ICSing pre-Renaissance?

[futurehermit]

I'm looking for some feedback on ICSing. Do you just get meritocracy and then run wild sprawling cities, not worrying too much about SPs? Or, do you beeline a Renaissance tech while storing culture so you can nab some of the freedom and/or rationalism techs first then sprawl out?

I waited until Order before and that seemed too long. I can see the opportunity cost benefits of just going for it from turn 1, especially as France. But given that beelining Renaissance tech is pretty easy, and some of those SPs are pretty good like 1 per TP, I was wondering which way you prefer to go.

 

[SnuggilyD]

Generally I'd say I start going for it after Meritocracy, and just take whatever SP's I can get after that...but it depends.

For instance in a current game of mine I had to pause my expansion due to a lack of happiness resources on my starting continent. I was isolated and literally only had two kinds on the whole land mass.

That pause allowed me to accumulate enough culture to pick up Commerce and Merchant Navy. Now I've started expanding again after finding more resources on another continent and am prioritizing coastal cities.

I agree that Order is too long to wait for.

 

[Celevin]

You can slingshot up to Ren fairly early in the game (which I think is a major sore point). Really, all that you need is colloseums and spare cash. Meritocracy is just icing on top.

 

[SureYouCan]

Are you able to beeline Renaissance on immortal and still survive? That's the problem I'm having, I can get to renaissance quite easily with a slingshot but then I'm fighting riflemen with pikemen. On Immortal even Gandhi will PoS dual DoW you with another Civ if you're 2 eras ahead of him with 2 units and 5-10 cities. The bottom of that tech tree is a looooong path when you haven't even picked up mining yet and the AI has longswords.

 

[Celevin]

Are you able to beeline Renaissance on immortal and still survive? That's the problem I'm having, I can get to renaissance quite easily with a slingshot but then I'm fighting riflemen with pikemen. On Immortal even Gandhi will PoS dual DoW you with another Civ if you're 2 eras ahead of him with 2 units and 5-10 cities. The bottom of that tech tree is a looooong path when you haven't even picked up mining yet and the AI has longswords.

I don't beeline, but there's definitely a 1-2 part slingshot for that final bit. I do it on both Immortal and Deity. As long as you have a half-decent military, you can easily fight defensively against the coms.

 

[CurseUppl]

I'm trying a game where I'm not spending any culture at all until the industrial age.

Plan is to expand like mad with colosseums to keep my people happy and, once I can, I'll start throwing points into Order (mainly to get the 50% reduction in unhappy faces from number of cities) and get Forbidden Palace ASAP. I'll throw two points into Autocracy for the 33% reduced upkeep and 25% cheaper unit buying. The rest will go into commerce, with the aim of getting 25% gold reduction when buying stuff in a city (and will beeline for Big Ben for another 25% reduction).

Then keep expanding whilst having a large army and a reduced upkeep. At this point my culture will be negligible, but because I saved up my culture from the start, I got the necessary policies needed to support a large, trade post orientated empire with an army that should be far larger than the nearest competitor.

*edit* Of course, now that I realise it, this is slightly off topic, doh X_X

 

[aimlessgun]

Are you able to beeline Renaissance on immortal and still survive? That's the problem I'm having, I can get to renaissance quite easily with a slingshot but then I'm fighting riflemen with pikemen. On Immortal even Gandhi will PoS dual DoW you with another Civ if you're 2 eras ahead of him with 2 units and 5-10 cities. The bottom of that tech tree is a looooong path when you haven't even picked up mining yet and the AI has longswords.

The most effective way to do things is to clear out a potentially hostile neighbor with swords or horses so you can spam cities in relative peace for a while, plus you get a nice capital city, plus you have a solid military that can deal with stuff. Horses properly used are so ridiculous, everything before Rifles is manageable (when controlled by the current AI of course :/ )

If you're not rushing someone then you'll have to play the diplomacy game, which basically consists of blocking the settlers they throw in your direction (3 units will block a settler indefinitely), and bribing your neighbors into wars. Bribe costs vary hugely depending on relative military power, how much they already hate the guy etc, but you can usually find a way to get them fighting for 300-500 gold (can be a lot cheaper, but can also be flat out impossible, don't try bribing people into attacking the troop leader, bribe the troop leader into attacking the weak guys )

 

[Martin Alvito]

The way to deter early aggression is to go on the offensive. Learn to Warrior rush. That will cripple the nearest AI, flip a city to your side, and give you units to upgrade when Iron comes along. Doing so doesn't slow you down much, gives you luxuries/strategic resources for resale, and lets you Worker steal while you're at it.