over*

In any event, I'm glad that at least the discussions I spurred were useful in the construction of Civ3. Even if this set of 'solutions' doesn't fix the problem -- as some of the grouchier and more pessimistic among us still suspect -- it nevertheless at least indicates that Firaxis finally actually gives a flying rat's ass about it, and better still, is willing to listen to its players when it comes time to address such problems.

"In the end, it looks like Firaxis' decision was (in the Sid tradition) a very simple and elegant one."

Simple and perhaps elegant, though not original. But we won't go there, will we?

Harlan: That's an interesting concept indeed, though it does occur to me as a radical one. There are some situations in which a city *needs* to be able to produce outside of its own zone in order to survive at all. Heck, I have enough trouble building temples in ICS cities. Does anybody else have some details to share with Harlan and me as pertains to this feature?

In any event, it's nice to see some old faces, and a pleasure to meet some new ones. Y'all can expect I'll be hanging around this forum more often.

- Metamorph

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Metamorph
I'm not sure what you mean here. In a careful ICS scheme, a settler could spend an extra turn or two sticking roads here and there before building a city, guaranteeing that *every* worker in the entire country was harvesting on a trade square, without significantly hampering the exponential growth. This yielded tremendous cost effectiveness as pertains to scientific achievement. Is there a deeper level to the Civ 3 economic model that gives the principle you named more weight than I'm seeing? I'm very curious.

There are a bunch of things in Civ 3 that's designed to work against ICS:

- Settlers now costs 2 pop (you have seen this)
- Settlers now cannot perform engineering tasks, workers are now entrusted to that, They take 1 pop to produce
- Cities now cannot use tiles outside of the centre until it has sufficient culture. You can partially counter that by building colonies on special resources by expending a worker unit (note the pop is gone for good as far as we can tell). You need a road to connect the colony to your city before it can be used
- Resources are now needed for producing units. For example, bronze for spearman units.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Metamorph
Skanky: True, but you still need citizens (guess I can't use the term 'workers') assigned to make use of the trade produced by those tiles. Of course, building the extra roads for the in-between tiles won't take long, even if it does require hiring workers (which cost 1 pop each, evidently); but that takes us to...

But that is part of the solution. By forcing a new worker to be built in order to build a second city and connect it with a road you will have lost 3 pop points. Although I believe maybe you start each game with a worker (?). You still are adding two extra pop points from the previous game. This means that ICS becomes near impossible.

tniem: Yes, the production would be minimal; but that's sort of the idea behind ICS. Small population in a vast number of cities, [ab]using the 'free stuff' attribute for each extra city you own. But the other factors you mention do seem significant as pertains to curbing ICS. In fact, there seem to be *lots* of factors *explicitly* designed to curb ICS. Better and better.

But one reason that throwing cities anywhere works is that normally in 21 squares you can find a few squares to use to continue with the ICS. In restricting the placement to 8 squares at the start, city placement is going to be more important. It will again restrict what can be achieved with ICS.

And of course on top of these two things that I have mentioned, there are the culture element that is being added to the game.

Again I say I believe you have been listened to, ICS is going to be significantly harder to pull off. It just takes longer to get the population required to build things. So ICS dies a slow painful death.

[Metamorph]

Urban Ranger: "- Settlers now cannot perform engineering tasks, workers are now entrusted to that, They take 1 pop to produce"

Well, this is certainly something going in the favor of the 'normal' strategist, as it were; though to be double-faced about it, as an ICS user, I rarely found the need or the motivation to go around building roads until after I'd established a rather thick carpet of cities (unless I didn't have enough river... mmmm, river!). In short, all I see for this is yet another minor slowdown against ICS. Adding all these slowndowns up to something substantial is what seems to be Sid's idea; I don't like it terribly, but it'll probably work.

"- Cities now cannot use tiles outside of the centre until it has sufficient culture."

Thus verifying Harlan's theory. It seems rather strange to me that they would do this but not change the basic underlying economic model (as they did in CtP, and we did later in mods to CtP). I suppose I'll have to once again resort to the old cop-out: "I'll have to try it, first."

Yes, I'm a stubborn pessimist. Blame Sid; he made me this way.

"You can partially counter that by building colonies on special resources by expending a worker unit (note the pop is gone for good as far as we can tell). You need a road to connect the colony to your city before it can be used"

You can dump the worker back into a city, according to the FAQ. But the shields expended on building the worker unit itself are effectively destroyed, so there is still some small loss of resource -- the most important resource; time.

"- Resources are now needed for producing units. For example, bronze for spearman units."

The collection of peculiar resources is, of course, ICS's forte; CtP I was infamous for setting up moronic trade route monopolies in this fashion.

But we'll have to see. I've heard enough to acknowledge that Civ 3 is indeed sufficiently different in enough ways from Civ 2 that one cannot simply assume that ICS will work any longer.

tniem: "But that is part of the solution. By forcing a new worker to be built in order to build a second city and connect it with a road you will have lost 3 pop points."

That one worker can wander around and build roads for bunches of your cities. A common strategy, when an ICSer finds himself in an area without rivers (ah glorious river!) and needs some trade goods; he allocates a settler or two to 'road duty'. And you needn't pop out that worker from city #1, either; you can wait until you've got a few cities going, then slow down one city's settler production slightly by pumping out a worker.

"But one reason that throwing cities anywhere works is that normally in 21 squares you can find a few squares to use to continue with the ICS."

I seem to recall that sufficiently small CtP cities could only produce in adjacent squares; ICSing still worked there. The ideal city spot is, of course, on a river (woohoo, river!) and naturally, you'll expect to see another river spot adjacent. It interferes with ICSing; but it doesn't limit or restrict it sufficiently -- alone. It's simply another slowdown ploy.

Each ploy alone isn't particularly impressive or volatile (except the 2-pop-per-settler rule). But together, they do strike me as having the potential to *effectively* nullify ICS, even if they don't *technically* do so. All this, while still maintaining the game's overall integrity; a fair shake of a leg, indeed.

"Again I say I believe you have been listened to, ICS is going to be significantly harder to pull off. It just takes longer to get the population required to build things. So ICS dies a slow painful death."

I happily concur.

- Metamorph

[yin26]

LONG LIVE THE LIST and people like Metamorph and Korn and on and on who didn't just sit here saying: "Hey, fools, do you think Firaxis actually cares what we are saying?" People have indeed said that many times these past two years.

Those people have been proved wrong. As I say in my interview, Firaxis tends to deliver, though you never see it coming or say exactly how it got there...

[Harlan]

Metamorph,
If you want to get up to speed on Civ3, the best way is to read the Civ Fanatic's Info Center page on what's in the game, found here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3infocenter.shtml.

I just checked there, and one flap to what I remember about having to build Temples is that your first city automatically has a Palace, and the Palace gives 1 culture point a turn for that city. So you'll get your first ring of tiles around that city (and only that city) around the 10th turn, no matter what you do. Also, I imagine there are wonders that have the effect of boosting culture in all your cities, in which case starting new cities should be easier after you have such things.

That's all fine and dandy. Unfortunately, just as ICS appears dead, it comes roaring back from the grave, like some psycho cyborg from a Terminator movie!

Reason why? I'm not worried about ICS in the early stages of the game - Firaxis seems on top of that. But I'm worried about later in the game, what I'm dubbing the Later In Game ICS Horror, so it can be pronouced LIGICSH . This has to do with the Army concept. Armies allow your units to stack and fight as one, and apparently are very effective militarily. The kicker is that you can only have 1 army for every 4 cities you control (assuming you meet certain other criterion - I believe you need to have your economy in mobilized mode for one thing, and the Nationalism tech or a Leader - the Info Center page needs updating on this point I think).

This 1 for 4 rule goes against the grain of all their other anti-ICS rules. This rule promotes having lots of small cities so you can stack and conquer like a madman, which gets you more cities, which leads to more conquering. Thus my worry that ICS is back in this new LIGICSH form.

I really hope Firaxis changes this rule in beta testing. If the ability to build armies was based on total citizen population (not counting hostile citizens you've conquered from other cultures), that would be much better. That way, a player with 3 large cities isn't punished compared to one with 6 small cities. And logically, the ability to build armies should be based on your civ's total population, not how spread out they are. A couple monster sized cities should be able to build more armies than many tiny cities.

If they also had it grow in non-linear fashion, like culture (in the case of culture, first 10, then 100, then 1000 etc, though maybe with pop you wouldn't want it to rise so steeply), they could make it harder for one player to have way more armies than another and prevent the easy runaway victory, which is no fun.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by tniem
Skanky,
You will have amazing overlap in that example. You will be getting like three squares of production. Not possible in the new way of playing.

First, a bit of background: I played Civ 2 (and 1) only as single player, in the 'traditional' way of playing... big cities, etc. I only discovered ICS when i first came to Apolyton, and have never seen it in action (unless you count the AI in SMAC )... So im not exactly sure just how far apart ICS cities are...

Anyway, in my example i was just pointing out from Uber's post that the resource distribution would more than likely be easier with ICS than with the traditional city building style. And a good road network will be necessary in Civ 3. A thick carpet of cities and infinite production in each of them is worthless unless you can build units in the cities!!! And to do that you need resources.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Cities now cannot use tiles outside of the centre until it has sufficient culture. You can partially counter that by building colonies on special resources by expending a worker unit (note the pop is gone for good as far as we can tell). You need a road to connect the colony to your city before it can be used.

In my understanding, the cultural border and the city working area are unrelated. I think a no-border city and a size 5 border city are both able to work the full 20 tiles. Granted, they cant access special resources until the resource is within the border or has a colony on it, but this doesnt stop the city from getting food/mineral/trade from around the city. Please correct me if you have contrary information (and a link to back it up )

Finally, it has been confirmed that a pop used to build a colony is forever gone. If the city radius expands past the colony square, the colony simply disappears.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally poster by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
The way it currently stands, your borders are seperate from your "workable city tiles". The number of city tiles you can work does increase as your city grows, but it doesn't expand nearly as far as your city borders do. Even if your city has only the beginning 1-square (no) border, you can work the requisite number of surrounding squares. But until those squares actually fall within your borders, the enemy can come onto them and do what he pleases. Once you've got borders around those squares, you can tell the other players to get out (and in most cases, they listen).

As for colonies, the resources go to whoever builds a colony and connects it with a road first. Consequently, colonies become key while your borders are expanding, and if you leave them unguarded or weakly guarded, you will pay the price. Also, since colonies need to be connected to a city with roads, an enemy can destroy your roads and sever the connection to that resource.

This can be disastrous, especially when you're relying on goods to pacify unhappy citizens. I had a game going this week and the CPU destroyed my roads at a key juncture and sent four cities into revolt.


Dan
Firaxis Games, Inc.

Never mind, ill provide the link myself

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
I think a no-border city and a size 5 border city are both able to work the full 20 tiles. ... Please correct me if you have contrary information (and a link to back it up )

This picture (http://www.civ3.com/asktheteam_051101.cfm) may be a reference that - initially - only the 8 tiles surrounding a new city are workable. See this tread (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=25896) for discussion.

[Nikolai]

)This is really a interesting thread! Actually, I think it is the most interesting thread here in this forum for a long time(nothing personal )!!! If only I could be just as good in discussing as someone in this forum(s) are...

BTW: Welcome to this forum, Metamorph , I can't reall "seeing" you in this forum before, neither on Apolyton at all(could have something to do with the fact that I usually are here! )...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by lockstep
This picture (http://www.civ3.com/asktheteam_051101.cfm) may be a reference that - initially - only the 8 tiles surrounding a new city are workable. See this tread (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=25896) for discussion.

Hehe thanks As it happened, after my first reply, i opened up that thread next and found that quote... so put it in here. That must be a record, contradicting myself within 5 minutes

Forgot to ask, how far apart are cities when someone normally does ICS??

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Metamorph
You can dump the worker back into a city, according to the FAQ. But the shields expended on building the worker unit itself are effectively destroyed, so there is still some small loss of resource -- the most important resource; time.

You can only recover the pop from a worker unit if you haven't used it to build a colony. Once the colony is in place the pop is gone for good, even after your city's cultral radius has expanded enough to absorb it.

Originally posted by Metamorph
The collection of peculiar resources is, of course, ICS's forte; CtP I was infamous for setting up moronic trade route monopolies in this fashion.

Not if you can only access these resources when they are inside the cultural borders of your cities. You can build colonies, sure, but the loss of population points really hamper ICS.

[Metamorph]

yin: "Those people have been proved wrong. As I say in my interview, Firaxis tends to deliver, though you never see it coming or say exactly how it got there..."

No comment.

Harlan: This looks like an excellent, resource, thanks. I'll burrow my head into it and see what happens. (Had to edit the link, btw; extra . on the end).

"That's all fine and dandy. Unfortunately, just as ICS appears dead, it comes roaring back from the grave, like some psycho cyborg from a Terminator movie!"

For the love of God! Somebody GET A SHOTGUN!!!

"But I'm worried about later in the game, what I'm dubbing the Later In Game ICS Horror, so it can be pronouced LIGICSH. This has to do with the Army concept."

I recognize your concern. This seems to be more of a combat sleaze, where you construct a huge bloody pile of cities in a quiet corner somewhere for the sole purpose of increasing your 'city count' for army-building purposes. So while it does involve the construction of billions of cities, it's not to gain an economic advantage; that's not really the ICS 'theme', as it were.

Technicalities notwithstanding, this does strike me as a rather irksome exploit, however. I'll look at the page some, and see if I can't find anything that might potentially limit or restrict LIGICSH. (li-gitch? li-gish?)

Anyone else have any comments on this?

Skanky: "And a good road network will be necessary in Civ 3. A thick carpet of cities and infinite production in each of them is worthless unless you can build units in the cities!!!"

Several people seem to be insisting, or at least implying, that having this 'road network' is crucial for play. Is there a principle of which I'm ignorant in this regard? Roads are nice and all; they generate trade, increase movement... but how is production limited in such a fundamental fashion by their conspicuous absence? I'm confused.

"In my understanding, the cultural border and the city working area are unrelated."

Does this mean that the minimum city working radius is indeed 1 (and not 0) for a brand new, temple-less city?

"Finally, it has been confirmed that a pop used to build a colony is forever gone. If the city radius expands past the colony square, the colony simply disappears."

Aside from being obviously counterintuitive (particularly since you could have disbanded the worker that represents the population of that colony back into the city and gotten the pop back anyway), I really don't see what purpose it serves for Firaxis to just obliterate the colony rather than absorb it. It's only one pop point, after all, toward a city which is obviously already big (its radius expanded, so it must be sizeable).

Oh well. *shrug* Sid will be Sid.

"Also, since colonies need to be connected to a city with roads, an enemy can destroy your roads and sever the connection to that resource." - Dan Magaha

Oh, is that all? Well, anyone silly enough to depend his entire economic structure on *roads* deserves to get his butt kicked. And in any event, this rule doesn't seem to apply to cities; resources produced by cities toward the good of the government seem to magically appear in the governmental pool, as always. Or am I mistaken?

lockstep: "This picture... may be a reference that - initially - only the 8 tiles surrounding a new city are workable."

As aforementioned, that alone doesn't impede ICS too much (minimal impact, really). Conversely, this negates the "you can't work tiles at all until you have a temple" theory. Still, it's a step in the right direction (impeding ICS wherever possible), more realistic, and in my opinion rather cool.

Nikolai: Oh, I've been in and out of this forum for a few years now. As much as I make silly comments referring to my supposed infamy, I didn't really expect very many people to remember me. In any event, it's nice to make your acquaintance; enjoy the thread!

Back to Skank again: "Forgot to ask, how far apart are cities when someone normally does ICS??"

Depends on what you mean by 'normal'. ICS's goal is the maximal [ab]use of surrounding territory. In an area filled with, for example, oh, I dunno... RIVER (*drool* *blubber* *splutter*), I'll cram-pack in as many cities as God lets. This results in either a grid/checkerboard pattern (every 2 squares), or a 'chess knight' pattern (1 square over, 2 up). If on the other hand decent land is sparse, I may have to wander away three or four squares to find terrain worth exploiting -- whale, for example.

If only whales would swim up river... woohoo!

- Metamorph

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Metamorph
Several people seem to be insisting, or at least implying, that having this 'road network' is crucial for play. Is there a principle of which I'm ignorant in this regard? Roads are nice and all; they generate trade, increase movement... but how is production limited in such a fundamental fashion by their conspicuous absence? I'm confused.

AFAIK, at least the bulk of units will require strategic resources. And even if a resource tile is located within your cultural borders, only the cities that are connected to this tile via road will be able to construct the respective units.

A useful link for further information: http://www.civ3.com/devupdate_resources.cfm.

[Metamorph]

Urban: "You can only recover the pop from a worker unit if you haven't used it to build a colony. Once the colony is in place the pop is gone for good, even after your city's cultral radius has expanded enough to absorb it."

My original reference, iirc, was to workers drafted for the explicit purpose of building roads. Once that task is complete, you can then dump the worker back into the city.

"Not if you can only access these resources when they are inside the cultural borders of your cities. You can build colonies, sure, but the loss of population points really hamper ICS."

I wasn't thinking of building colonies; I was thinking of building cities, with those resources within the radius. This is a standard ICS tactic, to spread like a parasite and grab every single natural resource on the visible map (even if it restricts that 'city' to never growing again; who cares).

According to what I've read so far on http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3infocenter.shtml , however, it seems to be implied that the 'road network' will be necessary even to cart natural resources from *cities* to your abstract governmental supply. The city will also need to be able to trace a road route back to your capital (so much for Communism ). Cutting someone's nation in half, therefore, looks like it holds the potential for a devastating blow to someone's economy. Better: isolate the capital itself, and the rest of the nation's natural resource supply is cut off. Bizarre.

- Metamorph