Thanks for this guide.
I have been trying in the past 3 weeks to win on deity with ICS (still unsuccesfully, but improving...) with Mayans (mainly), Arabia and France.
I would have the following comment based on my experience and would like to have your views:
1) Diplomacy:
It seems impossible to win without focusing heavily on diplomacy. One has to anticipate when another player will DoW you (for example, a Atilla runs short of other neighbours and start to look at your land with a grim). Trying to have the other players fight each other (and especially making sure that the runoff civ is at war with a relevant opponent)
Because of that, I am not so much in favor of stealing workers. In ICS, you have to trade around 10-15 luxuries all the time against 240gold. If you have hostile or even war computeurs, you can't sell them and then you cannot buy your settlers.
I still manage to have only one opponent most of the time. Most of the games I lost where because someone declared war while my troopst where fighing elsewhere -> I think that trying to be friends is key
Also, something that I discovered a bit late is si vis pacem, para bellum: it is important to show a fat army to your neighbours just to avoid that they DoW you. Then you can choose your opponents. Therefore, continue to build / upgrade your army even if you do not plan to wage war short term.
2) Science
I read in your guide to build a library before a monument. Also, often read that Messengers of the God is a must "epsecially with the Mayans". I completely disagree. With mayans, you already have the wonderful pyramid to give you +2science (and the faith to found early). What you need is therefore happiness to be able to continue spamming cities to get those +2 science or ways to have more settlers. Hence, I think that besides desert folklore which is OP, other situational pantheon are better:
- sacred waters (1 happiness near rivers) give you the needed happiness to continue spamming. It continue to scale in the game as if you wage war and puppet and have ca 20-30 cities late in the game, it is likely that you will have 4-8 happiness from that. Especially, if you have rivers, trade routes come late (as you need to have engineering which I think should come after Construction and theology -> late)
- culture stuff (from wine / incense or jungle or gold
) is useful in your capital. The +4 / +6 culture you get will help you to quickly move on the liberty tree (especially to get the free settler or the +1 happiness from trade routes, both key to city spam). Also, it helps to expand borders on your capital, which is often useful to get luxuries within 3 hex
But obviously, if nothing situational make sense, MotG is very good. I just find that the trade routes arrive a bit late to get the benefit
For the same reasons, early libraries are useless: they will get you 1 science for your other cities, maybe 2, which early is nothing compared to spamming a new city which will build a pyramid
3) Random tips
- Founding on luxuries is fantastic
- Founding on hills and making sure that there is another hill nearby to work on is key (to keep city at 1 pop until religion arrive)
It took me time to realize this, as after playing civ for 20 years, I am wired to build my cities on nice spot. But not in ICS ! you just need lots of early production and luxuries
Also, the bonus defense is great
Beware of enemy religions: since you will have plenty of 1-3 pop cities, if your neighbors found before you, you will instantly give him a huge base of followers and you will have a hard time to convert them back (wasting liberty bonus on a great prophet instead of a goold old engineer)
4) But I screw up
Hey, I give tips, but I keep loosing, so I am still missing something.
I think one issue I have is that I still like to develop my cities (once they have been converted to religion): I build granaries, workshops... And always find an excuse thing to build instead of a good old crossbowman. I should probably just pump out more units to gain wars. Also, I hate loosing units, so I probably do not take enough risk. Maybe if I move my units earlier next to an enemy city, I will loose 2 but will conquer the city earlier and get a nice peace treaty
Cheers