Thanks alpaca for a good read and a confirmation of how powerful an ICS-strategy can be. I have a few comments / questions.
I have been experiencing with this stragey as well lately, but unlike you I have been capping all my spam-cities at size 4. To me it seems that at this size you can get the most science/gold out of your city with the least ammount of expenses (happiness/maintenance). At size 4 you can run 2 scientists or work trade posts. It seems to me that bigger cities will consume too much happiness, and if you try to remedy that by building theatres (= more maintenance) you would be better off settling another size 4 city. What is your take on this?
This brings me to the next point. If you can get the best amount of science/gold at the lowest cost possible of happiness/maintenance at size 4, you should not ally with more than 2 Maritime City States, because this will cause your size 4 cities to grow even if you aren't working any food tiles.
Since food is usually covered by MCS I tend to settle my non-spam cities around as many hills as I can get. Hills are the best tiles in the game in my opinion, as well as river tiles. I just build trade posts all over the place and these cities get good production and commerce.
I also wanted to point out that once my spam cities have finished constructing monuments/libraries/colosseums + any gold building it can use and/or circus I like to have them spam scouts, which you can delete for money. This is better than building wealth. After a while scouts go obsolete, and you have to choose something else though. If a spam-city is coastal it can build work boats for 30 production. When you delete it for 10 gold that is at 33% the worth of production.
When it comes to Social Policies I agree with most of what has been said. Liberty for Meritocracy is very good, and in addition I think 1 point in Freedom and 2 points in Rationalism for Secularism and +2 science for every science specialist is optimal. In my opinion The Order tree is good, but not as useful as the ones mentioned. Production has little value in the later stages of the game as you will mostly be fighting with bought units or upgraded units produced earlier. In addition to that the game is usually in the bag before the +5 production bonus gets to play any part.
I have been experiencing with this stragey as well lately, but unlike you I have been capping all my spam-cities at size 4. To me it seems that at this size you can get the most science/gold out of your city with the least ammount of expenses (happiness/maintenance). At size 4 you can run 2 scientists or work trade posts. It seems to me that bigger cities will consume too much happiness, and if you try to remedy that by building theatres (= more maintenance) you would be better off settling another size 4 city. What is your take on this?
This brings me to the next point. If you can get the best amount of science/gold at the lowest cost possible of happiness/maintenance at size 4, you should not ally with more than 2 Maritime City States, because this will cause your size 4 cities to grow even if you aren't working any food tiles.
Since food is usually covered by MCS I tend to settle my non-spam cities around as many hills as I can get. Hills are the best tiles in the game in my opinion, as well as river tiles. I just build trade posts all over the place and these cities get good production and commerce.
I also wanted to point out that once my spam cities have finished constructing monuments/libraries/colosseums + any gold building it can use and/or circus I like to have them spam scouts, which you can delete for money. This is better than building wealth. After a while scouts go obsolete, and you have to choose something else though. If a spam-city is coastal it can build work boats for 30 production. When you delete it for 10 gold that is at 33% the worth of production.
When it comes to Social Policies I agree with most of what has been said. Liberty for Meritocracy is very good, and in addition I think 1 point in Freedom and 2 points in Rationalism for Secularism and +2 science for every science specialist is optimal. In my opinion The Order tree is good, but not as useful as the ones mentioned. Production has little value in the later stages of the game as you will mostly be fighting with bought units or upgraded units produced earlier. In addition to that the game is usually in the bag before the +5 production bonus gets to play any part.