Hello everyone, it's been roughly a year since I wrote the ICS piety empire guide. I have played a fair bit since that time (about 500 hours or so) and my strategy has been enhanced since then. In general, i'm an ICS player and as such am always looking to developing more comprehensive ICS strategies. For now, i'll use this guide to relay to you all the ICS strategies I use in multiplayer.
Disclaimer: By no means is this guide made for competitive play. The strategy might or might not work depending on how good your opponents are. I do not play this game competitively. Still, this guide will teach you how to play ICS in public multiplayer games. Use your own judgement and experience to tailor it to your own skill level.
Now onward to the guide;
Infinity City Sprawl is a strategy which focuses on amassing a large amount of cities to be used in conjunction with either cultural policies or religious beliefs. Faith and production are the two main resources that benefit the most from having a large amount of cities. As such, there are in fact two main ways of playing Infinite City Sprawl. One is by building a production heavy empire, the other is by building a faith heavy one. Furthermore, the opening sequence in itself can differ based on your available resources, as you can get either food heavy or hammer heavy starts. As such, there are in total "4" different ICS builds. Knowing which sprawl to use is the first step in building the best possible empire.
I would also like to mention that Infinity City Sprawl can sometimes be synonymous with a wide empire (an empire with a lot of cities). For the sake of this guide, I shall use these two terms interchangeably. If one must make a proper distinction between these two, however, it could be argued that a wide empire is simply one with more than 4 cities, whereas an ICS empire is one which settles the maximum number of cities possible with the given number of happiness available (more on this later). Sometimes my play style can be described as "semi-ICS" as I choose to sometimes stop at 10 cities, instead of say 18. I will still refer to this as ICS, however, for simplicity's sake.
Generally you want to settle as many cities as possible as close to one another as possible. That means putting cities 3 tiles apart. If you put a city more than 3 tiles apart, the reward MUST be worth the extra 1 gold per turn you lose connecting that city to your capital. I.e putting a city on a hill is usually worth it. Putting a city closer to a natural wonder? Totally Worth it. Putting a city 1 tile further just for the sake of having an extra copy of a luxury you already have? To get cows? NOT worth it.
Game Details:
Map Size: Tiny and above.
Game Speed: Quick. (I don't play standard since I don't play Single Player, sorry)
Game Types: Pangaea/Fractal/Continents/Small Continents. (Anywhere with enough land to settle)
Top Tier: Ethiopia, Maya, Poland, Egypt, Arabia, Songhai
These Six CIVs are top tier ICS contenders due to their versatility or overall strength.
All five of these CIVs have something which the other CIV's lack; the ability to be played to the fullest regardless of type of sprawl. Byzantine, for instance, is a civilization that can only be played effectively in delayed sprawl (more on this later), so while it is extremely strong when you get the high food start you need, it is also extremely weak to borderline useless when you don't.
Mid Tier (Coastal): Byzantium, Indonesia, Japan, Carthage.
If you wish to build a coastal empire, nothing is better than a CIV with a coastal start bias. With that in mind, if you are indifferent between Coastal or Piety ICS, pick a top tier CIV instead.
Mid Tier (Piety Empire): Celts, Spain, Shoshone, Russia, Rome, Huns, Siam
Bottom Tier: Korea, Persia, Iroqious, Austria, Germany, China
Everything else: Not suited for ICS.
Note: Almost all CIVs listed here can be played as a coastal empire. The only reason I listed only 3 is because only those three had the coastal start bias promotion. Russia and the Huns, in specific, are great coastal empires despite not having the coastal bias.
The Four Types Of ICS:
As mentioned earlier, there are four main types of ICS that I have come up with. They are as follows:
You could argue that there "there are only really two", but because the first 80 or so turns play out completely different depending on what strategy you decide to use, I have decided to separate them into four different strategies.
Requirements: Coastal Start and two Hills or equivalent (Salt, hills with forest you can chop, etc) within reach of your capital. Enough room to settle 7-8 cities all on the coast.
This strategy has one aim; outproduce everybody in the game. Getting 300 hammers by turn 120 is usually your benchmark, although this varies on start. I usually aim for 1000 hammers by turn 200, assuming that the game is still ongoing by then. This strategy achieves this goal through a few primary factors:
Policies:
Faith Beliefs:
Buildings:
Build Order (Capital)
Build Order (Other cities)
Religious Policy Order
Pantheon: Anything that can speed up your religion. You should be able to get an extra 3 faith or more per turn from your pantheon, if you can't then you should get God of Craftsman or God of the Sea or God-King. I prefer God-King over God of Craftsman, unless I know i'll have an abundance of early game happiness to get my cities to 3 pop.
Founder Belief: Initiation Rights or Church Property. Initiation Rights is usually better with this strategy, but it might be already taken.
Follower Beliefs: Religious Community or Padogas. If you have 10+ faith output per turn, get Padogas. Else get religious community first.
Follower Belief (upgrade): Guruship, Religious Community, Padogas, or Ascetism.
Cultural Policy Order
Liberty Opener --> Republic --> Collective Rule --> Citizen ---> Meritocracy ---> Representation (delay for exploration/maritime/Naval)
Exploration --> Maritime Infrastructure ---> Naval Tradition
Representation --> Secularism ---> Humanism (Delay for Order, up to Worker Faculties) --> Free Thought (delay for Order, up to Worker Faculties)
Order: Social Realism --> Hero of the People --> Workers Faculties --> Young Pioneers --> Iron Curtain
Tech Order
Pottery --> Animal Husbandry --> Mining --> Luxury Tech --> Bronze Working --> Luxury Tech --> Beeline to Construction --> Writing --> Beeline to
Workshops ---> Sailing ---> Optics ---> Compass ---> Beeline to Education --> Astronomy ---> Navigation
Tech order focuses on getting the empire started, amassing huge production as soon as possible from workshops + Cargo ship trade routes from workshops. Then it proceeds to use the high production to build a superior navy.
Beeline to Industrialization --> Beeline to Public Schools --> Beeline to Chemistry --> Beeline to Public Schools --> Beeline to Refrideration (if fighting naval wars) else beeline to Railroads--> Beeline to Plastics --> Beeline to Railroads (if havn't done so already)
Mid game tech order focuses more on research. Industrialization is gotten first as it allows for 3 factories -> Order (super important). Key naval and production techs are prioritized, too.
Beeline to either Nuclear Fission or Nanotechnology. Depends if you want to build a nice capital collection or nuke everything to death. You should easily be able to build 1-2 nukes per turn.
In general, this build focuses on production and science. A bit more emphasis is placed on science, since more science allows you to build better units, increasing the effective strength of your insanely high production.
To play properly, try to isolate yourself off. If you're playing on a map which allows for coastal ICS, this shouldn't be too hard. You might have to invade your neighbor early on with a composite bow rush, however. Once you've isolated yourself, keep growing your cities. Once you have Frigades, you should be able to disband most of your army in favor of a navy and proceed to A) win the game by frig rushing everybody. B) keep stalling for more production. By late game, you should have such an absurd production that you can build everything you ever wish for and more than winning should be relatively easy.
Early game, you want to get your basic units out (worker/scout) and then spam settlers from your capital like a madman. Settle as many coastal tiles as you can. You shouldn't bother settling inland tiles unless they happen to be too enticing to pass up (2+ luxuries, or a natural wonder). Build an archer army if you have to take out a person nearby, then the demand tribute function from city states to get gold to upgrade your archers to composites. If you don't have to invade, just focus on building infrastructure. Keep spamming cities until you hit -5 or so unhappiness, in which case you should stop and build infrastructure/units in capital. Start building settlers once you fix your unhappiness problem, either through road network happiness from liberty, padogas, mercantile city state, other luxuries you found that you can settle, etc. Generally you want to build 3 cargo ships 10 turns before you get your workshop. Then send them to capital. Once you build workshop in capital, you can immediately get 26 extra production from the cargo ships. That's ALOT of production early game. Whenever you get another cargoship, connect it to another city for more production.
Mid to late game you want to keep enough units to keep yourself safe, but not too many that it causes you to go bankrupt. Keep an eye on demographics. You generally want to aim for top 3 in military units. Beware of upgrade rushes, however! Outdated units count for little in demographics, so if someone upgrades their entire army of cannons into artillery, they'd be going from "50,000" to "90,000" on demographics in a turn. Eventually your cities will hit critical load where they've built all the things they need to build so only building units are left. Use this time to amass a large standing army.
Late game is when it's the easiest to win. Using a great scientist bulb to Nanotechnology is a quick way of finishing the game. With 600+ production, you can spam out two to three XCOMs per turn which will arrive with overnight delivery on the enemy's capital. At this point you could probably declare war on everybody on the map seeing as you already have a large standing army/navy as well as enough production for XCOM capital stealing.
I feel that the term "cheesing" is the proper term that can be used to describe what this playstyle is all about. You sacrifice science and gold all in favor of the holy lord. Faith, not gold, is the currency in this empire and with reformation beliefs, you decide what to buy. This build is as versatile as it is annoying to deal with for the enemy. Your production keeps aggressors at bay. Your cities aren't worth taking and quite frankly there is just too many of them to deal with. Yet as long as the cities remain in your empire, you're getting massive benefit due to faith.
These are this strategies key policies, buildings, and beliefs:
Policies:
Faith Beliefs:
Buildings:
The piety empire hinges on reformation beliefs, namely Heathen Conversion, Jesuit Education, Sacred Sites, and To the Glory of God, to bring you to victory.
Reformation Beliefs and their Uses
Heathen Conversion:
At first glance this policy looks underwhelming. "Why would I get this just to convert a barbarian warrior in a camp?" you might ask. The answer is that it can do a WHOLE lot more if played right. First of all, you can station a missionary two tiles away from a barb camp and convert any unit that spawns in barb camps to your side. Barbarians tend to spawn better units as the era progress, so you'll be getting a "modern" army for free! Raging barbarians? Even better. Free Units every turn. 5 barbarian camps? Might as well be 5 cities. Cities that produce units. Need a navy? Sail a missionary to a secluded barbarian island. Upgrade all the free boats they give you. The possibilities are endless.
BUT WAIT! There's more! Ever wish you could take over every single city on the map and annex it? I know you have. Only problem is the unhappiness problem. With Heathen Conversion, your unhappiness problem turns into a unit factory! Once you hit -10 unhappiness, "rebels' spawn in your borders once every 2-5 turns. These rebels happen to be barbarians. Simply by moving a missionary into position, you convert those pesky rebels into hard working military units! Be warned, even though you are getting free units, you still have to pay gold for their upkeep. Also going beyond -10 unhappiness gives little to no added benefit. Barbarians still spawn at the same rate and in the same numbers. But each unhappiness reduces the combat effectiveness of your army. As such, its generally advised to keep yourself at -10 or as close to -10 unhappiness as possible when doing this strategy. Still, I've gone as high as -60 and had little issue. Free units every turn is just that good for a domination victory.
Jesuit Education:
Probably the only thing better than free units is free universities. And public schools. And research labs. Jesuit Education with 100 faith per turn might as well read "free universities, public schools, and research labs in all your cities upon researching the required tech". This belief allows you to buy science buildings (aside from libraries) with faith. It's 100 faith for a university, 210 faith for a public school, 320 faith for a research lab. This is a comparatively low amount when you have 10+ cities. Assuming you have shrines + padogas in each city, you're already generating +1 from shrines +1 from piety (shrines get +1), +2 from padogas = 4 faith per turn. That's 40 faith per turn already! Add in Mosques for another 30, or monestaries/cathedrals for another 20. Then factor in any unique building faith bonuses, such as Mayas +1 from shrines or Ethiopas +2 from monuments. Or perhaps Arabias desert folklore for another 20. Getting 100 faith per turn becomes incredibly easy.
In essence, you save up faith and spawn great prophets. You plant them for more faith until you hit the research tech. Then you buy all the research buildings in all your cities for 1000 to 3200 faith. Once you hit industrial you stop spawning great prophets so you can save the required faith amount for the moment you hit the research techs. The moment you do, you just mass buy all the research buildings.
Best part about this is the fact that with 10 cities, each working great scientist slots, you can generate a MASSIVE amount of great scientists over the course of the game. Turn 150 or so you begin spawning a great scientist every 5 or so turns. Then once you hit either Public Schools or Research Labs, you can wait 8 turns and then bulb all your great scientists at once. Getting 8000 beakers per scientist can easily put you at any late game tech you want *cough* XCOMs *cough*. Likewise does this strategy allow you to generate science even if all your cities are building units for war. You buy buildings with faith, not gold, so even if you're not building anything productive, all your cities still get maxed science buildings.
Sacred Sites:
This belief is by far the essence of cheese. Likewise is it the only way to actually win a culture victory in multiplayer (nobody is going to trade you great works of art). +2 tourism per building purchased with faith quickly gets out of hand when you have 15 cities with two buildings each. That's 60 tourism per turn! On turn 90! People simply won't have the defensive culture up to counter this. Only problem is meeting all the CIVs by then.
On Pangaea/Fractal/Oval maps, you can use 2-3 scouts to find all the CIVs by the time you get Sacred Sites, so it shouldn't be a problem. The only way to make this strategy work on continent type maps, however, is using Maya. You can beeline to Theology and get a great admiral fairly early on. Then just sail the admiral away, avoiding coastal tiles as much as possible (barbarians autokill admiral, but can't sail ocean tiles). Once you meet everybody, you can spread your tourism to them.
This is an "all-in" strategy, however. If you don't win cultural victory by turn 150, you're probably going to lose. Your science is going to be in shambles because of your 15 cities and lack of population. As such, you should only attempt this strategy when you know you can find every CIV in time for Sacred Relics, and have enough happiness to found 15 cities. (this usually requires luxury trading/allying city states)
Still, it is possible to win even if your initial cultural push fails. Using Autocracy's futurism (+250 tourism per great artist/musician/writer spawned) in conjunction with delayed building of Guilds until you have futurism researched, you can tourism nuke all the civs on the map for 750 tourism every 10, 14, 16, 20 turns..(time it takes to generate a set of great people). You can also use great musicians to further nuke any stragglers.
Likewise you can dip into order for a 67 percent tourism modifier. You can use the fact that you have dominant culture with more CIVs to force them to adopt Order. You can also just plain out invade any cultural stragglers and win a pseudo-cultural victory.
Another thing you can abuse to your advantage is your 6-10 holy sites that are going to be spawned throughout the game. Place them all around one city then build an airport/hotel in that city. That city in itself should generate 20-40 tourism.
To the Glory of God:
This policy no longer adds to great person counter, making it a REALLY STRONG belief. Use Great Writers to max out the order track, and you have yourself an unstoppable empire. Then use great engineers to build key wonders, great scientists to further advance in the track, and great artists to always be in a golden age. A really great belief, overall.
Another strategy one might use is to use Freedom's "New Deal" (Adds +4 to each great person tile) and plant all your great people. You would then use Freedom's Civil Society and Universal Sufferage (specialists consume half food/half happiness) to build a really TALL really WIDE empire with a massive amount of high yielding tiles. This is probably the best use of this belief. It's fun having 10 20 population cities when everybody else has only 3.
Build Order (Capital)
Build Order (Other Cities)
Building order is relatively the same for all your cities. Emphasis on faith, not dying to your enemies, growing your cities to their maximum allotted size (more on this later). Less emphasis on production compared to coastal empire. (you're using faith to get most of the stuff you need.)
Religious Build Order
Unlike the coastal empire, you're going to be using your faith as a resource (much in the same way you would hammers), so a build order for faith is in needed.
Religious Policy Order
Pantheon: I usually take To the Glory of God. Gets your religion faster and helps your early sprawl (due to the production). If you have access to more faith, however, get that pantheon instead. (desert folklore, +1 faith from copper, etc.)
Founder Belief: Initiation Rights or Church Property. Initiation Rights is still better.
Follower Beliefs: Padogas. If you can't get them, get Mosques. If you can't get Mosques, get Cathedrals.
Follower Belief (upgrade): Mosques, Cathedrals, Monestaries. You need the culture from these buildings almost as much as you need the happiness. Which is why we don't get Ascetism. +1 happiness is nothing compared to +1 happiness, +3 faith, and +2 culture which mosque delivers. In general, you want both buildings as well, since it allows for 100+ faith per turn to cheese with reformation beliefs)
OUT OF ROOM
Disclaimer: By no means is this guide made for competitive play. The strategy might or might not work depending on how good your opponents are. I do not play this game competitively. Still, this guide will teach you how to play ICS in public multiplayer games. Use your own judgement and experience to tailor it to your own skill level.
Now onward to the guide;
Introduction: What is Infinity City Sprawl?
Infinity City Sprawl is a strategy which focuses on amassing a large amount of cities to be used in conjunction with either cultural policies or religious beliefs. Faith and production are the two main resources that benefit the most from having a large amount of cities. As such, there are in fact two main ways of playing Infinite City Sprawl. One is by building a production heavy empire, the other is by building a faith heavy one. Furthermore, the opening sequence in itself can differ based on your available resources, as you can get either food heavy or hammer heavy starts. As such, there are in total "4" different ICS builds. Knowing which sprawl to use is the first step in building the best possible empire.
I would also like to mention that Infinity City Sprawl can sometimes be synonymous with a wide empire (an empire with a lot of cities). For the sake of this guide, I shall use these two terms interchangeably. If one must make a proper distinction between these two, however, it could be argued that a wide empire is simply one with more than 4 cities, whereas an ICS empire is one which settles the maximum number of cities possible with the given number of happiness available (more on this later). Sometimes my play style can be described as "semi-ICS" as I choose to sometimes stop at 10 cities, instead of say 18. I will still refer to this as ICS, however, for simplicity's sake.
Generally you want to settle as many cities as possible as close to one another as possible. That means putting cities 3 tiles apart. If you put a city more than 3 tiles apart, the reward MUST be worth the extra 1 gold per turn you lose connecting that city to your capital. I.e putting a city on a hill is usually worth it. Putting a city closer to a natural wonder? Totally Worth it. Putting a city 1 tile further just for the sake of having an extra copy of a luxury you already have? To get cows? NOT worth it.
Game Details:
Map Size: Tiny and above.
Game Speed: Quick. (I don't play standard since I don't play Single Player, sorry)
Game Types: Pangaea/Fractal/Continents/Small Continents. (Anywhere with enough land to settle)
What are the best CIVs to ICS with?
Top Tier: Ethiopia, Maya, Poland, Egypt, Arabia, Songhai
These Six CIVs are top tier ICS contenders due to their versatility or overall strength.
- Ethiopia can spam Steles for one of the fastest religions in the game.
- Maya can spam Shrines for massive early game science and faith. The free great person really help their early to mid game out, even at the expense of their late game.
- Poland can acquire key ICS policies quicker (but still cannot into space)
- Egypt can spam Burial Tombs for massive happiness and faith.
- Songhai's temple is a weaker version of Egypt's, but is still good. I'd pick Egypt over Songhai 100 percent of the time, but if Egypt is taken then this still a top tier choice.
- Arabia can spam Camel Archers/Bazaars and use the absurdly powerful desert folklore in most games.
All five of these CIVs have something which the other CIV's lack; the ability to be played to the fullest regardless of type of sprawl. Byzantine, for instance, is a civilization that can only be played effectively in delayed sprawl (more on this later), so while it is extremely strong when you get the high food start you need, it is also extremely weak to borderline useless when you don't.
Mid Tier (Coastal): Byzantium, Indonesia, Japan, Carthage.
If you wish to build a coastal empire, nothing is better than a CIV with a coastal start bias. With that in mind, if you are indifferent between Coastal or Piety ICS, pick a top tier CIV instead.
- Byzantium has the added benefit of getting multiple production pantheons
- Indonesia can snag extra happiness by settling on a different continent/island
- Japans finishing boat culture + free fishing boats from Samurais, and Carthage free Harbors all help your early game when sprawling on the coast.
Mid Tier (Piety Empire): Celts, Spain, Shoshone, Russia, Rome, Huns, Siam
- The Celts can acquire a fast religion, the only problem is that they are too reliant on forests, much like Arabia is to desert. This, coupled with the fact that forests slow down sprawl by hindering settler movement speed, results in them being downgraded. (Arabias deserts actually make sprawling easier, despite being as luck reliant as forests).
-
- Spain with One with Nature for early faith is OP, but is far too luck reliant to be considered top tier.
- Shoshone have great early game expansion but lack the faith engine (aside from turn 30 onward faith ruins) or production to be considered top tier.
- Russia's extra hammers bonus is amazing at ICS, but the tundra start as well as a lack of a good unique building for ICS makes it a good, but not amazing CIV.
- Huns: A much better version of Russia for ICS. The extra hammers go nicely with spamming shrines for a quick religion. The lack of a unique building is a downside, however. Still, this is an amazing CIV to play if you want to faceroll somebody.
- Rome: A bit weak due to a lack of a unique building and the fact that their unique units aren't as good in BNW as they were in earlier expansions. The unique ability, however, gives it some credibility for ICS
- Siam: A bit reliant on allying a faith city state, but when you do it sure pays off. Do whatever it takes to ally city states. Mid game, the culture you get from your universities also helps out in blazing through the tech tree.
Bottom Tier: Korea, Persia, Iroqious, Austria, Germany, China
- Korea's benefit is amazing once you get great person slots in all your cities, problem is that the benefit comes a bit too late. It also requires heavy infrastructure building which might not happen due to invasion. When it works, however, the payoff is HUGE. 10+ cities each working great scientist slots can produce a lot of science per turn.
- Persia's Satrap Court +2 happiness was to die for back in GnK. Now, due to the lack of tile gold, Bank and Market improvements have fallen in build priority, and with it the Satrap Court. This is still a great building but Persia has very little ways of getting an early great prophet aside from doing the delayed ICS strategy. Much like Korea, the ICS bonus comes far too late.
- Iroqious would be a wonderful CIV if only forests didn't hinder settler movement. While this problem is less than the Celts (due to forests inside your borders acting as roads), fact of the matter remains that Iroqious have no real way of generating early faith (unlike the Celts) Likewise does this unique building come a bit late, especially in the piety build order. Their unique unit is also pretty worthless aside from undefended cities. A composite bowmen or two would usually spell death for your entire army.
- Austria's coffee house is nice late game, but that's about it.
- Germany likewise suffers in Austria's weakness. The Hanse, while being ridiculously strong mid-late game, requires too much infrastructure to build up. This limits Germany's play to delayed ICS. In multiplayer, the Hanse can be completely countered by embargo city states or pillaging your trade routes, so there is that. Still, this is by far one of the strongest low tier civs - I was almost tempted to include it into mid tier.
- China is a decent CIV, but the only way to play it wide is to do a delayed ICS. You can't just spam out libraries early game, you have better stuff to build. And by the time you do spam them out, you've already gotten the gold from your religion. Still, it's a nice bonus, but once again, it doesn't give you a quick religion.
Everything else: Not suited for ICS.
Note: Almost all CIVs listed here can be played as a coastal empire. The only reason I listed only 3 is because only those three had the coastal start bias promotion. Russia and the Huns, in specific, are great coastal empires despite not having the coastal bias.
The Four Types Of ICS:
As mentioned earlier, there are four main types of ICS that I have come up with. They are as follows:
- ICS Coastal Empire
- ICS Piety Empire
- ICS Coastal Empire (Delayed Sprawl)
- ICS Piety Empire (Delayed Sprawl)
You could argue that there "there are only really two", but because the first 80 or so turns play out completely different depending on what strategy you decide to use, I have decided to separate them into four different strategies.
ICS Coastal Empire -The Production Empire-
Requirements: Coastal Start and two Hills or equivalent (Salt, hills with forest you can chop, etc) within reach of your capital. Enough room to settle 7-8 cities all on the coast.
This strategy has one aim; outproduce everybody in the game. Getting 300 hammers by turn 120 is usually your benchmark, although this varies on start. I usually aim for 1000 hammers by turn 200, assuming that the game is still ongoing by then. This strategy achieves this goal through a few primary factors:
Policies:
- Maritime Infrastructure (+3 hammers per city)
- Republic (+1 hammer per city)
- 5 year plan (+2 hammer per city)
- Iron Curtain (+25% production to cargo ship yield)
- Party Leadership (+1 hammer per city)
Faith Beliefs:
- God of Craftsman: (+1 production per city of 3 pop)
- God of Sea (+1 production per fishing boat)
- Guruship (+2 production if specialist worked)
- Religious Community (+1% production per believer in city up to 15%)
Buildings:
- Workshop
- Factory
- Water mill
- Cargo Ship (can deliver +production to cities if directed from a city with a workshop build)
Build Order (Capital)
- Monument
- Scout
- Shrine
- Worker
- Settler (you should have collective rule by now, if not build a scout to steal city state workers)
- Spam Settlers (until you hit -4 or so unhappiness, including the happiness luxuries would give once connected)
- Archer/Composite (as needed)
- Colosseum
- Library
- Workshop/Cargo Ship (Send Cargo Ships to other cities for production)
- From then on, prioritize Units (enough to keep you safe, or win a war)
- Happiness buildings
- Science Buildings
- Production Buildings (including Cargo Ships)
- Food buildings (if you have too much excess happiness)
- Gold production buildings
Build Order (Other cities)
- Shrine/Monument
- Shrine/monument (Shrine if Maya, monument if Ethiopa first. All other Civs, shrine first)
- Archer/Composite
- Colosseum.
- Workshop
- Library
- From then on, prioritize same thing as in the capital (except cargo ships, these cities tend to take too long to build one early on.)
Religious Policy Order
Pantheon: Anything that can speed up your religion. You should be able to get an extra 3 faith or more per turn from your pantheon, if you can't then you should get God of Craftsman or God of the Sea or God-King. I prefer God-King over God of Craftsman, unless I know i'll have an abundance of early game happiness to get my cities to 3 pop.
Founder Belief: Initiation Rights or Church Property. Initiation Rights is usually better with this strategy, but it might be already taken.
Follower Beliefs: Religious Community or Padogas. If you have 10+ faith output per turn, get Padogas. Else get religious community first.
Follower Belief (upgrade): Guruship, Religious Community, Padogas, or Ascetism.
Cultural Policy Order
Liberty Opener --> Republic --> Collective Rule --> Citizen ---> Meritocracy ---> Representation (delay for exploration/maritime/Naval)
Exploration --> Maritime Infrastructure ---> Naval Tradition
Representation --> Secularism ---> Humanism (Delay for Order, up to Worker Faculties) --> Free Thought (delay for Order, up to Worker Faculties)
Order: Social Realism --> Hero of the People --> Workers Faculties --> Young Pioneers --> Iron Curtain
Tech Order
Pottery --> Animal Husbandry --> Mining --> Luxury Tech --> Bronze Working --> Luxury Tech --> Beeline to Construction --> Writing --> Beeline to
Workshops ---> Sailing ---> Optics ---> Compass ---> Beeline to Education --> Astronomy ---> Navigation
Tech order focuses on getting the empire started, amassing huge production as soon as possible from workshops + Cargo ship trade routes from workshops. Then it proceeds to use the high production to build a superior navy.
Beeline to Industrialization --> Beeline to Public Schools --> Beeline to Chemistry --> Beeline to Public Schools --> Beeline to Refrideration (if fighting naval wars) else beeline to Railroads--> Beeline to Plastics --> Beeline to Railroads (if havn't done so already)
Mid game tech order focuses more on research. Industrialization is gotten first as it allows for 3 factories -> Order (super important). Key naval and production techs are prioritized, too.
Beeline to either Nuclear Fission or Nanotechnology. Depends if you want to build a nice capital collection or nuke everything to death. You should easily be able to build 1-2 nukes per turn.
In general, this build focuses on production and science. A bit more emphasis is placed on science, since more science allows you to build better units, increasing the effective strength of your insanely high production.
To play properly, try to isolate yourself off. If you're playing on a map which allows for coastal ICS, this shouldn't be too hard. You might have to invade your neighbor early on with a composite bow rush, however. Once you've isolated yourself, keep growing your cities. Once you have Frigades, you should be able to disband most of your army in favor of a navy and proceed to A) win the game by frig rushing everybody. B) keep stalling for more production. By late game, you should have such an absurd production that you can build everything you ever wish for and more than winning should be relatively easy.
Early game, you want to get your basic units out (worker/scout) and then spam settlers from your capital like a madman. Settle as many coastal tiles as you can. You shouldn't bother settling inland tiles unless they happen to be too enticing to pass up (2+ luxuries, or a natural wonder). Build an archer army if you have to take out a person nearby, then the demand tribute function from city states to get gold to upgrade your archers to composites. If you don't have to invade, just focus on building infrastructure. Keep spamming cities until you hit -5 or so unhappiness, in which case you should stop and build infrastructure/units in capital. Start building settlers once you fix your unhappiness problem, either through road network happiness from liberty, padogas, mercantile city state, other luxuries you found that you can settle, etc. Generally you want to build 3 cargo ships 10 turns before you get your workshop. Then send them to capital. Once you build workshop in capital, you can immediately get 26 extra production from the cargo ships. That's ALOT of production early game. Whenever you get another cargoship, connect it to another city for more production.
Mid to late game you want to keep enough units to keep yourself safe, but not too many that it causes you to go bankrupt. Keep an eye on demographics. You generally want to aim for top 3 in military units. Beware of upgrade rushes, however! Outdated units count for little in demographics, so if someone upgrades their entire army of cannons into artillery, they'd be going from "50,000" to "90,000" on demographics in a turn. Eventually your cities will hit critical load where they've built all the things they need to build so only building units are left. Use this time to amass a large standing army.
Late game is when it's the easiest to win. Using a great scientist bulb to Nanotechnology is a quick way of finishing the game. With 600+ production, you can spam out two to three XCOMs per turn which will arrive with overnight delivery on the enemy's capital. At this point you could probably declare war on everybody on the map seeing as you already have a large standing army/navy as well as enough production for XCOM capital stealing.
ICS Piety Empire -The Cheesing Empire-
I feel that the term "cheesing" is the proper term that can be used to describe what this playstyle is all about. You sacrifice science and gold all in favor of the holy lord. Faith, not gold, is the currency in this empire and with reformation beliefs, you decide what to buy. This build is as versatile as it is annoying to deal with for the enemy. Your production keeps aggressors at bay. Your cities aren't worth taking and quite frankly there is just too many of them to deal with. Yet as long as the cities remain in your empire, you're getting massive benefit due to faith.
These are this strategies key policies, buildings, and beliefs:
Policies:
- Collective Rule
- Piety Opener
- Organized Religion
- Mandate of Heaven
- Reformation
Faith Beliefs:
- God-King (+1 to faith, culture, food, gold, production in capital)
- Pilgrimage (if you think you can spread it)
- Mosque
- Padogas
- Cathedral
- Monestary
Buildings:
- Shrine (+1 faith per city)
- Padoga (+2 faith, culture, happiness per city)
- Mosque (+3 faith, +2 culture, +1 happiness per city)
- Monestary (+2 culture, faith per city)
- Cathedral (+1 happiness, +1 culture, +2 faith per city)
The piety empire hinges on reformation beliefs, namely Heathen Conversion, Jesuit Education, Sacred Sites, and To the Glory of God, to bring you to victory.
Reformation Beliefs and their Uses
Heathen Conversion:
At first glance this policy looks underwhelming. "Why would I get this just to convert a barbarian warrior in a camp?" you might ask. The answer is that it can do a WHOLE lot more if played right. First of all, you can station a missionary two tiles away from a barb camp and convert any unit that spawns in barb camps to your side. Barbarians tend to spawn better units as the era progress, so you'll be getting a "modern" army for free! Raging barbarians? Even better. Free Units every turn. 5 barbarian camps? Might as well be 5 cities. Cities that produce units. Need a navy? Sail a missionary to a secluded barbarian island. Upgrade all the free boats they give you. The possibilities are endless.
BUT WAIT! There's more! Ever wish you could take over every single city on the map and annex it? I know you have. Only problem is the unhappiness problem. With Heathen Conversion, your unhappiness problem turns into a unit factory! Once you hit -10 unhappiness, "rebels' spawn in your borders once every 2-5 turns. These rebels happen to be barbarians. Simply by moving a missionary into position, you convert those pesky rebels into hard working military units! Be warned, even though you are getting free units, you still have to pay gold for their upkeep. Also going beyond -10 unhappiness gives little to no added benefit. Barbarians still spawn at the same rate and in the same numbers. But each unhappiness reduces the combat effectiveness of your army. As such, its generally advised to keep yourself at -10 or as close to -10 unhappiness as possible when doing this strategy. Still, I've gone as high as -60 and had little issue. Free units every turn is just that good for a domination victory.
Jesuit Education:
Probably the only thing better than free units is free universities. And public schools. And research labs. Jesuit Education with 100 faith per turn might as well read "free universities, public schools, and research labs in all your cities upon researching the required tech". This belief allows you to buy science buildings (aside from libraries) with faith. It's 100 faith for a university, 210 faith for a public school, 320 faith for a research lab. This is a comparatively low amount when you have 10+ cities. Assuming you have shrines + padogas in each city, you're already generating +1 from shrines +1 from piety (shrines get +1), +2 from padogas = 4 faith per turn. That's 40 faith per turn already! Add in Mosques for another 30, or monestaries/cathedrals for another 20. Then factor in any unique building faith bonuses, such as Mayas +1 from shrines or Ethiopas +2 from monuments. Or perhaps Arabias desert folklore for another 20. Getting 100 faith per turn becomes incredibly easy.
In essence, you save up faith and spawn great prophets. You plant them for more faith until you hit the research tech. Then you buy all the research buildings in all your cities for 1000 to 3200 faith. Once you hit industrial you stop spawning great prophets so you can save the required faith amount for the moment you hit the research techs. The moment you do, you just mass buy all the research buildings.
Best part about this is the fact that with 10 cities, each working great scientist slots, you can generate a MASSIVE amount of great scientists over the course of the game. Turn 150 or so you begin spawning a great scientist every 5 or so turns. Then once you hit either Public Schools or Research Labs, you can wait 8 turns and then bulb all your great scientists at once. Getting 8000 beakers per scientist can easily put you at any late game tech you want *cough* XCOMs *cough*. Likewise does this strategy allow you to generate science even if all your cities are building units for war. You buy buildings with faith, not gold, so even if you're not building anything productive, all your cities still get maxed science buildings.
Sacred Sites:
This belief is by far the essence of cheese. Likewise is it the only way to actually win a culture victory in multiplayer (nobody is going to trade you great works of art). +2 tourism per building purchased with faith quickly gets out of hand when you have 15 cities with two buildings each. That's 60 tourism per turn! On turn 90! People simply won't have the defensive culture up to counter this. Only problem is meeting all the CIVs by then.
On Pangaea/Fractal/Oval maps, you can use 2-3 scouts to find all the CIVs by the time you get Sacred Sites, so it shouldn't be a problem. The only way to make this strategy work on continent type maps, however, is using Maya. You can beeline to Theology and get a great admiral fairly early on. Then just sail the admiral away, avoiding coastal tiles as much as possible (barbarians autokill admiral, but can't sail ocean tiles). Once you meet everybody, you can spread your tourism to them.
This is an "all-in" strategy, however. If you don't win cultural victory by turn 150, you're probably going to lose. Your science is going to be in shambles because of your 15 cities and lack of population. As such, you should only attempt this strategy when you know you can find every CIV in time for Sacred Relics, and have enough happiness to found 15 cities. (this usually requires luxury trading/allying city states)
Still, it is possible to win even if your initial cultural push fails. Using Autocracy's futurism (+250 tourism per great artist/musician/writer spawned) in conjunction with delayed building of Guilds until you have futurism researched, you can tourism nuke all the civs on the map for 750 tourism every 10, 14, 16, 20 turns..(time it takes to generate a set of great people). You can also use great musicians to further nuke any stragglers.
Likewise you can dip into order for a 67 percent tourism modifier. You can use the fact that you have dominant culture with more CIVs to force them to adopt Order. You can also just plain out invade any cultural stragglers and win a pseudo-cultural victory.
Another thing you can abuse to your advantage is your 6-10 holy sites that are going to be spawned throughout the game. Place them all around one city then build an airport/hotel in that city. That city in itself should generate 20-40 tourism.
To the Glory of God:
This policy no longer adds to great person counter, making it a REALLY STRONG belief. Use Great Writers to max out the order track, and you have yourself an unstoppable empire. Then use great engineers to build key wonders, great scientists to further advance in the track, and great artists to always be in a golden age. A really great belief, overall.
Another strategy one might use is to use Freedom's "New Deal" (Adds +4 to each great person tile) and plant all your great people. You would then use Freedom's Civil Society and Universal Sufferage (specialists consume half food/half happiness) to build a really TALL really WIDE empire with a massive amount of high yielding tiles. This is probably the best use of this belief. It's fun having 10 20 population cities when everybody else has only 3.
Build Order (Capital)
- Monument
- Shrine
- Scout
- Worker
- Scout
- Settler (Start spamming settlers, keep spamming until you hit -5 or so unhappiness. With this strategy you want to make sure that you end up at 0 happiness the moment padogas become available. Stay at 0 happiness until all cities grow to their maximum size. If you get back to 4 happiness, build another settler)
- Archer/composite (build as needed, sometimes in between Settlers)
- Colleseum
- Units to maintain standing army (Order of Priority: 1)
- Happiness Buildings (order of priority: 2)
- Science Buildings (order of priority: 3)
- Production Buildings (Order of Priority: 4)
- Gold Production Buildings (Order of Priority: 5)
- Food Buildings (Order of Priority: 6...build if you need food to grow to maximum happiness)
Build Order (Other Cities)
- Shrine
- Monument (except for ethiopia..monument first for them)
- Archer/Composite (build as needed)
- Colleseum
- Units to maintain standing army (Order of Priority: 1)
- Happiness Buildings (order of priority: 2)
- Science Buildings (order of priority: 3)
- Production Buildings (Order of Priority: 4)
- Gold Production Buildings (Order of Priority: 5)
- Food Buildings (Order of Priority: 6...build if you need food to grow to maximum happiness)
Building order is relatively the same for all your cities. Emphasis on faith, not dying to your enemies, growing your cities to their maximum allotted size (more on this later). Less emphasis on production compared to coastal empire. (you're using faith to get most of the stuff you need.)
Religious Build Order
Unlike the coastal empire, you're going to be using your faith as a resource (much in the same way you would hammers), so a build order for faith is in needed.
- Great Prophet (Creates your first religion. Get Padogas asap.
- Padoga (one in each city)
- Great Prophet (Enhances religion. Pick Mosque/Cathedral/Monestary in order of importance. If going for Sacred Relics, pick Monestary more highly (it's 20 faith cheaper)
- Mosque/Cathedral/Monestary in all your cities
- Any science buildings with Jesuit Education. A few missionaries with Heathen Conversion. Great Peoples with To the Glory of God
Religious Policy Order
Pantheon: I usually take To the Glory of God. Gets your religion faster and helps your early sprawl (due to the production). If you have access to more faith, however, get that pantheon instead. (desert folklore, +1 faith from copper, etc.)
Founder Belief: Initiation Rights or Church Property. Initiation Rights is still better.
Follower Beliefs: Padogas. If you can't get them, get Mosques. If you can't get Mosques, get Cathedrals.
Follower Belief (upgrade): Mosques, Cathedrals, Monestaries. You need the culture from these buildings almost as much as you need the happiness. Which is why we don't get Ascetism. +1 happiness is nothing compared to +1 happiness, +3 faith, and +2 culture which mosque delivers. In general, you want both buildings as well, since it allows for 100+ faith per turn to cheese with reformation beliefs)
OUT OF ROOM
