Explicitly Defining ICS - Where is the line?

[Inverse Icarus]

me and my friends play casually and competitively together, and we have some "house rules" that we all follow to make the games more fun, one of which is no ICS.

now, whats the line? one of our friends is notorious for leaving two spaces between his cities, sometimes cramming cities 1 spaces apart. the latter is definately ICS, but what about the former?

is there an explicit defination of ICS? a # of overlapping tiles? a # of cities x squares apart?

[Nor Me]

I'd say that ICS might be having more than 2 cities every 21 tiles of territory if all cities had expanded culturally once.

Sometimes the best city spots are close together so I'd define it in terms of density.

That way most 3-spaced (current agreed term for 2 spaces between cities. don't ask why) city patterns would be fine but, say, a NW,SW,NE,SE grid would have 18 squares for 2 cities so be disallowed if it had enough cities. Mixing in 2 spaced cities could put you over the limit but might not do if done sparingly.

Of course having to count is the problem. A more pragmatic and arbitrary definition might be more useful.

[Catt]

It's open to opinion, obviously - and yours and your friends' is most important for your games.

And now my opinion: building cities with only one tile between them is ICS. Building cities with two or more tiles between them is not ICS. But even the occassional city-tile-city is not ICS per se, especially where such a build pattern is intended to take advantage of the natural terrain features -- for example working a bunch of coast and sea tiles on a peninsula or sharing a bunch of "fruited plains" (many wheats on flood plains or many cows bunched together, etc.) In other words, if city-tile-city has "legitimate" reasons based on terrain, as opposed to simply a dense build pattern for the power of numerous cities, I wouldn't call "foul" in a "no ICS" game, but the instances when the city-tile-city pattern is "legitimately" called for is usually very rare -- only a couple of instances at most even in large empires.

My $0.02.

Catt

[DaveMcW]

ICS is not a killer strategy in civ3, like it was in civ1 and civ2. If you take it to the extreme and build all your cities one tile apart your empire will soon implode from the corruption. There are also tactical problems defending cities one square apart from a stack of doom that walks in between them.

I would draw the line somewhere between 6 and 12 tiles per city and call it ICS. But I really don't think it's something that should be banned.

[Bamspeedy]

Everyone has their own definition of ICS. Some call it ICS if each city gets about 15 tiles to itself. That isn't ICS, but rather a dense build. Like Dave, I would have to say that less than 12 tiles/city is where ICS starts. Sometimes, there may be cities that are only 1 tile apart, but terrain would support the reasoning for building like that (wanting 2 cities to share the same inland lake, for example, or peninsulas). As long as other cities around it are spaced further away, so that all cities can still use up to 12 tiles, then I think it should be OK.

An extreme ICS (6 tiles or less/city), is only really good for score if you are milking a game, and even then may not always be the best, if you are sacrificing alot of territory gain to build your cities that close.

[Master Zen]

ICS = city tile city

as for how applicable it actually is, it just depends on terrain.

Personally, I am no fan of it, although I might make a couple of cities 1 space apart as military camps. Other than that, I never actually use ICS

[nbarclay]

I'd say anything under an average of ten and a half workable tiles per permanent city (eleven and a half including the city tile itself) should be considered ICS. Twelve workable tiles per city maximizes tile utilization until Sanitation, and it sometimes makes sense to go a little under that for some cities in order to (for example) make maximum use of coast. Ten and a half workable tiles per city should address all but the most extreme of such situations.

The reason I say "permanent cities" is that there is a strategy dubbed "Ralphing" in which players build temporary cities in between their permanent ones with the intent of disbanding the extra cities as aqueducts and, later, hospitals become available. In the nomenclature of strategy, Ralphing (in which the extra cities are intended to be disbanded over time) is a separate and distinct category from ICS (in which huge numbers of densely packed cities are intended to be a permanent condition).

As for how good a job corruption does countering the benefits ICS and Ralphing, I think it's hard to get much advantage out of any but the most extreme ICS strategies (compared with what I consider a more conventional dense build in the ~12 tiles per city range) on standard or larger maps. But on tiny or small maps, high city densities can provide a significantly greater advantage because corruption sets in so quickly.

[Theseus]

Nothing much to add, except that I think Civ3 has added so many DISadvantages to ICS that it is not really an exploit anymore, and thus should be allowed... Uber, let your friend try it, and then fry him with better production.

[Kirby]

I agree with those that think ICS is not a particularly strong strategy. A dense build is usefull early in the game but it is better to disband some of them as the game progresses, what someone called "ralphing".

[Cartouche Bee]

I consider it ICS anytime you have more than the OCN and have not hit domination.

[bongo]

About 'ralphing' and other types of city placement. Can anyone recommend some good threads on that subject?

[Aeson]

ICS tends to shine on very poor terrain, or very good terrain. On poor terrain (desert, lots of hills/mountains, tundra), every city basically upgrades a terrain tile, and gives enough excess food to support 2 laborers on land that would normally only support 1. On very good terrain, the abundance of useful tiles should all be used as early as possible. ICS reduces distance corruption, and uses up all the tiles that otherwise would have to wait for Aquaducts, or at least for cities to stop building Workers/Settlers.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by bongo
About 'ralphing' and other types of city placement. Can anyone recommend some good threads on that subject?

I think the best one is City placement redux (for the third time) .

There's some more if you'd searched. ,

[bongo]

Thanks, just the thread I was looking for

[cumi]

You mean this with ICS ?

Each city have (not border cities) 4 tiles (including the city itself)?

[Capt Dizle]

Building towns with one space between them is certainly not ICS. When you found your capital, terrain permitting, there will be four building sites only two spaces away that do not overlap your capital's 21 tile radius. So that is not ICS.

Building all of your towns with one space between is however ICS, ultimate ICS.

ICS is more than placement, its an attempt to skirt the mechanics of the game by exploiting the free center square, happiness problems due to city size, aqueduct requirements, and includes building of wonders that provide free city improvements.

The mechanics of Civ3 are much more difficult to defeat with ICS than games like Civ2 and SMAC. In fact, I would say that true ICS as we knew it in those games does not exist in Civ3 as a powerful exploit.