danaphanous
religious fanatic
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2013
- Messages
- 1,501
This article has been edited due to new information:
Ever been interested in going wide but were frightened of hurting science or culture costs? Civ really punishes the wide, but it is still a possible, and actually a juggernaut strategy for science wins. Before people freak out, I know true ICS (infinite city sprawl) is not possible. And yes, infinite is impossible. At some point happiness will stop you cold. However, this strategy resembles ICS initially as it has the idea of spamming out cities early with the intention of doing better later as a result. Based on my understanding of mechanics, the strategy seems appropriate for two victory types: science and culture, but rewards science best provided you manage well.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I have found no way to go wide currently without hurting policy acquisition. I worked at the math a lot but found no way around this. Even with Liberty the %increase in cost per city is still 20% which is massive after policy 18. To offset this, focus on rapid acquisition of of policies early and target wonders that give policies. Also, use your plentiful cities to nab world fair/games to get those free policies and culture/tourism boosts. In the end though, you will have to settle for a few less policies in the end so be wise about your choice and maybe even policy save a bit for your ideology if it has some nice happiness-boosting tenets.
I would really like it if some experts could inform me better about the mechanics/correct my misconceptions but here's what I know:
1. "science costs increase by 5% standard, 3% large, 2% huge upon the founding of each consecutive city"
From this, I know immediately, as most players do, that you can always do "better" at science with more, developed cities. So how many can you get that will exceed their science cost? Turns out quite a lot. All we need to do is the following:
Make sure our science acquisition in every city is faster than the 5% penalty incurred. Get cities up to this point as quickly as possible after founding.
for reference: a science average for each age (2011 data or vanilla, might have changed now)
How to develop each new city?
Happiness Discussion:
For best results:
1. Found a pantheon/religion that includes:
a) religious buildings with happiness: pagoda preferred but also mosque if you can get both
b) Swords into Plowshares/Fertility Rites:
c) Tithe.
2. Go liberty and get the policy cost reducer
3. Settle near as many horses/stone/ivory as possible for the extra circus/stone works happiness.
4. be egypt for burial tomb, India for reduced large-city unhappiness, or rome for their 25% reduction in future building costs already built in capital. This will allow your cities to quickly become proficient way faster than other civs and really cut down on down-times reducing loss of new cities.
5. nabbing the pantheon for +2 science per city connection and Jesuit education in religion really help too.
If you guys want me to run some numbers on happiness and what is the optimum ICS-empire size by this point then I can, but I haven't looked into it because there are so many happiness strategies. My guess is you could probably support 15-20 well-developed cities if you chose all the happy-generating options. India, especially would be slow expanding but way less unhappiness if you wanted all of those founded ones to be large (ideal for this strategy, you don't want any population-nerfed cities). Most people consider them bad for ICS, they are actually the best I can think of if you want decent-sized cities, as founding cost is only 3 (doubled to 6 for india) but from then on all population unhappiness is halved. So if you shoot for all your cities to eventually be between size 20-30 your gains will be 10 to 15 -3 in happiness per city or 7-12, still huge. So India is probably the optimum civ for this kind of strategy. Rome also complements well as another problem you will have is not being able to catch up in buildings for your later cities. Having the extra tithe income and jesuit education really helps with this too as you can buy a lot of your lagging buildings.
As a quick example with India:
Ever been interested in going wide but were frightened of hurting science or culture costs? Civ really punishes the wide, but it is still a possible, and actually a juggernaut strategy for science wins. Before people freak out, I know true ICS (infinite city sprawl) is not possible. And yes, infinite is impossible. At some point happiness will stop you cold. However, this strategy resembles ICS initially as it has the idea of spamming out cities early with the intention of doing better later as a result. Based on my understanding of mechanics, the strategy seems appropriate for two victory types: science and culture, but rewards science best provided you manage well.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I have found no way to go wide currently without hurting policy acquisition. I worked at the math a lot but found no way around this. Even with Liberty the %increase in cost per city is still 20% which is massive after policy 18. To offset this, focus on rapid acquisition of of policies early and target wonders that give policies. Also, use your plentiful cities to nab world fair/games to get those free policies and culture/tourism boosts. In the end though, you will have to settle for a few less policies in the end so be wise about your choice and maybe even policy save a bit for your ideology if it has some nice happiness-boosting tenets.
I would really like it if some experts could inform me better about the mechanics/correct my misconceptions but here's what I know:
1. "science costs increase by 5% standard, 3% large, 2% huge upon the founding of each consecutive city"
From this, I know immediately, as most players do, that you can always do "better" at science with more, developed cities. So how many can you get that will exceed their science cost? Turns out quite a lot. All we need to do is the following:
Make sure our science acquisition in every city is faster than the 5% penalty incurred. Get cities up to this point as quickly as possible after founding.
for reference: a science average for each age (2011 data or vanilla, might have changed now)
Spoiler :
How to develop each new city?
Spoiler :
Happiness Discussion:
Spoiler :
For best results:
1. Found a pantheon/religion that includes:
a) religious buildings with happiness: pagoda preferred but also mosque if you can get both
b) Swords into Plowshares/Fertility Rites:
c) Tithe.
Spoiler :
2. Go liberty and get the policy cost reducer
3. Settle near as many horses/stone/ivory as possible for the extra circus/stone works happiness.
4. be egypt for burial tomb, India for reduced large-city unhappiness, or rome for their 25% reduction in future building costs already built in capital. This will allow your cities to quickly become proficient way faster than other civs and really cut down on down-times reducing loss of new cities.
5. nabbing the pantheon for +2 science per city connection and Jesuit education in religion really help too.
Spoiler :
If you guys want me to run some numbers on happiness and what is the optimum ICS-empire size by this point then I can, but I haven't looked into it because there are so many happiness strategies. My guess is you could probably support 15-20 well-developed cities if you chose all the happy-generating options. India, especially would be slow expanding but way less unhappiness if you wanted all of those founded ones to be large (ideal for this strategy, you don't want any population-nerfed cities). Most people consider them bad for ICS, they are actually the best I can think of if you want decent-sized cities, as founding cost is only 3 (doubled to 6 for india) but from then on all population unhappiness is halved. So if you shoot for all your cities to eventually be between size 20-30 your gains will be 10 to 15 -3 in happiness per city or 7-12, still huge. So India is probably the optimum civ for this kind of strategy. Rome also complements well as another problem you will have is not being able to catch up in buildings for your later cities. Having the extra tithe income and jesuit education really helps with this too as you can buy a lot of your lagging buildings.
As a quick example with India:
Spoiler :
