Domestic T3 D5- Should we start the madness?

[greekguy]

alright, a while ago i said we should build up north more, before we start ICS. but now i feel we have enough cities up north we could start ICS in our entire empire. this is how we agreed to win by culture, tons of cites + temple + library= 100k. i would just like an opinion from everyone on when we should start. a poll will soon follow.

 

[Furiey]

When we ICS we do it from the outside in. Our core we leave productive to the last for the cities that can to build culture themselves and supply us with the units we still need. We still need more territory, but are not far from Cavalry and at the moment we are incredibly short of Knights. We are still producing Settlers however, and can keep doing so in cities of high growth. These Settlers can fill in the gaps, when they are not needed to replace razed cities or fill new territory they can settle ICS style starting in our most corrupt regions in the north. This will increase our city count and reduce our army support costs, then when we have finished our expansion and no longer need to support a large army they will be there ready to rush culture in. We must not risk our final military expansion by turning our resources away from that area now. We are 4 turns from Metallurgy, possibly only then another 6 from Cavalry. At that point we can slow our research, use some gold for upgrades and build enough Cavalry to take our target territory. Then it's all out culture!

 

[zyxy]

Agree with Furiey.

We should only do ICS in the region where cities are 90% corrupt. Those cities can either build more settlers or slowly start on culture buildings. In the latter case, they can hire taxmen for extra income. For example, if the city has access to two 3 food tiles, then we can grow them to size 4, with 2 taxmen and 0 food surplus, and it will make 5 gpt. If it does not have access to good food tiles, then it should stay at size 1, and hire 1 taxman.

 

[Bertie]

Ditto what Furiey and zyxy said.