Appropriate City Placement

[Geekinstein]

ICS - infinite city sleeze

I wonder if this term would exist if we were playing other Humans. I merely look at this as a way to win more quickly...

...sorta like in Chess, "I would never do a checkmate using the Queen as it is a gross and overpowered piece. Better to use Knights and Bishops as it is always harder and more esthetically pleasing."

[ShuShu]

But in chess...

... the queen is intended to be a grossly overpowered piece.

There will always be those who do not wish to adhere to the Marcus of Queensbury rules, and there will be others who believe that if the ear is there, why not bite it...

My question was more interested in just what constitutes Marus of Queensbury for civilization regarding ICS, and whether the King's post crossed the line. (I think yes in justification, no in practice)

I am sure there will be a lot of ICS'rs out there in Multiplayer land. May they all have to face Aeson perpetually in the afterlife...

PS. I don't play MP and don't enter the tournaments, so I don't really care. I am much more interested in the social aspects of this issue.

[Geekinstein]

...OK...

call me Mike (Tison): presented ear will be bitten...

...after all, this is war (Civ III)

[ShuShu]

Okay Mike...

... But I gave your densely packed Archipilegos a pass according to Marcus of Queensbury in my initial posting...

I must admit, I think that is why the Palestine issue doesn't resolve. Only one player is using Marcus of Queensbury and the other player sees that as a weakness to be exploited. If Israel would just drop the gloves like all the other players in the region, they could stop the terrorism the same way all the other players in the region have.

Oops, sorry for interjecting the real world...

[Geekinstein]

re: real world (Middle East)

I've been there. And I got it from the Jordanians (while at Petra) & Egyptians (in Sinai) about how we've been dissing 'em since the Crusades as they have owned all since then.

From the Isralies, they point to the Bible and 4000+ years of history & God gave it to 'em.

...but since I was with a group of tourists, I figger that they all could get rich selling religious trinkets (carved olive wood junk & painted icons) to the rest of us.

...all they gotta do is get along, set up shop, and the bux rolls in. But no, each has to own ALL of it (Jersulaem in this case).

In my opinion, if the Americans owned a part of it, by now they'd have figgered a way to end the fights and turn it into a Religious Disneyworld where everyone would be paying through the nose for hotels, trinkets, holy water, etc, etc.

...only thing we'd be worrying about then is reading about how some CEO stole all the bux while "The Walls of Jericho, LLC" stock melted down bankrupting all the investors...

[Fitz]

KoR, I personally find it amazing that you don't run into optimal city number corruption using this tactic. I do on Standard maps using "perfect" placement, and the resulting corruption is pretty crippling. I've even been thinking about using a more widespread pattern of cities that didn't have matching production radii, but instead left some area's outside city production, just concentrating on the best territory within a given area.

OTOH, it could just be that the so-called random terrain generator seems to prefer giving me a single large continent. *Fitz smacks Firaxis upside the head for calling their number generator "random"*

[Geekinstein]

...I dunno. All this talk about corruption... it doesn't seem to bother me much. I pack cities on the edge defensively (2 squares away) to make it hard for the AI to get to my core cities, then once past 6 I can then push out Nationalized units, or go commie/despot and pop rush. Or if cities only 2-3, one shield is not too bad as I tend to buy things anyway...

This really seems to work OK.

[SABRA]

Originally posted by Geekinstein
...I dunno. All this talk about corruption... it doesn't seem to bother me much. I pack cities on the edge defensively (2 squares away) to make it hard for the AI to get to my core cities, then once past 6 I can then push out Nationalized units, or go commie/despot and pop rush. Or if cities only 2-3, one shield is not too bad as I tend to buy things anyway...

This really seems to work OK.

You can always build a policestation or courthouse ,
or you can just disband units in a city with high waste .

[King of Rasslin]

Are you using the most recent patch? The patches really help in reducing corruption. I never had a real problem with corruption, but I do usually rush a forbidden palace with my first leader. Don't bother with the heroic epic. Place the FP correctly and corruption is never a serious problem.

In my current game, I have at least 20 cities with at least 50% production (before courthouse and police station.) And I have maybe 5 at 25%. Most of my cities are size 8-10, but it is the modern era. For most of the game I didn't bother with aquaducts. I was very militaristic and it payed off.

And my strat isn't powerful enough to be an exploit, not nearly as bad as ICS. It is more of an alternate way of playing, with a set of both advantages and disadvantages. Its usefulness probably depends mostly on the map or scenario you are playing. Vel made a recent post about this, you might want to check it out.

[Gilgamensch]

Happiness

One thing not to forget about, is the happiness (WLT*D). It is easier to achieve in small cities as in bigger ones. You even don't necessarily need a marketplace to have. Just when you reach 6+ you really need it. (supposed you have the lux.)

While concentrating on military you don't build anything else anyway. And as already mentioned before, you only have BIG cities late in the game.

For the ICS-point: As those are still cities and not 'labor-camps' I don't see so much of an issue there, you still use them (temple/library....).

But it is kind of close.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
In my current game, I have at least 20 cities with at least 50% production (before courthouse and police station.) And I have maybe 5 at 25%.

That is what I call "crippling" corruption.

[ShuShu]

You disappoint me king...

... I was hoping you would at least take a shot at saying your strategy is more efficient than ICS. (like the city center bonuses at size 13 and the uncorrectable corruption past 150% of optimal number of cities - see axelman's tremendous treatise on the subject).

It is not beyond the realm of possibility.

[King of Rasslin]

I am proud that my strat is weaker than ICS, a disgrace to real strategy. My strat focuses on placing cities closer to each other because you can't use the tiles around the city until later. The city center bonuses don't mean jack in Civ 3, they are nothing.

Anyway, I recently downloaded the Double your Pleasure mod. I'm going to try it out with this strat.

To Fitz, 50% corruption cripples a city but it doesn't kill it off. Overall corruption of 50% (like in communism) actually does do serious damage. The core cities with only 10-20% corruption make the units. The other cities with 50% corruption are just border cities that make a temple, library, barracks, and city walls.

Although not as bad as ICS, making close cities will get you a higher score because of happier citizens due to luxuries. However, it doesn't make your score much higher because territory counts too much compared to citizens.

[King of Rasslin]

bump.

My friend wanted to see this, so I decided to bring it back for a while. You don't have to respond.

[badams52]

I have switched my strategy to the less than optimal city placement and one thing I didn't see mentioned in here is the reduced pollution benefits. Smaller cities lack the population induced pollution and having less tiles to work reduces the production induced pollution. Both of these combined will also curtail the global warming effect, though the AI civs will still add to it.