How does the ICS strategy work?

[Monthar]

The only production bonus before meritocracy is reduced settler cost. The one for workers is how fast they build stuff, which isn't noticeable on anything that takes 3 turns or less. For those that take 4-7 turns it only shaves one turn. With the limited populations in ICS cities, there's not much the workers have to improve that is going to get worked, especially since most of the time a 2-4 citizen city, with enough food from CS allies, will have all it's citizens as specialists anyway. The main things workers do is hook up the trade routes and improve the resource tiles. On standard speed, roads only take 3 turns, so 25% faster is 2.25 turns, which comes to 3 turns still.

Instead of spending the culture on those 3 policies to have meritocracy, you can spend it on 1 for having those specialists you're running anyway reduce the unhappiness. Three specialists reduces unhappiness by 2 since it's -1 unhappiness for each odd number of specialists. 1 -1, 3 -2, 5 -3, etc. Spending 1 more in the freedom tree to have those specialists also eat half the food. These two combined means you can run a lot more specialists, thus allowing you to grow your cities larger, or at least not having to ally a Maritime CS to feed those cities.

Couple the 2 specialists policies from Freedom with the 2nd policy in Rationalism and now all those specialists are adding another 2 beakers to that city, no matter what type of specialist it is. That means only 5 policies total to have a serious science boosting, happy, specialist economy ICS strategy. You could even skip the half food for specialists policy, thus reducing to 4 policies.

If you're building universities you could take the one in rationalism that gives 1 happy for the university. So 1 additional policy to have the same happiness as the 3 additional needed to have Meritocracy.

 

[ZwodahS]

But if you were to wait till freedom then expand it might be too slow ? I haven't try that path. Even waiting till meritocracy can be a pain sometimes without France.

Freedom can be reach if you lucky enough to get oracle.

 

[Monthar]

I don't wait to expand, I only save my culture up until I can buy the policies I want. I can usually buy 3 of them at once when I unlock Freedom and Rationalism. So I can take freedom and the 1st two Rationalism to get the unhappy reduction and bonus sci all on the same turn.

I beeline coliseums. Then I research writing, followed by either sailing or calender depending on what happy resources are near me. The beeline covers mined resources and the quarry for marble. This usually gives me enough happiness, with limiting growth, to keep getting the coliseums built and more settlers pumped out.

Now if I can break my habit of saving all the forests for lumber mills, I might be able to speed things up with chopping. If mines gave 1 more hammer than lumber mills then I probably would. I think it's pretty ridiculous that lumber mills give as many hammers as a mine, plus a food once steam power is researched, yet mines never get better. This is why I tend to save all my forests.

 

[alpaca]

I don't wait to expand, I only save my culture up until I can buy the policies I want. I can usually buy 3 of them at once when I unlock Freedom and Rationalism. So I can take freedom and the 1st two Rationalism to get the unhappy reduction and bonus sci all on the same turn.

I beeline coliseums. Then I research writing, followed by either sailing or calender depending on what happy resources are near me. The beeline covers mined resources and the quarry for marble. This usually gives me enough happiness, with limiting growth, to keep getting the coliseums built and more settlers pumped out.

Now if I can break my habit of saving all the forests for lumber mills, I might be able to speed things up with chopping. If mines gave 1 more hammer than lumber mills then I probably would. I think it's pretty ridiculous that lumber mills give as many hammers as a mine, plus a food once steam power is researched, yet mines never get better. This is why I tend to save all my forests.

Mines: 3 hammers, Lumbermills: 1 food, 2 hammers. Chopping is in my opinion better unless you're planning to spend lots of turns in the industrial era and later (which you don't because you zip through the tech tree at that point). Unless you need the tiles for production, of course. Steam Power adds a hammer, not food.

 

[kendo3]

Mines: 3 hammers, Lumbermills: 1 food, 2 hammers. Chopping is in my opinion better unless you're planning to spend lots of turns in the industrial era and later (which you don't because you zip through the tech tree at that point). Unless you need the tiles for production, of course. Steam Power adds a hammer, not food.

I don't think Monthar was saying that steam power adds a food. I believe that he was saying that once you have steam, a lumber mill gives the same 3 hammers as a mine plus the food it has had from the start.

before steam: mine - 3 hammers, 0 food; lumber mill - 2 hammers, 1 food

after steam: mine - still 3 hammers, 0 food; lumber mill - 3 hammers, 1 food

for this reason, I tend to hang onto at least some forests and mill them instead of chopping all of them. if a city area has several, then I will usually chop a few to rush along some early production. especially in a border town where they can block line of sight for my units and allow enemy units an easier approach.

however, as we are discussing a full on ICS strategy, then chopping them may be the best because in many cases you do not want your cities to grow. so a 3 hammer, no food mine may be better because you can use the tile and not worry about the city eventually growing in population and you get the chop bonus to get your coliseum or library built.

 

[alpaca]

I don't think Monthar was saying that steam power adds a food. I believe that he was saying that once you have steam, a lumber mill gives the same 3 hammers as a mine plus the food it has had from the start.

before steam: mine - 3 hammers, 0 food; lumber mill - 2 hammers, 1 food

after steam: mine - still 3 hammers, 0 food; lumber mill - 3 hammers, 1 food

for this reason, I tend to hang onto at least some forests and mill them instead of chopping all of them. if a city area has several, then I will usually chop a few to rush along some early production. especially in a border town where they can block line of sight for my units and allow enemy units an easier approach.

however, as we are discussing a full on ICS strategy, then chopping them may be the best because in many cases you do not want your cities to grow. so a 3 hammer, no food mine may be better because you can use the tile and not worry about the city eventually growing in population and you get the chop bonus to get your coliseum or library built.

You don't need the food for ICS and steam power comes at a time where you're researching techs every three turns or so. The early production boost from chopping (shaves 5 turns or so off that colosseum) is better if you ask me. Also, Steam Power isn't that early in the game, you usually don't hit it before turn ~170 because you need to research almost everything that comes before to get it.

I'm not saying lumbermills are bad, mind. Sometimes I leave some forests I didn't get around to chop early to build mills later.

 

[baronck]

Don't keep all your cities at size two, just the ones in bad locations. You can tell any city to take over tiles from another city in the citizen management panel. If you have a site that looks like it'd be excellent for hammers or gold production, just don't cap its growth. You should have enough of a happiness buffer after you get a few good social policies that reduce unhappiness, you can grow some cities to normal size, and take full advantage of all the usual multipliers. There's no reason not to have a few cities with 45+ hammers, even when you're ICSing.

Once everything is up and running in your small cities, and you have enough maritime allies to provide 6-8 food for all your cities, you can run your fillers on 100% specialist duty, and let your 'real' cities work the tiles. After a while, the filler cities just become mega tile improvements.

This is the best way I understood ICS...

going to try it tonight with the French(cant Spell Nepoleon , Neapolienon , Nepolieno)

 

[Monthar]

You don't need the food for ICS and steam power comes at a time where you're researching techs every three turns or so. The early production boost from chopping (shaves 5 turns or so off that colosseum) is better if you ask me. Also, Steam Power isn't that early in the game, you usually don't hit it before turn ~170 because you need to research almost everything that comes before to get it.

I'm not saying lumbermills are bad, mind. Sometimes I leave some forests I didn't get around to chop early to build mills later.

Not for all cities in an ICS no, but in those cities you are planning to be the production cities that are cranking out the spaceship parts, you will need the food, because you'll want to have citizens on all your hammer tiles, plus any specialists you can get that add hammers, so you can finish them as fast as possible. Couple a lumbermill with the policy that has specialist eating half the food and you just got a mine that also feeds one of those specialist.

It's even worse if you're playing Hiawatha and build the longhouse in that city, because now all your lumbermills have the same hammers as a mine BEFORE steam power and 1 more after steampower. So a Steam powered Lumbermill near a Longhouse gives 4 hammers 1 food, while the mine next to it only gives 3 hammers.

 

[Monthar]

This is the best way I understood ICS...

going to try it tonight with the French(cant Spell Nepoleon , Neapolienon , Nepolieno)

Napoleon

You might give Askia a try. His UB that unlocked at Philosophy, adds as much culture bonus as Napoleon gives and doesn't have any maintenance cost. It replaces the Temple.

 

[Nunya]

This is the best way I understood ICS...

going to try it tonight with the French(cant Spell Nepoleon , Neapolienon , Nepolieno)

Napoleon. Na po le on.

 

[HermannLombard]

Napoleon. Na po le on.