[Freeciv] ICS : Are map resources part of the problem?

["R. Miller" <richere@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

ICS. I'm new to FreeCiv and have played a number of games over the past month.
I have noticed a lively discussion concerning ICS. It took me a while to 
find out
what it is so, for the benefit of other "newbies" reading this, I will 
state here that
ICS stands for Infinite City Sprawl (a.k.a. Smallpox) and is a strategy in 
which
players attept to win by creating enormous numbers of small cities.

Maps. I just reinstalled Civ2 because I suspected that the maps generated 
by FreeCiv's
generator 2 setting might be contributing to making ICS a viable strategy.
I compared maps generated by Civ2 to those generated by FreeCiv.

Resources. I estimate that FreeCiv's maps make possibly twice as many resources
available to cities than do Civ2's maps, especially whales and combinations 
of whales
and fish. It is not unusual for a city in FreeCiv to have 2 or 3 whales; 
this I found was
rare in Civ2.

Coastal cities. I suspect that this is why players seem to build more 
cities on the coasts;
I'm sure there are also strategic reaons for this, but I'm sure the lure of 
whale bonuses that
allow the production of large quantities of settlers is irresistible to 
ICS-players.
Location. From memory, I recall that locating a city in Civ2 was a 
challenge; finding the right
site with the right combination of resources to assure sustained growth was 
difficult.
In FreeCiv, I find that I can plop a settler almost anywhere, build a city, 
and it will
survive. This leads me to believe that ICS is favoured by FreeCiv's 
overly-bountiful maps.
Golf courses. One more thing. From memory, I recall that Civ2 produced what 
we nicknamed
"golf courses", relatively large grassy areas with few other resources; I 
have not seen this in
FreeCiv's maps. FreeCiv appears to produced completely random distributions 
of square types,
with little or no concentrations of single types of squares - deserts, 
"golf courses", etc.
Randomness. I expect that this randomness would also favour ICS; 
concentrations of land types
would favour  the growth of certain cities and hinder the growth of others 
- ergo, more variety in
the city populations and production capacities.

Summary.
My point is that ICS is not only a symptom of city proliferation, it is a 
symptom of
randomness, which ensures that all cities can develop nearly equally, or 
just enough, and an over-
abundance of resources, which makes it too easy to produce large quantities 
of settlers.
I am looking forward to your reactions to these thoughts.

Robaire