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]

... 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]

... 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]

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]

... 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.

[Forrest Gimp]

You have both the palace and the forbidden palace.

Use one for 2-3 Big Mama "perfect cities" for the wonders. I usually ancient rush the first cpu, then take his land, which is usually sweeter, by far, than what I start out with - perfect spot for Big Mamas, after I build the forbidden palace.

The rest of them are basically unit builders and follow the closer packed model. I usually relocate the palace closer to this center.

[vmxa1]

Ancient rushes are not very appealing above emperor and are scary enough there. You could pull of a rush at deity in vanilla civ, if things fell just right, but I have not managed it beyond emperor in C3C. I don't even try it any more.

Loose placement has a limit as to how far up the levels it can be used. Tight placement has no upper or lower restrictions.
Land can also make it hard to use OCP placement, such as smallish island, regardless of level.

[jshelr]

vmxa1 is certainly correct. at demi level, by the time you build your second settler, you usually have had two AI cities shoved right in your face. optimal city placement then becomes a question of where in hell can i put a city now?

[ErikM]

12 workable tiles per city is my motto.
Sometimes more, sometimes less, but size 12 cities is what I'm usually shooting for.

[vmxa1]

CxxC will provide that.

[sirsnuggles]

I like packing my cities into a "denser than optimal" arrangement, as well. I try to make cities that are exactly three spaces apart so that my troops will leapfrog from city to city on their trips to the front, providing a momentary boost to defense, instead of standing in the countryside. When you actually make it to the modern age, pick some of them to become super-metropolii and rearrange the neighboring cities' population placement to allow the metropolis to use all 21, while the "suburbs" must content themselves with whatever fringe is remaining. This works very well when pursuing a cultural victory.

I like your strategy. The important thing to realize about city density is that your cities can't use all of the surrounding terrain until very late in the game. Closer cities ensures that all the terrain is being used. Hence, the overall shield, and trade production is much greater.

That being said, I still play civ2 style, because I hate ICS.

[joncnunn]

Well, in Civ III there are certain disadvances to ICS, both diirect and indirect.

Direct: City Rank corruption. Every city no matter how small makes each and every one further from the palace somewhat less effective. For a city to be carrying it's own weight it much produce more shields than it is causing the cities after it to loose to waste.

Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.

Actually RCS was first developed in Civ II (maybe even Civ I) by war mongling players, when there was no city rank corruption and at some point all corruption would be eliminated. (With Democracy / Communism / or nearly so with Fudamentalism)

[Lul Thyme]

'Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.'
But you will be founding cities faster, and many players think that a denser build actually allows to claim MORE land in many cases...

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme

But you will be founding cities faster, and many players think that a denser build actually allows to claim MORE land in many cases...

That's certainly been my experience, at least when there's plenty of open terrain into which to expand. When a good portion of those tightly packed cities are producing settlers, the settler flood takes on a whole new dimension.

I could see joncnunn's point in a more closely packed (civ-wise) game than I usually play, though. If the AI is a threat to expand right up against you quickly, it may well make more sense to go ahead and get your borders as far out as possible with your first round of settlers.

[Tall Stranger]

Originally posted by Solomwi


I could see joncnunn's point in a more closely packed (civ-wise) game than I usually play, though. If the AI is a threat to expand right up against you quickly, it may well make more sense to go ahead and get your borders as far out as possible with your first round of settlers.

I agree, but, as with so much else in this game, it all depends on the circumstances. If, in the course of scouting out the surrounding terrain, I find a particularly good area (a natural chokepoint, an area especially rich in resources/ luxuries), I will send a settler (escorted, of course) to the area. I will also, sometimes, try to create a wall of towns to cut off an AI's advance towards "my" area of the continent. However, doing that can pose a terrible risk to your civ, since the further away those towns are, the harder they are to defend. If you get the wrong type of AI neighbor, those towns are little more than bait.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Direct: City Rank corruption. Every city no matter how small makes each and every one further from the palace somewhat less effective. For a city to be carrying it's own weight it much produce more shields than it is causing the cities after it to loose to waste.

Good point. I stop filling gaps in conquered territory, when the OCN gets crossed. If they grow big, they are somewhat more useful.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.

This is only important if you have a chokepoint/resource/luxury to settle quickly. The advantage of starting more Settlers sooner is always more potent, especially if the AI is close by.

If you are thinking about claiming a border and then backfilling, now that just might work, depending on the difficulty level. Only thing is, you must be prepared for war in that case (I assume using "leave or declare war", or even outright killing any crossing Settler teams), and that slows down your REX.

[Shogun Gunner]

My single failing is to play "for fun" and not "by the math". There are times that I know that I'm not placing my cities in the most optimal fashion. It's usually dumb preconceived ideas with poor explanations like "i justed wanted the city on the river", or such. Many times I place cities for purely military reasons (chokepoints, controlling resources, coastline, blocking other players development).

Anyway, I could improve my gameplay in this particular area.

[joncnunn]

Having cities by rivers in ancient era is actually a wise move. Free Aquaduct, adviable from turn 1.

An empire does not live on corruption math alone.

I look for natural city spots; those near resources of all types and shielded grasslands, fresh water, etc.

If you can work that cow faster by relocating your city from the two tile away position the corruption math would yield you to one tile away, you are probably better off doing that. (And definately if the same move changes it from a non-fresh water city to a fresh water one)

[Bragelonne]

My psichologist is always telling me that placing your first city in some plains is NOT bad, but I just can´t stand for it. I just NEED to know that the soil on which mi capitol lies is GREEN and healthy, not that yellowish plainy color.

After my first city is placed, I insanely begin producing settlers which i deliver to strategical places far-away whenever I recognice it strictly necessary (i.e: the IA cannot have a city build on those wonderfull hills whith three golden icons on them!!). Notice that I usually play the expansionist civilizations, so I usually know more of the world map than my enemies.

FInally, I complete the "empty spots" between those cities and my capitol.

[vmxa1]

The city center tile is treated the same normally. That is 2f 1S 1C for civs with out special traits and in depsotism.

So go ahead and use that brown tile or even a white one. It is the other tiles that make the real difference.