I have played Tich's Arabian ICS strategy described in the opening post several times lately with much success on Immortal/Deity. It's a powerhouse strategy for a military domination victory. The camel archer's ability to move after firing is powerful in taking down cities. After my experience trying it a few times, here are some additions and comments I would add. I haven't tried ICS with the Mayans, so my comments are limited to Arabian only:
City size: the key concept to this strategy that the opening post doesn't emphasize enough is that you MUST keep your city populations low for it to work. The goal is to have many small cities. If your individual cities are growing fast (or growing at all), that additional population gobbles up all the excess happiness you need to found/conquer new ones. Tich mentions keeping cities small in his post, but I don't think he lets the reader know that this is the most important and essential part of the strategy.
Capital Build Order: I recommend against his suggestion to build a granary in your Capital. Where he suggests a granary, I am switching back to Settlers and usually pump out about 8 in a row before I run out of room to settle new cities. With an ICS strategy, you should never build granaries, or any building that yields a food bonus, in my opinion. You want to grow by increasing city count, not city size.
- scout
- monument
- worker
- shrine
- two settlers
- two archers
- settlers non-stop till you have no more room to expand
Key Purchases: Tich suggests buying workers and settlers. This is an expensive approach! I think your early money is better spent on a Shrine or two. Typically by the time you place your second city you have more than 250 gold. Since you really do have to work to get your Pantheon and your Religion, the extra faith is important, especially if your first settlement spots are not also Desert terrain like your Capital. You may even have enough gold to buy the Shrine for your third city. The next place I spend my money is upgrading my three archers to composite bowman. Lastly, I save all other gold to buy City Walls. I don't place them in advance - I wait until I am ultimately attacked.
First War: If you haven't provoked a war by turn 50, the AI players will provoke one with you. On Immortal/Deity, a war by turn 50 is a certainty. My strategy to survive this crucial first battle:
- You start the game with a Warrior/Swordsman. Fortify him in rough terrain, adjacent to the city being attacked. He doesn't attack. His job is to block the enemy from getting three melee units adjacent to your city and absorb blows. Typically he gets a promotion in this battle, use it to heal.
- You should have 3 or 4 archers when the first attack comes. Upgrade them to Bowman. Their job is to attack incoming melee units. Try to have them combine their attack on the same unit. You want to destroy the enemy melee units one by one giving them no turn to get a heal promotion.
- drop City Walls just as battle commences. Huge bonus. Cant win this first war without Walls if you are on Immortal/Deity. The problem is, building them is slow, and you can't be sure where the attack is going to come. That's the main reason I feel your money is better spent on Walls rather than more Settlers.
- Destroy enemy melee units is key. It's tempting to target their catapult, but you only want to perhaps wound their siege unit and then focus on melee units. If the enemy melee units are destroyed, they cannot take the city with ranged units only, and the AI will retreat. You will never beat all their units on higher skill levels - just take out the melee units to stop the attack.
Religion: the ICS strategy will not work without Happiness bonuses from religion. Ceremonial Burial and Asceticism are the way to go. Everything Tich describes is spot on but there are two important strategies I would add. After your religion is founded, your first purchase should be a Missionary. Some players rush to Enhance their religion instead with another Great Prophet, but I find that right after you found a religion, it is vulnerable to being overrun by another. Especially if you are right next to another religious Civ.
With ICS expansion, your cities are small, even your Capital, so religious pressure is usually low. Some of your cities were founded before you even had a Pantheon, so your new religion is going to spread slowly, even to your own cities. The best way to speed it up is to use a Missionary on two nearby City States. Dont use the missionary on your own cities - they are much more powerful on a City State with 'no religious followers'. Plus, if you choose nearby City States carefully for spreading your religion, the religious pressure overlap will help spread your religion to your own cities, and to enemy cities as well. You get the happiness bonus either way, and you can create a bulwark against the spread of other religions. One Missionary is enough to convert two City States, then switch back to one Great Prophet for your Enhancer Beliefs. After that, make nothing but Missionaries for the rest of the game. If my game runs into Industrial, which if often barely does, I might get a Great Merchant with faith, otherwise it's all Missionaries. Converting enemy cities is key to your Happiness growth.
Next, Guruship is a much better selection than Pagodas for Arabia, in my opinion. My typical city in an ICS strategy is size 5, with specialist sitting in the University, pumping out Camel Archers. For that specialist to get a +2 production bonus with Guruship is huge for a city that may only be 7-10 production otherwise.
Universities: discussing Guruship is a perfect transition to the next key concept that needs more emphasis in describing an Arabian ICS. You wouldn't think of ICS as a strategy where science matters a lot, but it does. This is my build order for every city other than my Capital:
- Shrine
- Library
- Monument
- Circus, Coliseum
- Bazaar (Market)
- University
When a city is ready to build a University, it has typically grown to size 5. You can now afford a Specialist. Put one citizen in the University. The city should also have a Production Focus. You will be amazed to see that your research will keep on par with the AI, even on Deity. You won't be the science leader with an ICS strategy, but a specialist in a University and a few stolen techs will make your science very competitive even through the Renaissance. Remember your goal is to gain a Domination Victory before the Industrial age is even in full swing around the world. Consider the University to be the last building you make in a city before it begins to pump out military units non-stop for the rest of the game.
Once you have a city at size five with a specialist in the University, your city may be stagnant at that point, or will still have some VERY slow growth. If it grows to size 7, you can put a second specialist in the University. This further boosts your research, and also helps keep the brakes on city growth. Remember, a city staying at size 5 and then stagnating is ideal, but size 7 with 2 university specialists is great.
Great Person: One thing left out of the original post was a mention of the Great Person you earn when you finish Liberty. I recommend the Great General. Usually when I finish Liberty I am close to earning a Great General through battle, but not quite. I use the Liberty GP to get a General a little early. Then when the second one comes from being earned the old fashioned way, I use one of them for that all-important Citadel. At this point in the game, you have probably finished founding cities and have conquered your first couple of cities, and you are likely pounding on an enemy Capital. When you take that first enemy Capital on Deity/Immortal, especially if it eliminates that Civ, you will then find all remaining Civs declare war on you simultaneously. The Citadel is key to surviving this phase.
You don't have to have a second GG to build a Citadel, you could build it with only one. But losing the GG battle bonus hurts too much for this. That's why I feel the Liberty GP is best spend on a GG so you have two. Plus, there are no real attractive alternatives. You might think a Great Engineer is the way to go, but there are usually no key Wonders to build at that point. He'd have to sit around and wait a long time for Notre Dame, perhaps. A Great Merchant might be a good alternative for the gold from a Mission to a City State, but I feel the second GG used for a Citadel is critical.
Conquered Cities: Tich recommends Puppet or Raze for his ICS strategy, I say Annex them. Why? A puppet city will have a Gold Focus and will continue to grow larger, gobbling up global happiness through population. With ICS, you are trying to devote all your available happiness to population added by conquest, not growth. I hate having a dozen cities at size 5, and then a puppet growing out of control to size 10, making expensive buildings to maintain that you don't want or need. Plus, you often need to buy city walls ASAP on a conquered city, and you can't do that with a puppet.
The happiness difference between razing and refounding your own city in the same spot is not that much versus a puppet with a Courthouse. Not to mention, razing crushes your happiness, and damages your diplomacy with other Civs. The annexed city with a courthouse is expensive yes, but at that point you should be rolling in gold anyway and you can afford it. When you were founding your first cities, you were the poorest player in the world, by the time you eliminate your first Civ, you are rich. In short, maybe you puppet the first conquered city, but only temporarily if at all, and then annex it and all conquered cities after that.
Lastly, another benefit of annexation is selling off all the buildings in a conquered city you don't want. A good first choice is the Aqueduct they often have. You are anti-growth, and you want low maintenance costs. Buildings you should sell off:
- aqueducts (stop growth)
- granaries lighthouses (stop growth)
- theaters (the city just lost half its population when conquered, theatres often add no happiness to a city under size 9 that already has a coliseum/circus and cost a lot)
- amphiteather (expensive and you dont really need culture)
Wonders: I never build them in an ICS game. You never have a good time to do it, they are too expensive, and just not worth it. The only city capable is usually your capital, and the last thing you want to do is interrupt that early flow of settler construction. By the time you are done settling all available areas, your first camel archers are amassing, and it's time to start conquering anyway. At your first real opportunity to build a Wonder, you are already in the 'end game' phase of an ICS warmonger boom. I suggest ignoring Wonders altogether and just get as fast as you can to massing those camel archers.
Map Size: In my experience, which is limited to Immortal/Deity levels only, ICS only works on games with 6 Civs or less. If you get up to 8 Civs or more, it becomes very difficult to capture 7 enemy Capitals before someone builds a spaceship. The strategies are the same, but there just ends up being too much ground to cover in the short amount of time you have. Remember on Deity, the AIs will be entering the Industrial age about 500 years early. Plus, there will be at least two points in the game where all the AI players will declare war on you simultaneously. When you get up to 8 Civs, you can survive these mega-battles, but they take so much time, you wont get your Domination victory before you start seeing Apollo Missions being built.
I played one such game and was attacking the last two enemy Capitals while they were actually building Stasis Chambers. It was soooo close. I'm sure it's do-able, but it would take more than skill, and you'd have to some some extremely good luck on geography and luxuries for early game expansion.
good luck to those who enjoy Domination victories, with the new Religion twist, I'm convinced Arabian ICS is one of the strongest ways to go on higher skill levels.