Greetings all.
Made a dedicated comeback to Civ 5, as I have been a a great follower of the Civ series. I would like to ask some questions so please bear with me - I tend to ellaborate
First things first, I tackle Emperor level game play with considerable success, without resorting to ICS tactics (pure or hybrid, although one may argue that a certain amount of ICSing is always involved if one undergoes an intensive city-spamming period). At any rate, I did not population-cap any of my cities.
Time to try out the famous (infamous?) ICS in truest form! Wanted to see if it is indeed as potent as claimed.
Decided to seek tips on Civfanatics fora and true to call, I happened upon some excellent input by Sulla, Pi-r8 and Alpaca (to name a few). I came to realise the potency of ICS and wanted to give it a try.
As I am a builder at heart, I opted to go the create 5 hub cities by turn 100 way, then consolidate by bulding them up, and at the same time rushed the Songkai and the Greeks, who shared the continet with me. Note, I played as China @ Huge map, Continents, 5 AIs & standard game speed. The rushing succeeded mainly due to a scout that luckily got upgaded to a rifleman through ruins mind you
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Anyway, once I was the sole master of my land mass, I eagerly went ahead with my own understanding of ICS. Already had Meritocracy and proceeded to cover the whole continent with my cities - gradually at first, then at explosive pace once I aquired Communism + pre-reqs. It worked and I was amazed by the returns I was seeing. Huge income, research and GS spawning very regularly.
To cut a long story short, I invaded the other continent and achieved a Dom victory at ~ 1860. Own cities exceeded 120, plus 50-odd puppets of the vanquished. Research over 3k and a final score of 5670!
I came to appeciate the power of the Paper Maker, Wu's fantastic generals and the usefulness of the CKN.
Thereafter I decided to tackle Immortal difficulty. Huge mess. Got handed my imperial behind on a platter in spectacular fashion - either out-teched, out-armied and/or rushed by trigger-happy AIs, too many to mention.
Enter Mongolia. And the Keshik/Khan combo. No ICS involved, purely Mongol terror. Domination victory by the 1600's and a game I thoroughly enjoyed as much as my China one - if not even more. And my first Immortal win!
Again, apologies for the long read. To my current predicament;
I am playing on Immortal level, huge map, small continents (I like large land masses coupled with an Archipelago feel), 8 AIs, 16 CS, as either France or the Ottomans - like the Jannissaries abilty. Both endeavours have gone awry.
Reasons: I play at epic game speed and as such, I am unfamiliar with timing benchmarks. As I pursue an ICS strategy, should I plop 5 cities by turn 150? Or should I go non-stop citying once I have meritocracy and forego the Order policies? Research is painfully slow as is production. It takes my best cities 20-30 rounds to construct Coloseums..
Money is also tight and the two Library specialists although vital for the strategy , stymie the growth/production of the cities although I let a city grow to at least 5 before engaging them.
Hence I would appreciate any feedback on how to best proceed. I seem to like epic speed for it allows a larger time window to enjoy certain units before they become outdated/obsolete.
Thanks for reading and for your replies.
PS.- This is not an ICS-for or anti post. I merely would like to fully explore its potential @ Immortal level, epic speed, pre-patch.