ATL Jones Bro3
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2008
- Messages
- 15
Guys im not understanding this. Whats this strat do?
ICS is back!!
- Thread starter NaZdReG
- Start date
Quotey
Emperor
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Messages
- 1,459
Lots of early cities. The advantage in that is lots of gold and lots of research. And lots of cities.
Some people are worried about overlap, but not those in the know. In fact, at a point using specialists is much better than working land tiles. 'Course if you overlap all the food you're sunk.
You can also set up some settler pumps and put all the overlapped cities up up up.
Some people are worried about overlap, but not those in the know. In fact, at a point using specialists is much better than working land tiles. 'Course if you overlap all the food you're sunk.
You can also set up some settler pumps and put all the overlapped cities up up up.
Apolex
Chieftain
I see the utility in this for rush-buying massive armies very quickly. But one of the most powerful traditional reasons for ICS was that since all your cities were so close, you could protect all the cities with all of your forces. In the previous civs, you lost movement points when traveling over roads. So further out cities couldn't be protected in time during surprise attacks. But in this game, it doesn't matter that a city is 20 tiles away, as long as it has a road. You can get your entire military there in one turn. Also, keeping the cities close by kept down corruption in the other civs. Not a problem here.
Instead of rushing to build cities 2,3,4 right next to your first city, I think it's better to move further out and snag good resource sites and choke points. You can build roads to them for defense, and block out your competitors. With roads costing no movement, it's just like they're right next to the 1st city. Then explode your cities within, and fill in the holes. With republic, gold, and the initial roads in the midieval era, you can go from 4 cities to about 20 in one turn. Then you have a much larger area that you've already secured, as compared to if you just immediately started ICS-ing right next to your 1st city. This works very well for the Romans, with their 1/2 priced roads and Republic to start with.
Instead of rushing to build cities 2,3,4 right next to your first city, I think it's better to move further out and snag good resource sites and choke points. You can build roads to them for defense, and block out your competitors. With roads costing no movement, it's just like they're right next to the 1st city. Then explode your cities within, and fill in the holes. With republic, gold, and the initial roads in the midieval era, you can go from 4 cities to about 20 in one turn. Then you have a much larger area that you've already secured, as compared to if you just immediately started ICS-ing right next to your 1st city. This works very well for the Romans, with their 1/2 priced roads and Republic to start with.
There you are, Apolex. Finally someone that put words to what I've felt for a long time without being able to explain it. The real benefit of ICS is the limited corruption and ease of travel. That out of the way in CivRev there is no need for ICS. All you gotta do is ensure that you take out all enemy units that try to block your roads before they build forts on them.
You are right, ICS in its puresed form is "Infinate City Spawling", i.e. build as many cities as possible. But the idea we talked about was having many cities very close to each other. Perhaps not the right thing but that is what we talked about, and in that sense not having the problem with corruption you don't have to keep the cities close to each you can spread them out. In other words, we say the same thing but used different terminologies.
CharlieM
Creative, Spiritual
My basic early strategy for every game: get as many early cities as you can, by any means possible, and build armies of archers to hold them.
Then take a breath, and see what victory to pursue.
Then take a breath, and see what victory to pursue.
MKElderGod
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2007
- Messages
- 198
ICS is not back if anything its totally destroyed. Since theres no maintence cost or any costs at all, Utilizing resources from anywhere with out any penalties is more powerful. there fore proper spacing where one city can use all tiles around it would yeild more effectiveness(including courthouse). For example your the English and you want a dye resource usually you find yourself going out the range of an ics especially if you want to grab more than one.
ICS is really effective when creating a megacity early game.
ICS is really effective when creating a megacity early game.
Apolex
Chieftain
The main utilities I see for ICS in this game is for two things: Rapid army rush-purchases, and more rapid growth.
The army rush speaks for itself and has been discussed here: the more cities you have, the quicker you can purchase a huge military if you have enough gold.
The other real use here is that the more cities you have, and the sooner you have them, the faster your population (and thus worked tiles) grows. If you're going for the megacity like MKElderGod is talking about, the faster growth translates to faster worked tiles in the megacity as you buff it up.
However, this does not mean it's any better to pack these cities in overlapping areas to start with. Sure, expand the number of cities as fast as you can, but its silly to not spread them out at the beginning. By spreading out, you ensure that you grab good resources and (more importantly) choke points and blocking points, which deny your competitors access to expand toward you. You can fill in the distances between with more cities later, and even overlap cities' tile areas if you feel you need your population to grow that much faster. But with roads making instant movement between any two cities, why start out packing your cities together?
A disadvantage I have found from having too many cities in Civ Rev is that it can actually slow your military movements. Many times I have found that roads in a certain direction will only go through a single city, and there is not the option to build roads around it to the cities beyond. Each time a military unit travels through a city, it loses a movement point. I had a game where I was trying to send tanks to my battle front against the French, but it was taking many of them 2-3 turns to even get there because the only way was through cities along the way. Before I had ICS and filled the holes in my land, my troops were able to make it to the front lines in 1 turn, from anywhere in my empire.
Just something to think about. ICS isn't nearly as powerful a strategy in this game as compared to previous ones.
The army rush speaks for itself and has been discussed here: the more cities you have, the quicker you can purchase a huge military if you have enough gold.
The other real use here is that the more cities you have, and the sooner you have them, the faster your population (and thus worked tiles) grows. If you're going for the megacity like MKElderGod is talking about, the faster growth translates to faster worked tiles in the megacity as you buff it up.
However, this does not mean it's any better to pack these cities in overlapping areas to start with. Sure, expand the number of cities as fast as you can, but its silly to not spread them out at the beginning. By spreading out, you ensure that you grab good resources and (more importantly) choke points and blocking points, which deny your competitors access to expand toward you. You can fill in the distances between with more cities later, and even overlap cities' tile areas if you feel you need your population to grow that much faster. But with roads making instant movement between any two cities, why start out packing your cities together?
A disadvantage I have found from having too many cities in Civ Rev is that it can actually slow your military movements. Many times I have found that roads in a certain direction will only go through a single city, and there is not the option to build roads around it to the cities beyond. Each time a military unit travels through a city, it loses a movement point. I had a game where I was trying to send tanks to my battle front against the French, but it was taking many of them 2-3 turns to even get there because the only way was through cities along the way. Before I had ICS and filled the holes in my land, my troops were able to make it to the front lines in 1 turn, from anywhere in my empire.
Just something to think about. ICS isn't nearly as powerful a strategy in this game as compared to previous ones.
ICS is older then some of you. But a lot of veteran civfanatics would agree with me that it breaks the game. City spamming goes against the spirit of the game. It takes zero skill.
I don't know about zero skill, just how much skill does it take to get multiple resources within the eventual city borders?
ICS is alive and well, its stronger early game, and since CivRev buildings (and units) are fairly costly many games will reach late game, which mitigates it slightly.
Some of the benefits of ICS are lost here, but the key one is alive and well and this is city development. It takes 80 hammers and a lot of turns to even open up the fat cross. Add to that whatever specialization you may plan for a city can be easily beaten by another city (or three). A library or market doubles beakers, a new city does the same at the cost of 20 hammers and 1 pop. The population is the X-factor but food is much more common than hammers, but this rarely matters as you get the pop (and more) back once its settled. Also as a city size increases its costing more and more to grown that population and work more spaces (not even considering the value of specialists).
In other words, two cities working 16 tiles is much faster and cheaper than 1 city. Eventually the two cities may lose because to get the same effect from one building it requires two, but this is not easily quantified and I don't wish to do so.
Its not the end all strategy because with buildings and (mainly) GP a single strong city can generate more than many small weak cities, the skill lies in knowing the difference.
You can't just generate as many GPs as you may need and that is main flaw to an ICS strategy.
ICS is alive and well, its stronger early game, and since CivRev buildings (and units) are fairly costly many games will reach late game, which mitigates it slightly.
Some of the benefits of ICS are lost here, but the key one is alive and well and this is city development. It takes 80 hammers and a lot of turns to even open up the fat cross. Add to that whatever specialization you may plan for a city can be easily beaten by another city (or three). A library or market doubles beakers, a new city does the same at the cost of 20 hammers and 1 pop. The population is the X-factor but food is much more common than hammers, but this rarely matters as you get the pop (and more) back once its settled. Also as a city size increases its costing more and more to grown that population and work more spaces (not even considering the value of specialists).
In other words, two cities working 16 tiles is much faster and cheaper than 1 city. Eventually the two cities may lose because to get the same effect from one building it requires two, but this is not easily quantified and I don't wish to do so.
Its not the end all strategy because with buildings and (mainly) GP a single strong city can generate more than many small weak cities, the skill lies in knowing the difference.
You can't just generate as many GPs as you may need and that is main flaw to an ICS strategy.
Kadazzle
Emperor
See, I don't believe ICS is even that great. When I played online yesterday, both the Americans and the Germans were using the ICS system. I took out the Aztecs early and only built 3 key placed cities with nice resources near-by (Oak, Dye, Whale, Oil..etc) I was producing way more science and gold production off my 5 cities then they were with their 8 and 10. This was mid-game, so some of their cities were new, but still, later in the game I just took out the Japanese and snagged all their GP with my spies. At that point they both left.
This is an early game strategy, if you wait until mid or late game to do something than its wasteful and another player like you in your game with better resources and nicer cities will take control and win out.
If they aren't getting more land, more cities and thus gold/production and more units then they are just building their cities too close together.
The point is that with many small cities maxed out with 8 pop (or less) that can use all their available tiles without the need for a courthouse (saving 80 hammers), and also have the advantage of being able to generate more units per turn. If you go ICS and ignore that potential then you might as well not bother with ICS.
Naturally there is a point where you'll lose doing this, and I think there are two main strategies here, one is that you must be pushing units and fighting the opponents, taking your opponent's well placed and built out cities is a big win. And the second is that whenever you feel you want to build a library or market, you instead build a settler.
The fundamental strength with ICS is food production and its lower requirements for small cities.
If they aren't getting more land, more cities and thus gold/production and more units then they are just building their cities too close together.
The point is that with many small cities maxed out with 8 pop (or less) that can use all their available tiles without the need for a courthouse (saving 80 hammers), and also have the advantage of being able to generate more units per turn. If you go ICS and ignore that potential then you might as well not bother with ICS.
Naturally there is a point where you'll lose doing this, and I think there are two main strategies here, one is that you must be pushing units and fighting the opponents, taking your opponent's well placed and built out cities is a big win. And the second is that whenever you feel you want to build a library or market, you instead build a settler.
The fundamental strength with ICS is food production and its lower requirements for small cities.
Chinese American
Hamtastic Knight
In the other Civ games, there was a limit to city growth at various stages of the games, hence spam as many cities as possible until they are at equal pop. These were caused by 'unfun' features like unhappiness and corruption, which were taken out of CivRev. In CivRev, cities can grow as fast and big as possible. In the past, this wasn't possible.
Then there was the Mega-city strategy that has been patched (except on DS). This is the other extreme from ICS: instead of many cities, you make one gigantic city. You still have other cities, but they sacrifice pop to the mega-city. Again, this wasn't possible in previous games (maybe Civ2).
There's also a middle ground where a few large cities can be just as efficient, if not more so, as ICS or mega-city. This works because of how bonus multipliers works in this game. 1+1 doesn't always equal 2 in this game. Also, it is much easier to specialize your cities than in previous games. Another benefit of this strategy is there are less cities to manage, so it's great if you are going for a peaceful victory. You can have more units per city, ie, more protection per city and be harder to take over. Turtling also gives a much better chance at great general than being aggressive.
Then there was the Mega-city strategy that has been patched (except on DS). This is the other extreme from ICS: instead of many cities, you make one gigantic city. You still have other cities, but they sacrifice pop to the mega-city. Again, this wasn't possible in previous games (maybe Civ2).
There's also a middle ground where a few large cities can be just as efficient, if not more so, as ICS or mega-city. This works because of how bonus multipliers works in this game. 1+1 doesn't always equal 2 in this game. Also, it is much easier to specialize your cities than in previous games. Another benefit of this strategy is there are less cities to manage, so it's great if you are going for a peaceful victory. You can have more units per city, ie, more protection per city and be harder to take over. Turtling also gives a much better chance at great general than being aggressive.
