What is ics?

[goha]

I have read that civ4 will not have ics in it. Unforunately I have no idea what it is. Please enlighten

thanks

[Metaliturtle]

Infinite City Sprawl, a strategy in all prior versions of Civ where you built cities like mad because a city was always worth having even if it was in a horrible place.

[goha]

gotcha. That clears up alot of the posts.

thanks

[Metaliturtle]

no problem, I had to dig through like 100 posts before getting a straight answer to that one.

[Verenti]

See, I for one don't see this as a problem. Its realistic: The Americas in the 16-18th Centuries, Africa in the 19th Century, Australia in the 18th-19th (?) Centuries?

Britain didn't one day say "No more colonies, We have a sufficent ammount now". We ran out of room. It's really going to be bizare in Civ4 saying "No, I don't think I'm going to establish Colonies on that unsettled contient. We have enough land here, thank you very much." or if my dreams of Sid Myiers's Civ series one day having Space Colonies or Sea Colonies(atleast modded in) saying "I don't I'm going to build any space colonies. Already have enough Cities, Don't need any more."

I need EMPIRE!

[Solver]

16-19th century, Verenti! At this point, the British Empire and other colonists had developed economies. Likewise, in Civ4 you can colonize new lands if you have the economy for it.

However, ICS is mainly about early placement (spamming) of cities as they are ALL useful. Egyptians didn't spam all of Africa with cities, even in desert with no proximity of water, because these cities would worsen the state of their empire.

[DeepO]

ICS is so terrible, because it leads to strategies where everything is centered around getting as many settlers out at the fastest time possible... having dozens of colonies on a newly discovered continent, while at home you've got a viable empire running to bear the cost is not ICS. ICS is when all your cities are below size 3, even if you've got 100 cities around.

DeepO

[DeepO]

heh. crosspost... actually, ICS would require the Egyptians to have settled Africa by 2000 BC in Civ3 terms, the whole world before 1 AD.... it's so extreme if done 'right'

DeepO

[Apocalypse Cow]

See, I for one don't see this as a problem. Its realistic: The Americas in the 16-18th Centuries, Africa in the 19th Century, Australia in the 18th-19th (?) Centuries?

I don't think its going to be a matter of "Oh crap, I can't support that colony across the sea!" Which is also realistic, compare the British Empire of 1850 to the British Empire now.

[Verenti]

Ah, So the new corruption system doesn't cripple you from owning an "empire on which the sun never sets" then, but makes it so you have to build into it slowly other you'll suffer economic collapse?

If this indeed what your saying that's rather good news! Also, thanks for clearing that up. But otherwise I'll just be mediocrely upset.

[vStauffenberg]

this reminds me that i used to believe (for several months it must have been) that "ICS" meant "increase country size!". took me a while to figure out i was wrong


is there a glossary or something alike that defines civ-language like this?

[Wittlich]

Originally posted by vStauffenberg
is there a glossary or something alike that defines civ-language like this?

Yes, there is a link to abrieviations in the Civ3 General Forum. Here is the link to the thread in question:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26248

[DeepO]

Solver has put an example in his preview, something like

1 city: cost 1 gold

+1 city; cost 1 gold in the new one, +1 gold in each other one (so in total 1+2=3 gold for both cities)

add to this and you get

+1 more city; cost 1 gold in the new one, +1 gold in each other one (so in total 1+2+3=6 gold for 3 cities)

The numbers are probably off, but it gives the idea: if you want to settle your 3rd city, you need at least 6gpt income or you will go broke. Which means you need a bigger city, and need to wait instead of rushing a settler out the moment you hit size 3.

Once you've got a good empire running of 10 cities, the 11th might cost you 11 more gold (for a total of 66 gold upkeep), but that extra cost is relatively low if you've got 10 large cities with markets and banks.

DeepO

[Sava]

it seems like they might have gone to an extreme to get rid of ICS

[goha]

gotcha that sorta neat. that should prevent massive empires by 2000bce . Hopefully there is an easy way to tell how much of an additional cost you will have to found a city. Or it could be real easy to dig your self into a hole