ICS is back!!

[NaZdReG]

well.. in civ 3 and civ 4 firaxis did their damndest to stop us from performing an ICS because of its brutal strength.

for those that haven't played the others.. ICS is infinite city sprawl. where cities are spaced really tight: city tile tile city tile tile city etc. just 8 squares a piece to work

traditionally limited by corruption or maintanance cost.. now there is no penalty. republic even makes it easier to pull of.

when backed up with a single gold generating city you have a manufacturing grid that is easy to defend, and quick to produce armies as needed. even w/o rush buying if the terrain is 1/2 way decent you can be producing an army of 20 hammer units every other turn or so from 6 cities.

now they aren't as strong as the mega cities, but soo much of the map are little peninsulas. it is possible to cram them onto one and still get ample water area. this can reinforce their own ability, set them all to generate gold and rush buy a bunch of courthouses and aqueducts so you can work all the ocean tiles.

Thoughts? success stories?

NaZ

 

[patrickkrebs]

P.S. This totally works. Notice how those little pennisulas usually have a resource or two. I think they're meant for that.

 

[Smidlee]

This is really powerful when playing Japan.

 

[NaZdReG]

ooh I hadn't even thought of trying this with japan.. holy crap talk about turbo expansion. just give the capitol a 3 square gap for its full potential but then ICS along the coastline in both directions from there

they should have put in some sort of maintanance or something.. the more experienced civ players are gonna pwn in multiplayer because of the strength of ICS against regularly spaced cities

NaZ

 

[CrusaderKevin]

it would be wonderful to hear more about this strategy, NaZ.
Anything in-depth would be great to hear about form you, since I;ve only had TONS of experience with Civ IV and thought that ICS would be the death of me at all times.
Thank you very much!

 

[NaZdReG]

well I tried it on emperor last night with japan.. but my terrain was really production poor so I ate it when everyone spontaneously DOW'd on me.

admittedly though they had good reason. I found an island north of me that had oak, fish, whale. it was a few turns from the wonder that doubles gold production. I had 5 cities ICS'd out on my chunk of land and had just unlocked rifles

was planning on rush buying them like crazy

I'm going to try it next on king to give me a little breathing room to explore the possibilities

japan may not be the best for this. the extra food is nice but there are better bonuses. I think the romans may have the best shot at doing this early because they start with republic and can rush units for 1/2 price.


too bad there is no screenshot function for the xbox.. I'd love to take some pics to show everyone

NaZ

 

[Double Barrel]

I forgot about this strategy. I remember using it for Civ II, but like you mentioned, it was limited in III & IV.

I will definitely give it a try, because Rev seems more about war than anything else. If you can build a tightly knit manufacturing string of cities that are easy enough to defend, this could really be a good strategy for this version. Especially if you build the highway mentioned in a previous thread that allows you to move from city to city with just one movement point.

 

[NaZdReG]

yeah.. tried it with the romans and that went well.

I abandoned early, because I'm trying to learn the opening. but by the time my enemy had like 3-4 cities I already had 8, 3 on islands and 5 on my mainland.

I was not able to highway them because of my capitol's location, instead the cities were like spokes surrounding the capitol hub.

my gold city was a little too close, I'll have to remember to give it proper space. an ideal location would be 2-3 forests, 1 grassland, and a bunch of coastline, preferably with a fish resource.

but at the point I quit, it already had a market, the wonder that doubles trade output, and the one that gives +1 trade to coastal squares.. at pop 6 it was working incense, 3 coastal tiles, 2 production tiles and was producing 48gpt. enough to rush an already started unit every turn, or bank to try to get to 500 then 1000 for those bonuses.

it also let me rush buy skirmish defense. I had an army of catapults up in 1 turn of rush buying. very nice indeed.

other good civs for this:

japan, for the +1 food in the water. you can settle a piece of coast that only has production squares next to it

rome, for starting republic, 1/2 cost roads, 1/2 cost wonders.

america, for starting great person (hope for either 50% gold, 50% pop growth, or free wonder) the interest on the gold, 1/2 cost rushing

greece, for 50% bonus to either, immediate courthouse, and pikemen. make the capitol your gold city and REX like crazy.

egypt is possible, starting with the colossus would make this econ take off like crazy. getting the +1 food from desert then instant irrigation means plains areas are really good.

 

[bonafide11]

I'm actually surprised to see how many opponents I play who only build one or two cities. I can never figure out why they do that.

 

[NaZdReG]

and wow...

so I decided to test my ICS theory online.

using the romans and early republic.

I used all the gold from early huts to rush 2 settlers from the capitol while it focused on food.

when my enemies had 2 cities I already had 4 on the mainland, and 1 on a nearby island.

that city armed itself then spawned a neighbor, and spent the rest of the game generating gold for me

a well timed library of alexandria caught me up quickly in tech. I researched out democracy, and rush bought a ton of pikemen.

from there it went pretty downhill for everyone. someone DOW'd on me, I ran them over with 6 cats backed up by pikes. took 3 of their cities in just a couple of turns. one of them had some oak, so it became a wonder powerhouse.

I hunkered down, and teched as hard as I could. I was first to invention. I set the oak city to start building leonardi's workshop while I teched to riflemen.

seeing that nobody had invention for trade yet, I went ahead and dug as hard as I could to unlock cannons
I switched wonders to one that was more expensive to bulk up the hammers while I waited. the turn the cannons were unlocked I finished the wonder

suddenly every town instead of having an army of pikes had an army of rifles, and my 4 stacks of catapults all became cannons.

my nearest neighbor was kinda shocked when I showed up at his door. they were still fighting knights and cats and pikes. there was a rather large WTF exclaimed.

they didn't attack me earlier because I stayed well defended and silently rex'd like crazy. by the time they had realized what was going on it was waaaay too late

though one of my opponents had placed all his cities in ICS as well.. interesting to see (spanish)

he beat everyone to atlantis of cource, but that was fine. he got it way too early and that hurt him.

so my 1st online game, and a crushing victory. everyone dropped when they realized what was going on. I beat the snot out of the computer for a few turns and called it quits

so yeah it works.. and people need to watch out for the rush buying/ics strat because its mean as hell

NaZ

 

[ICNP]

So you basically just place your each city 3 squares apart so that it's easy to bring all your troops to bear? How does this make Rush Buying easier?

Really the fact that there is no maintenance makes Civ Rev insane. Who needs production when you have a Bank? What's the Ratio of Gold:Hammers?

 

[NaZdReG]

I'm not going to take the time to upload a pic, so hopefully this makes sense

C is for city S is for blank space

CSSCSSCSSC

or as close as you can get

I just creamed someone online with this

my initial REX on my home island was only 3 cities, with some satellite cities on nearby islands. I had one I snuck next to him because he left some oak there (foolish)

I beat everyone to the workshop, and that kept me alive.

at the peak of my gold producing power, my capitol under democracy was producing 967GPT with the wonder and a settled great person plus bank.

I had 3 other cities producing 300 gpt

I put up a good front by taking a couple of cities on the continent that the aztec resided in. he didn't realize that I was rush buying but I parked an army consisting of a few armies of rifles and 5 armies of cannons on his doorstep and started bombarding the city with spies.

however he beat me to mass production so that totally blunted my attack.

somehow he managed to get almost 100 defense in the city I was trying to attack.. and since he's aztec there is no wearing down his troops. its all or nothing.

he got the nuke, but nuked someone else.. which is why he lost

when he realized I had started on the world bank, his retribution was swift
he landed a STACK of horses??? and cannons. they were met by 3 armies of fighters, 4 armies of rifles, 4 armies of cannons, 4 armies of tanks all in my capitol.

the satelite city was feeding me an army of fighters every 3 turns, and the two cities connected by roads to me fed each a tank every turn.
then it became 2 because of factories. each was producing 1 per turn and I rushed 1 per turn.

he came within a few armies of taking my capitol the first time. after 5 turns I had an army just as big sitting there so he dropped

the proximity of the nearby cities is what saved my bacon. if you have a single city producing as much GPT as mine, there really is no way to stop that

if I had only had the room for a true ICS. I could have rush bought 10 tanks a turn and crammed them into my capitol no problem

NaZ

 

[bonafide11]

Personally I still prefer to place my cities further apart so I can get the most out of them and claim more of the good land. I don't see the advantage in placing cities so close to each other.

 

[NaZdReG]

I wouldn't recommend doing an ICS for the whole empire.. you do need 1-3 cities able to utilize the whole fat cross.

but even then, most cities max out at 14 pop or so. there are 6 tiles on average that they aren't using.

so a string of cities can look like this:
ccccccccccc
ccccccccccc
ccxccxccxcc
ccccccccccc
ccccccccccc

and still have plenty of tiles to work. this is ideally suited to coastal locations, especially where there is an abundance of forests on the mainland so you can keep up production. once you build a harbor the pop will boom like crazy

NaZ

 

[Endure]

Personally I still prefer to place my cities further apart so I can get the most out of them and claim more of the good land. I don't see the advantage in placing cities so close to each other.

If you have a few cities that are utilizing their full fat cross in good locations, you can focus them on gold production and really generate alot of GPT.

Then in all your "crappy" cities that are closely placed together, if you have enough gpt production, you can rush buy units every turn, or every 2nd turn. Thus you have enough cities to rush buy massive armies very quickly and overrun your enemies.

This obviously doesn't come into play until later in the game though, and if your aiming for an early domo victory, there's not as much as an advantage to it.

The only other advantage to it that I can think of is having your cities so close together makes it easier to reinforce a city thats under siege.

 

[bonafide11]

But if you have roads connecting your cities, it doesn't matter how far apart they are, you can still get reinforcements there pretty easily.

 

[Endure]

But if you have roads connecting your cities, it doesn't matter how far apart they are, you can still get reinforcements there pretty easily.

Thats true, unless an enemy is start enough to fort an army on your road blocking the passage. (not likely against the AI)

Also, in the early game, you might not have enough gold to build roads between all your cities (notably if they are far apart from each other).

 

[dk1421]

I remember doing this back in ....oh, Civ 2 or Civ 3, I can't remember which one. My little brother taught it to me. I can even remember the game I was playing...ah, the fond memories. I was sending settlers to all over the place on a pangea; he told me to keep them closer. After that, I whipped his butt. :-D

But now I'm so out of practice, I'm not sure I can make it happen again. I'll try tho.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Jerh9e1k5]

I was happy to see this thread here, I just logged on to the forum to bring this up! I bought Civ Rev yesterday and just came to the realization today that there is absolutely no maintenance for cities.

REX is definitely back! I'm very surprised to see that the creators of the game took out the maintenance or at least some kind of mitigating factor.

I remember when this strategy was first conceived, I believe it was Velocyrix that came up with it over at Apolyton. Can anyone confirm that?

Also, side question: Do units have a maintenance cost?

Cheers,
Jer

 

[NaZdReG]

nope no maintanance costs.

its hella funny in multiplayer to boom like crazy.

research the oft ignored irrigation to get the +1 pop right after you hit 4 cities. then beeline to republic (or not if you're rome)

then rush buy a settler out of each city for 1 pop and some gold. go from 4 cities to 8 in just a few turns. in medieval you're starting at pop 3 (4 if you're chinese) so you've just doubled your research. go low on production except for a couple cities producing defensive units, and go mass research into democracy.

its hella funny when you catapult like that and you've researched steam when everyone else is still working on techs you finished a dozen turns ago.

NaZ