ICS, Civ V style

Right, this is the "abstain (on cities and SP) and then bloom" ICS approach, which while perhaps "pure ICS" as in the consistent 2 hex spaced grid, etc., is I would argue not "true" ICS in the original sense of the term: INCREMENTAL.

There are tradeoffs with the "abstain and then bloom" approach: you miss out on the lost raw (and improved) hex production otherwise acquired incrementally over the waiting period; you lack over the same period the military advantage of a growing matrix of of interlocking indirect fire platforms garrisoned by ranged units and backlined by melee traveling on a tight road mesh, with mounted for highly focused, targeted offensives and reconnaissance outside the grid; you miss out on an earlier start on the basic culture buildings necessary for SPs post-Order (if that is what you want) in the abstained cities; you have to either maintain clear or raze-clear territory for the bloom, requiring major aggressive military campaigns guaranteed to piss off the AI for loss of diplomatic flexibility; and then having to get up to speed a sudden rash of new cities all at once (although Order alleviates this).

The diplomatic benefits are worth noting: I am finding in my present America ICS trial game that I can delay the AI from turning mean by this truly incremental CS approach.

An ICS combined to specialist economy would be quite powerful if you would build Forgotten Palace and the Statue of Liberty, unlock Liberty tree and Socialism, Planned Economy and communism from the Order tree, Civil Society from the Freedom tree, and Secularism from the Rationalism tree.

Now you have a civilization that has no unhappiness from the number of cities while every specialist consumes only 1 food, produces half of unhappiness and has bonuses of +2 science and +1 hammer. You can have a specialist city of size of 8 (3-4 scientists, 3 merchants, 1-2 engineer, feed by CSs) with an unhappiness cost of a size 4 city working with tiles, and a specialist in that point is stronger than just about any tile in this game.

It's of course tricky to unlock all those social policies, but it's definitely possible. The trick is to stay small until policies are there and then explode.
 
How about speeding the build of FP? Stumbled into this in a current America ICS game. Build a workshop asap in an early city, assign an engineer and forget about it until banking. Your first GP should pop right before that tech, this should cut the build time for this all important ICS wonder in your still production weak cities by 5/6ths or so.

Of course a focused beeline to Banking using scientists for bulbing would get you an earlier start on the FP as compensation. But the long term tech rate snowballs well under ICS, and so scientists are marginally more inefficient overkill, while hammers are scarcer than flasks pre- communism and steam power. And I also play in the hope that scientists (and Babylon's UA) get the nerfing they deserve.

I don't want great engineer points, I want scientists! Every great engineer basically costs me a scientist! If i did get a great engineer, ironically the only wonder worth getting him for would be the statue of liberty.
 
well freedom is just 1 pick, which is probably worth 1.5 happy/city. That's a really good deal. Theocracy is about the same, but it costs 3 picks, and the first 2 don't do much for you. Meritoracy is only 1 happy/city, but the 2 policies before it (cheaper settlers, better workers) are also good.

As for specialists- they are extremely good, even without any boosts from policies. For one thing you can run them anywhere, even in the middle of a snowy wasteland. But also, let's do the math on scientists. A scientist produces 3 gpp, and it takes 100gpp to produce the first great scientist. So after 34 turns it produces a great scientist. If that scientist bulbs a tech worth 1000 beakers (a rennaisance era tech) then that scientist specialist was worth 29.4 beakers/turn! More than that even, when you consider that a lot of normal beakers are wasted in overflow. The 3 beakers he gets normally are almost irrelevant. Boosting his regular output from 3 beakers to 5 doesn't really matter much does it? Or the food bonus- food is free from maritime states.

As the great people get more expensive, techs also get more expensive, so the specialists are still amazing. You can also boost them with a garden. Let's say it takes 600gpp for a great scientist, and you've got a garden. So 600/4 = 150 turns for a great scientist, which can bulb a modern era tech worth 2500 or more. 2500/150 = 16.7 beakers/turn. They also produce 3/turn normally, so that's a total of 19.7. Secularism just boosts that to 21.7 per turn, which is a pretty small increase. That's why I run max scientists almost everywhere, even without any policies to boost them. I've never tried babylon, but I'm sure their science rate is just insane. Part of the reason this ICS strategy is so powerful is that scientists are so powerful, and you're mostly limited to just 2 or 3 scientists per city, no matter how big the city is.

I agree specialists are good. I just feel the need for them with a very strong base tech rate already. I'd rather have :hammer: (testing hammer picture: ok wrong hammer ^^)'s for synergising with Rome UA in stead of more science I don't really need (whereas I DO need hammers for temple/collosea)
 
pi-r8:

So... Modern Age, slightly lucky, slightly optimized size 24 city.

+2 hammers center tile
+4 hammers - 2 Fish Resources
+1 hammer - 1 Iron Resource
+3 hammer - 1 Plains Horse Resource
+18 hammers - 6 Lumber Mills
+9 hammers - 3 Hills
+ 6 hammers - 6 various Plains tiles (Wines, Farms, whatever)

43 base hammers.

Wow. That was better than I expected. Should be able to do lots of stuff with that. Better with Ironworks!

It's true. Without even really aiming for it, I had one city chucking out 59 hammers by the time I got my Spaceship built.
 
pi-r8:

Not so! 20 hammers is okay for small cities, but not okay for large cities! In fact, if all a 20-size city ever did was work Plains Farms, it would have 22 base production already!

By the time you get to Industrial, the benchmark should be 25-30 base, and 30+ once you get to Modern, with 40 base hammers being quite good.

I've outlined the basics of my normative Military Cities. They are capable of producing Tanks in 7 turns, without the benefit of Golden Age. By the time you roll into modern, you should have cities capable of producing Artillery in 6 turns flat.

In addition to Mines and Lumbermills, you get hammers from Plains, and each bonus strategic resource generally grants you +1 more hammer. Engineers after SoL also give +2 hammers per hired Specialist. Longhouses give you +1 hammer per Forest worked. Sea Ports give you +2 base hammers per Sea Resource worked.

So... Modern Age, slightly lucky, slightly optimized size 24 city.

+2 hammers center tile
+4 hammers - 2 Fish Resources
+1 hammer - 1 Iron Resource
+3 hammer - 1 Plains Horse Resource
+18 hammers - 6 Lumber Mills
+9 hammers - 3 Hills
+ 6 hammers - 6 various Plains tiles (Wines, Farms, whatever)

43 base hammers.

Wow. That was better than I expected. Should be able to do lots of stuff with that. Better with Ironworks!

size 24!!?? Where are you getting all those people from? That's a lot of food, and a lot of unhappiness. Even with a coloseum, theater, circus, and stadium you've still only got +15 happiness, so you basically need a second small city with those buildings just to support this one megacity. And if it's not working any trading posts then this city is really bleeding money, too.

I mean, 43 base hammers is good, sure. But even getting one city like this is tough, getting more than 1 almost impossible. Whereas I can easily have 10 size 4 cities with 20 hammers, which produce a unit in 10 or 15 turns. Wait 15 turns and you've got 10 units! I think that's a much better deal.
 
How about speeding the build of FP? Stumbled into this in a current America ICS game. Build a workshop asap in an early city, assign an engineer and forget about it until banking. Your first GP should pop right before that tech, this should cut the build time for this all important ICS wonder in your still production weak cities by 5/6ths or so.

Of course a focused beeline to Banking using scientists for bulbing would get you an earlier start on the FP as compensation. But the long term tech rate snowballs well under ICS, and so scientists are marginally more inefficient overkill, while hammers are scarcer than flasks pre- communism and steam power. And I also play in the hope that scientists (and Babylon's UA) get the nerfing they deserve.

I've never had any trouble getting the FP, even building it slowly. I think the AIs just don't prioritize that wonder at all. And getting an engineer that early means I have to stop making GSs until it finishes.
 
pi-r8:

Impossible? No. I'd had games where I had multiple cities over size 24. The biggest city I've had was size 35, I think. IIRC, I had two cities over size 30 in that game, and about 4 or 5 more between 24 and 30.

pi-r8 said:
size 24!!?? Where are you getting all those people from? That's a lot of food, and a lot of unhappiness. Even with a coloseum, theater, circus, and stadium you've still only got +15 happiness, so you basically need a second small city with those buildings just to support this one megacity. And if it's not working any trading posts then this city is really bleeding money, too.

It's a lot of food, I'll grant you that. Takes everything - Maritimes, Farms, Granaries, Water Mills. You name it. Need a hospital, too.

Benchmark for size 20 is about turn 260-280, so I reckon I regularly reach size 24 about turn 300-ish. That's comfortably about the time I get into Modern Era - mid 1800s or thereabouts.

I tech slowly, if you can't tell.

I'm not sure how I'm working out the unhappiness, but Meritocracy and Forbidden take care of two, and Theocracy takes care of about 5 more. Didn't build a Stadium so I'm looking at a net of -8, I guess. The luxies cover it fine. Ah, I have that policy that increases happiness from CS luxuries, so each lux counts as +7. One lux for each city, I'm thinking.

The tiles I outlined actually cover only 18 pop, and should produce about 27 food, plus two from the center tile. Two from Granary, two from Watermill, nine from Maritimes... need to work two more Grassland Farms to cover all food.

Spare 4 pop can go to Specialist Slots (Engineers for more hammers!) and with SoL produce +4 more base hammers. Also, gives +2 happy.

Money doesn't seem to be a problem until I go crazy building everything everywhere. I reckon that a city that large would be defraying the costs a bit from the trade route income.

pi-r8 said:
I mean, 43 base hammers is good, sure. But even getting one city like this is tough, getting more than 1 almost impossible. Whereas I can easily have 10 size 4 cities with 20 hammers, which produce a unit in 10 or 15 turns. Wait 15 turns and you've got 10 units! I think that's a much better deal.

20 hammers for a size 4 city is remarkable! I imagine you're doing that with some sort of policy deal. Communism? That's a pretty advanced and high-order policy. Need a bit of fancy playing to get you there with that many cities.

Cost you a fair bit in upkeep, too with 10 Colosseums and such. Of course, 20 hammers won't produce a 450 hammer Tank in 15 turns. 23 is how long I estimate it would take.

47 base hammers filtered through the +100% hammer multiplier setup gets you 94 hammers. Make a tank in 5 turns. No GA required.
 
I decided to try a game on deity without city states to show that ICS doesn't really need them to be effective. Here's a screen of the current status (note that I'm not in a golden age while at least one of the three big AIs most likely is)
 

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I've never had any trouble getting the FP, even building it slowly. I think the AIs just don't prioritize that wonder at all. And getting an engineer that early means I have to stop making GSs until it finishes.

Isn't the FP a National Wonder anyways?

Either way, ditto. Never been beaten to the FP, even building it fairly late.
 
Watch out if Alex moves to take out Darius.

My American attempt failed to a runaway Augustus, who took out a 11 city Japan on the opposite end of the pangaea in some 15 turns! And I had such high hopes on Oda acting as a brake. Once that fell it was game over. Wu was a complete compliant #$%^& for Augustus, mixing city placements together, permanent open borders, wouldn't deal much with me, full on AI human gangbang. Firaxis really needs to fix the diplomacy, and I don't think I am whining here, the Wu AI abandoned all sense of their own self preservation, as if they weren't next after me.

So I launched a Songhai revenge game on the collective AI. Augustus again (I get him in a lot a games). We'll see. See attached html replay (from what'stheirfacefool's script)

I decided to try a game on deity without city states to show that ICS doesn't really need them to be effective. Here's a screen of the current status (note that I'm not in a golden age while at least one of the three big AIs most likely is)
 
size 24!!?? Where are you getting all those people from? That's a lot of food, and a lot of unhappiness. Even with a coloseum, theater, circus, and stadium you've still only got +15 happiness, so you basically need a second small city with those buildings just to support this one megacity. And if it's not working any trading posts then this city is really bleeding money, too.

I mean, 43 base hammers is good, sure. But even getting one city like this is tough, getting more than 1 almost impossible. Whereas I can easily have 10 size 4 cities with 20 hammers, which produce a unit in 10 or 15 turns. Wait 15 turns and you've got 10 units! I think that's a much better deal.

Just to throw a little more material into the argument about how one can get away without ICS just fine even if you go for a 'large city' strategy, I present you these screenshots from my current game:


Spoiler :



Spoiler :


Huge Map, Fractal, Marathon speed game. Prince difficulty.

Granted, I could've won the game ages ago if I went on the offensive (or simply built the United Nations/Spaceship Parts), but I wanted to try a "builder's game" ala Civilization IV style in which one tries to build (almost) every single building + having my cities at a high population. The result is above. Of the approx 40 cities I have, about 30 of them are producing wealth as they have already finished building all possible buildings (with the exception of the Stable/Barracks/Walls which I don't really need, and Nuclear Plants since I didn't have enough Uranium), and even then I still have 59 happiness remaining. I'm currently researching something akin to my 11th Future Technology, as I'm able to finish researching it in 4 turns, even in Marathon. All cities, with the exception of four, are above 24 population.

How I went about this was me going after all the major happiness policies. Currently I have activated Meritocracy (Liberty, +1 happiness per trade route), Military Caste (Honor, -1 happiness for each City with Garrison), Theocracy (Piety, -20% Unhappiness produced by population in non-occupied Cities), Cultural Diplomacy (Patronage, Doubles amount of Resources gifted by City-States, and 50% increase to Happiness gained by gifted Luxury Resources), and unlocked Freedom (unlock to have -50% Unhappiness produced from Specialist Population).

The two biggest policies that allowed me to get my cities to such high population will probably have to be unlocking Freedom and having Theocracy from Piety. Freedom is EXTREMELY strong. Also keep in mind that I'm playing as the Songhai and NOT the Indians, for which this type of strategy would be even better.

The only reason I'm not going bankrupt from building tons of buildings even though I'm not trade-post spamming (I only built trade-posts on non-Rivered grasslands and deserts, the rest is all Farms, Mines and Lumbermills) is the fact that because my population is so high, I'm getting a lot of gold from trade income. Notice almost half of my income comes from Trade Routes.

Granted, I probably only got away with this because I was fortunate enough to be allied with tons of Maritime and Cultural city-states, plus the fact that under Marathon new cities only increase policy costs by 15%, and also the fact that I've built 90% of all wonders.

Still though, it's possible.
 
It's really not helpful to throw around huge numbers from turn 1000 (that must take a really long time) since the game is over long before then. The game I posted here ended about turn 250 (standard speed) which is turn 500 in marathon, right? And by the time it ended I was still getting almost as much gold and total production as this game.

And no matter how huge those numbers are, they'll always go higher if you add another city, even a completely junk city.
 
It's really not helpful to throw around huge numbers from turn 1000 (that must take a really long time) since the game is over long before then. The game I posted here ended about turn 250 (standard speed) which is turn 500 in marathon, right? And by the time it ended I was still getting almost as much gold and total production as this game.

And no matter how huge those numbers are, they'll always go higher if you add another city, even a completely junk city.

250 turns in standard speed is actually 750 turns in Marathon (or 625, I'm not too sure which, since when one consumes a Great Person for a Golden Age in Marathon it caps out at turns 8 when in Standard it caps at 3 turns), but point taken.

The point I wanted to make with those screenshots, however, is that you can get away with huge population cities just fine. A lot of people make the assumptions that having multiple huge population cities is a recipe for major unhappiness and hence disaster, but it just takes good management.
 
250 turns in standard speed is actually 750 turns in Marathon (or 625, I'm not too sure which, since when one consumes a Great Person for a Golden Age in Marathon it caps out at turns 8 when in Standard it caps at 3 turns), but point taken.

The point I wanted to make with those screenshots, however, is that you can get away with huge population cities just fine. A lot of people make the assumptions that having multiple huge population cities is a recipe for major unhappiness and hence disaster, but it just takes good management.

Sure it just takes 14 different social policies. That's my count of how many you have to unlock to get all the ones you're using. Very hard to get that many in a competitive game while expanding at the same time. You pretty much have to check with your expansion and stay with just a few cities for a long time.
 
Sure it just takes 14 different social policies. That's my count of how many you have to unlock to get all the ones you're using. Very hard to get that many in a competitive game while expanding at the same time. You pretty much have to check with your expansion and stay with just a few cities for a long time.

Actually, I can probably get away with a lot MORE cities had I beelined straight for just Theocracy and Freedom since those are two are the (in my opinion) two most powerful ones, not to mention you can unlock them faster than Order. Like I said earlier, I was doing a builder's game. As it stands, I've got more than 20 policies unlocked right now.

Also, with Huge Map/Marathon Speed games, you pretty much HAVE to expand aggressively with the way luxury resources are placed, and it encourages you in doing so because policy costs only increase by 15% for every new city. What this means is that even if all of your cities only have monument + temple (5 culture), you'll actually get new policies faster if you build more cities, similar to the way how the French gets policies faster for every city they have due to their unique ability.

To illustrate:

1 City = 7 c/t (+2 capital). 75 needed for first policy (marathon). 11 turns.
2 City = 12 c/t. 86.25 needed. 8 turns.
3 City = 17 c/t. 99.19 needed. 6 turns.

etc, etc


Notice in my screenshot I'm accumulating over 2000 culture/turn, and even with 20+ policies unlocked I can get a new policy in 18 turns... which translates to a new policy every 6 turns in standard speed (I just checked the xml files for marathon speed settings, and almost everything is triple'd, so Marathon speed is indeed 1500 turns). Of course, you can't do that in Standard speed because policy costs are increased by 30% per city under that speed setting.

Still though, I think the only reason why policy seems so hard to unlock in games is because people just don't build culture buildings very often. In fact, in ICS games you don't really have to because since cities are spaced so closely together you only need minimal culture producing buildings to have entire continents within your borders, which discourages producing culture, and henceforth taking forever to unlock policies.

For the record, I'm not arguing against the ICS strategy, and I do agree it's a strategy that people can take advantage of easily. What I'm trying to prove here is simply the fact that playing the game without Trade-Post spam and focusing on wider-spaced, population large cities is quite feasible if, and when, executed correctly.
 
Damn 1,000 turns...


What year are most of your guys ICS games ending in for a dom victory and for a diplo?
 
pi-r8:

If you're finishing the game in under 250 turns on Standard Speed, then all the modern techs and units are useless to you regardless of how long or short they take to create. You're taking the game as fast as you can through war, which has always been the fast, easy way to win. Arguably, you could just Horseman rush and not bother with infrastructure at all - that should be faster, right?

Getting big cities takes a significant amount of time, even if the growth mechanics did not require late Industrial Era techs to get to reasonable growth rates for bigger cities.

Consider, if it takes you 125 turns to get cities up to population 10, and it takes you just as long to get to population 20, then you'll still need turn 250 to get to pop 20. The balance is whether you want to put your population in small cities or in big ones. Small cities grow pop faster and harvest tiles faster, but they have bad production because you can't afford to put multipliers into them all, and they can't concentrate their hammers.

For the same reason, small city play tends to get less policies because you can't afford to put Opera Houses and Museums into every city to counter the policy penalty.

The upside? You just have to buy everything. Faster Science, Gold Economy. This should be a conscious trade-off. If you pursue this strategy, you should be prepared to rush-buy everything. To some extent, this has advantages, but this isn't the only way to play Civ V.
 
Roxlimn: Would you mind posting a (for want of a better term) "normal" game? I'd be interested in seeing a blow-by-blow (so to speak) of large production cities taking the game. :)
 
pi-r8:

If you're finishing the game in under 250 turns on Standard Speed, then all the modern techs and units are useless to you regardless of how long or short they take to create. You're taking the game as fast as you can through war, which has always been the fast, easy way to win. Arguably, you could just Horseman rush and not bother with infrastructure at all - that should be faster, right?

The entire tech tree can be researched in less than 200 turns without research agreements...this has already been demonstrated.

That changes the importance of modern techs and units in a domination game that takes 250 turns.
 
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