Hey everyone! Myself and a friend of mine were talking about what civs would be good for ICS, we have already tried a few (France, Persia), and wanted something new. We Narrowed our way down to Egypt vs. Rome.

Egypt because Burial Tombs happy bonus lets you keep expanding and once you've exhausted all the area, your happy should still be in good shape. +Wonder building doesn't hurt either.

Rome because of Glory of Rome, so all the little cities get production bonuses so build those monuments, libraries, temples etc.

Which do you all think would be better? Please vote above. Reasons why would be very helpful.

Rome by far. Egypt's Unique Ability is all about founding more ancient wonders. If your sending a lot of settlers out, your not going building wonders.

Since it's about expansion, not wonder building vs. expansion, then it's definitely Egypt.

Burial Tombs + Organized religion gives you more than enough happiness to spam city ad nauseum. The Roman UA helps them build things, but Egypt can do it easier and faster.

Egypt. 2 maintenance free happiness per city just wins. All things being equal, that's two extra pop per city which means more everything (beakers, worked tiles, specialists, whatever. . .).

I say Egypt too. Rome's ability is good for a mid size empire with a bunch of well developed cities. ICS ends up with a lot of smaller cities so the free happiness from Egypt is more fitting.

Can I vote for Persia? Sure, their +2 happy building comes later, but their UU and civ ability seem way stronger than that of Egypt.

Yeah Persia is great, golden age forever is awesome, but I've already won the ICS game with them, so I was looking for something different, see first post. That's why the choices were Egypt and Rome.

Whoops, sorry, appears I did skim over that part of it. In that case, I'm going to say Egypt. Get those pyramids for some incredibly effective workers!

Or play some hotseat and you each do one, I'd think they'd work pretty well together.

I would have to say Egypt, only because I have been trying to play against them. In diety, they have workers lined up on their borders (in ships) ready to build that next improvement. The AI even on King will build all the wonders and spread like wild fire.

I did get my Diety win though. I allied with all of the CS and even though they bought off some in the last few turns before the vote, I still won. I was glad they built the UN for me, and surprised they did not get any of the other victory conditions. It may have been an exploit, but they were afraid of me the whole game, even though they could have wiped me out if they had declared war. I had garrisoned units in my cities from the get go, and made friends with the CS just by killing barbs, no gold involved. I must have terrified them from the start and they never forgot it. I also had a unit hold off a barb settlement that continully sent out units on a one tile strip of land towards Egypt and away from me. The unit stayed on the same tile for over 200 turns. Eventually Egypt took out the camp and put cities on my turf and choked me out of good land. It was a dual, tiny map, deity win that took only a day to achieve. I never even got to see how many cities Egypt had, since I never made it to the Modern Age. I was given canons by CS,s that had artillery units, although I never needed either type. I even had a road that connected my Capital to their nearest city and they never took advantage of it. I also never allowed them open borders, nor asked them for open borders. They obviously did not get the domination victory objective.

I have started the aforementioned game, using Egypt. In the renaissance era I am at +9 happy, without burial tombs I'd be at about -19 or so. Really glad I went with Egypt. Rome would be completely stagnated at this point.

Winner: India :lol:
Egypt wins between these 2, especially with Piety and Tradition filled out.
Although India wins overall.

ICS seems to involve making use of Piety [Organized religion in particular ] for happiness management ..

Ill re-post sóme numbers from another thread


Regular civ -

4 temples (/per turn)
-----------
-8 :c5gold: (maintenance)
+4 :c5happy: (with piety & organized religion)
+12 :c5culture:

Balances out with
a lux sell
+8 :c5gold:
-4 :c5happy:

For a Net +12 :c5culture: gain to help blast trough piety...


Songhai and Egypt get especially good deals

In same conditions
Songhai Net gains +16 :c5culture: +8 :c5gold: (mud pyramid mosque)
Egypt Net gains +8 :c5culture: +8 :c5gold: +8 :c5happy: (could mean and extra +16 :c5gold: from two extra lux sales) (Burial tomb)

That was in context of a fast 4 city swordman[iron working] rush opening presented by
Tabarnak in another thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=447886)
====================

Now in an ICS context (assuming having the area available to expand past 4 cities ) ...

Egypt

+++ gets a ton of extra :c5happy: - this could be converted into a huge :c5gold: /per turn advantage on top of the :c5gold: saved from free maintenance - or used to grow relevant cities ...
- burial tombs provide less :c5culture: / turn so the overall policy acquisition rate will be lower than normal - and with enough cities down[happiness will allow it] - policies run the risk of bogging down ...

Rome
+ Legion - ICS strategies can put out an obscene number of Warriors out early. They can cover a lot of surface so some Iron is almost a guarantee ... Horses and luxuries sales could also provide :c5gold: to "purchase" iron from city states ...
+ Glory of Rome - early impact - faster Monuments , Temples & WORKSHOPS [somewhere between Legions (iron working) and Longswords (Steel) lies the Workshop tech ] .. +3 :c5production: per city early adds up really fast and will be further boosting Glory of Rome ..(ideally each city might have the workshop up before a lesser :P civ city would start building it ).

Songhai
+ Mud Pyramid Mosque - again like Egypt - 0 maintenance costs (:c5gold: per turn advantage).
+ Above average Policy acquisition rate [only behind France ICS but with better :c5gold: advantage]
++ triple :c5gold: pillage city once the war-machine of conquests starts rolling it quickly snowballs towards victory
+ typical ICS insures tons of horses - Mandukalu cav
+ 75 :c5gold: per barb camp becomes significant with ICS that allows to flood warriors/spearmen and clean a lot of them

Russia
+++double horses and iron [guaranteed] makes for loads of extra early :c5gold: [arabian bazzar's come much latter]
+++extra production from horse tiles and latter iron gives extra early edge

Arabia
++In order to make best use of the bazaar [med game] U must secure enough varied luxuries early - synergies well with ICS
+Late game huge area coverage [ICS + conquest] will guarantee - huge amounts of oil -> enough to sell for huge amounts of cash
+UA means roads [for meritocracy :c5happy:] become cost effective earlier ...

France
+++Best pre-industial policy acquisition rate [when it matters most] [by a far margin if puppets get the bonus culture from Ancien Regime :unsure:]

Persia
+Immortals(bronze working) and extended GA ...
+late extra happiness [banking?]

Germany
+build spearmen instead of warriors, excess iron could be potentially used to boost gold income - flood the map with strategic free, extra cheap, low maintenance Landsnecht
+chance to join per barb camp becomes significant with ICS that allows to flood spearmen and clean a lot of them ...

India
-double unhappiness from extra cities undoubtedly will slow down early ICS - but in the long run it will somewhat balance itself by allowing to grow some key cities without harsh happiness penalties - they also get some happiness back at castle tech - perhaps Honor will serve India better than Piety ?
+ the resource free ranged elephants can be a significant force

Will add the other civs latter - but the conclusion is obvious - ICS works well regardless of civ as long as the map allows for it [not backed into a corner start] ... - no early [turn 20+] dow dogpile ..

As for the original question between Egypt and Rome - I'm not certain which one is better at ICS and it might even be map dependant ...
I would also put Russia and Songhai up among the best for ICS - comparable to Egypt and Rome ...

A short exercise among the best EARLY :c5gold: bonused civs -> Egypt ,Russia & Songhai...Opening tech animal husbandry -> beeline iron working ...
Again fast 4 city opening ... liberty -> piety organized religion (4 temples(UB))


Egypt

saves +8 :c5gold: /turn from 4 burial tomb maintenance
gets +8 :c5happy: = salelable for extra +16 :c5gold: /turn
========
+24 extra :c5gold: /turn over a regular civ doing the same thing ...

*MAP INDEPENDENT

Rusia

Would need to connect(improve) 16 strategic resources (horses & iron) to be able to sell the free extra 16 doubled resources for 24 :c5gold: /per turn ...
(24 / (45/30=1.5 gold /per turn)= 16 ). 16 strategics among horses and iron is not unfeasible with 4 cities {you see horses with the last 3 settlers and iron with the last 1}

*add to that the fact that all those strategics will also add :c5production: and that some horses will be connected and thus saleable before temples go up [iron working delaying philosophy]
*temples provide 3 culture vs 2 culture of the Egyptian burial tomb

Thus Rusia is on most maps a strong competitor to Egypt when ICS sing ..

Songhai

saves +8 :c5gold: /turn 4 from mud pyramid mosque maintenance (again map independent)

Would need to clear 16 / (50 / 30) = 9.6 barb camps every 30 turns to keep up with Egypt - not really feasible [without raging barbs?] ....but not really far behind on most maps...

*the mud pyramid privides 4 vs 2 :c5culture: of Egypt burial tomb (8 :c5culture: /per turn advantage vs Egypt with 4 cities)
* as soon as you start conquering cities at a steady pace Songhai >>> All at :c5gold: generation


I would call those the top three civs for ICS fallowed by aggression

@peddroelm- May I suggest you write an ICS entry for the War Academy? Because that was a great ICS overview :goodjob:

Yes, India is the best ICS civ in the long run.
All the ones you listed are great though.

Don't promote ICS in the war academy, it's an inefficient strategy.