Is it wrong...

[Patashu]

...To always place bases far enough apart to always(excluding when enemy units pop up) have all 20 tiles available to work on? That's what I always do, I haven't tried ICS or whatever it is yet.

[Dis]

nothing is wrong in this game

I don't always adhere to having 20 tiles available to every city. For me it depends on resource placement. I try to include all river and resource squares into my city radius.

[Frankychan]

Nah, I don't think so.

Some ppl like to crowd their cities all together, others like 'em far apart.

I like to do both. Keep a cluster fairly close together, then spread them thinly, then have another cluster together. This way, it kinda acts like the US. Populace West Coast, sparce population inbetween, Populace East Coast.

That way, if the s*** hits the fan (ie Planet Buster attack), at least a sizeable number of cities remain and my industry doesn't experience a total collapse.

[Barinthus]

I normally place my cities/bases so the full 20 tiles can be worked by that city/base only. But after spending some time on this forum, I've been convinced to start experimenting with Silkandar's spacing method.

[Patashu]

If I do start ICSing, which of these is more efficient, or are they equally efficient?

x-x-x
-----
-x-x-
-----
x-x-x

or

x-x-x
-----
x-x-x
-----
x-x-x

[Trithemius]

Re: Is it wrong...

Originally posted by Patashu
...To always place bases far enough apart to always(excluding when enemy units pop up) have all 20 tiles available to work on? That's what I always do, I haven't tried ICS or whatever it is yet.

That's what I do as well - does anyone have a handy link to an explanation of ICS? I seem to be terminologically-deprived.

[Patashu]

Infinite City Sprawl, or something. It's where you build cities really close together.

[Verrucosus]

I'm one of those who prefer to minimize overlap. Lal, whom I tend to play these days, is probably more suitable for this than others. His talent bonus and increased base limits invite large-scale pop-booming, while his little efficiency problem, makes it attractive to cover territory with as few bases as possible in order to minimize bureaucracy drones. An additional benefit (to me) is that fewer bases mean less micromanagement in the late game.

Patashu, I believe that both patterns are equally efficient from an economic point of view, but that the first one might be better for facilitating reinforcements: There are 10 bases rather than 8 within three tiles of an interior base and, more importantly in this context, 6 bases rather than 5 within three tiles of a frontier base.

[GeoModder]

The spacing is less important with seabases, even for quickly sending reinforcements. Cruiser Transports have enough movements to bring new defenders easily

[Minute Mirage]

I don't place my bases more than 3 squares apart, unless there's a really good reason for it, like claiming more terrain from my neighbours. Even 3 squares seems like a long distance in the early game, when the colony pods could be doing something a lot more profitable than costing support, like being bases. I often prefer to have my first few bases only two squares apart, although this is of course very much dependant on the terrain. The early game is all about turn advantage, and getting new bases going as fast as possible is one of the best ways of gaining advantage.

[Jamski]

Tight spacing is probably going to win you more games, but the exact pattern isn't really important. You can mix and match, and its much more effient to work arou the fungus, rocky tiles and coastlines than to try and flatten/clear/raise to make the terrain fit your plan.

Untill HabDomes, you can only work 14 tiles maximum anyway, so forget about trying to find 20 tiles for each base.

-Jam

[Patashu]

Speaking of which...

Is there a base pattern that provides each base with approximately 14 tiles to work with?

[Skanky Burns]

Hey Diss, I didn't know you played SMAC!


With Morgan, I spread my bases out even further than 21 squares, basically just so my territory area increases. This way I can build massive energy parks in all the territory not being used by my few cities and thus generate heaps of cash. Of course, I lack cities that produce things, but when I want to produce them I can buy them straight away.

[Jamski]

With Morgan, your base sizes are limited anyway, so I push even closer together to a hard grid pattern, give each base 1 borehole (worked) and 2 farm/condesor/soil enrichers (crawlered) and make everyone else specialists. You can fight under FM that way with vast hordes of units too

Grab the Pathetic Virtues and only build Hab Complexes when you have a few nutsats up in the sky.

-Jam

[Ouro_827]

I didn't use to ever let overlap occur... now, I'm a little more giving... but no, its not wrong! I've won lots of games with it!