$s=0$. The dashed line was obtained using the approximation derived in [@Balberg1983a; @Balberg1984a]. Note that the estimated value of $n^c_i\approx 6.044$ noticeably exceeds that obtained for the zero-width rods, e.g., $n^c_i\approx 5.64$ [@Li2009; @Mertens2012]. This evidently reflects the transformation of the zero-width rods to polyominoes of different shapes and sizes. Significant anisotropy in the $n^*$ values was observed and the calculated values in the longitudinal direction were very close to the approximation of Eq. .

![Relative critical number density, $n^*=n_c/n_c^i$, ($n_c^i \approx 6.044$) versus order parameter, $s$, for the values obtained in the limit of $m\rightarrow\infty$. Here, the filled and open symbols correspond to the longitudinal and transversal directions, respectively. The dashed line was obtained using Eq. . \[C05\_nr\_vs\_s\]](ncstarvss "fig:"){width="0.9\linewidth"}\

Figure \[II\_delta\_vs\_p\] presents examples of the electrical anisotropy ratio, $\delta$, versus the filling fraction, $p$, for a fixed value of $m=2048$ and for different values of the order parameter, $s$ (Fig. \[II\_delta\_vs\_p\](a)), as well as for two values of the order parameter, $s=0.8$ and $s=1$ and different values of $m$ (Fig. \[II\_delta\_vs\_p\](b),(c)). It is remarkable that the position of the $\delta(p)$ maximum at $p_m$ was almost independent of $m$ for an ideally oriented system (Fig. \[II\_delta\_vs\_p\](c)). However, the value of 