Well I've resently learned that if you expand really fast early on, even if it may cost you then, in the late game it pays off. Your economy will be the best!:goodjob:

You can get crushed that way too. If attacked while your economy is in the tank.

Well what I normally do to prevent that is get blitz monarchy so when I finish the oracle I can get Fuedalism!

i tried in the beginning but never could make it work. congrats.

when i did it i couldn't run at 0% science on low levels of play. how did you do it?

i tried the "real" ics a couple of times. what happens is that at one point all your units get dispanded. if you don't have built any cottages by then, the city growth alone most of the time won't make up the cost soon enough. you'll recover eventually, but after many many turns with next to no research.

what works tho is if you expand till you need to run at 0% science with your units not going on strike. plant enough cottages, let your cities grow and work these cottage and you'll recover pretty soon.

but i'd say placing about 5-6 good cities and then go to an early war when economy has become rather stable again will serve a better purpose.

i can't seem to make it work at all on prince and up.

As long as all your enemies are dead and you have the great wall... who needs a millitary. Ive come across longlasting strikes after conquering vast amounts of land, usually an entire continent. For hundreds of years my millitary consisted of a skeleton force, and then my savior arrived. A caravel, hello would you like to buy some resources?. So at 1100 ad I was sporting you guessed it.. Axemen. After 300 years of resource subsidizing the economy was raging. I got 90 percent research with gold to spare, while holding 40% of a large map on emporer. By about 1450 I had calvalry and galeons, just in time to destroy japan, vasalizing it for a domination victory.

but what would you have done if japan declared war and dropped 12 macemen on your continent? crushed to ashes i'd say ^^ running without big military is a gamble and at the higher levels the gamble is just "when?" and not "if?" anymore.

REXing is a gamble anyway. Dan Quale, that sounds cool. I might have to try it (eh, on Noble though...;)).

But yeah, in general, building cottages early and then when the science drops to around 0%, emphasise commerce on all cities. After 10 turns, all the cottages become hamlets and your commerce income doubles. After 20 turns, your commerce triples (from the original value), not to mention your population increases at the same time with each new city which also works cottages. Also, pillaging can subsidise your expansion especially by capturing/razing cities, allowing you to do deficit research.

I haven't as of yet tried to do a pure Civ2 style of recursive rex though.

You can do it, but you have to know what you're doing. Honestly I think it's all about preference, some expert (I'm not using that term very loosely either) players will tell you that they almost never let themselves go below 40-50% on their science rate (assuming you use your slider at either a profit or a sustainable deficit), others will routinely drop to 10-20% and do just as well. You just have to be smart with it, by having plenty of workers on hand to improve your territory *cough cottages cough.* The more I play the more it seems to be that the closest thing to a "hard and fast rule" (there's so few of those in Civ4 thankfully) is that bigger is usually better. So many people think Organized is a weak trait, but double-speed courthouses are probably the biggest advantage you can possibly get when you are trying to expand quickly (just whip the courthouse ASAP in each new city and you're set).

I didn't mean super Ics just like he said. but i'd say placing about 5-6 good cities and then go to an early war when economy has become rather stable again will serve a better purpose. That what I did in the game i'm playing now after I got five cities I went to war w/ the Mongolians then w/ the Japanese and now w/ Egypt. I'm getting twice as much gold as anybody and i'm the most advanced w/ best production food and size. I built the Un in the early eighteen hundreds and I'm winning.

P.S I'm slaughtering their rifleman w/ mechs.

The enemies of the large ICS Empire are:

-Neighbouring civs ready to scavenge on the carcass of your empire
-Barbarians ready to pick off poorly defended cities

The way to combat this is to run a raging war machine that conquers a whole continent...although you'll have no military and a dire economy, you'll still be safe from the two things that can pick at you during your 'coma' stage.

I can't see this working against strong MP opposition, though - nor does it work well on Pangea maps.

i guess all game settings would have different effects.

lower levels vs. higher levels
faster speeds vs. slower speeds
civ traits (fin vs. non fin)
small map vs. large map
islands vs. cont vs. pangea

the list goes on... try it on monarch, pangea, marathon as a non-fin civ. i don't think it'll work. could be wrong though...

sorry, what does ics stand for? I know rex is rapid expansion... what would qualify as rex? I usually play warlord level and never have to dip below 70-80% science, even with double the ai's cities.

ics = infinite city sprawl

sorry, what does ics stand for? I know rex is rapid expansion... what would qualify as rex? I usually play warlord level and never have to dip below 70-80% science, even with double the ai's cities.

try noble. you and AI will play at the same level. you or they neither one will get bonuses over the other. but good job on warlord.