Question about ICS =/

[EasyGoin]

Been thinking about this. How about we set time limit to turn 90 and consistently play ics and use the replay to find what matters and what are the possible mistake.

I will certainly go back to trying this after I finish the game of the month (due in 7 days!). I may turn down the difficulty to prince to try and get the strategy right. On emperor I inevitably fall behind due to DoW from neighbors and having to build a small army to fight them off.

I just can't seem to find where to get enough hammers to build constant settlers + Coliseum + Library + warriors/archers in mostly size 2 cities.

 

[ZwodahS]

I will try one game of this everyday + my on going game. I am kind of new to civ so I am still tryig out things.

One idea at the moment that I have so far is the regarding the
thing you build in the first city before size 2. Either monument or
scout. I feel that culture is needed to produce fast settlers and allow for early meritocracy but scout can get the early feel of what is around you.

I know that scout is essential for most other strategy but I beginning to feel the need for the monument unless you are France.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I just can't seem to find where to get enough hammers to build constant settlers + Coliseum + Library + warriors/archers in mostly size 2 cities.

1) Grow capital with Food tiles.
2) Find a neighbor. Declare war, steal Workers and send them home.
3) Spam Warriors in the capital. 5-6 total (including the one you started with) will do.
4) Warrior rush your neighbor and flip the non-capital city, building Settlers in your capital.
5) Annex the foreign city and spam Settlers.
6) Burn the foreign city down once Happiness starts to become an issue.
7) Replace it with the last Settler it produces. Move it if the AI was stupid about placement.
8) Declare war again and steal more Workers from the capital.
9) Tech Iron after Construction and Writing, and upgrade your Warriors.

Now the AI will leave you alone for a good long while. If it doesn't, you'll trash it. Just make sure you build some siege at some point.

 

[zuraffo]

I will certainly go back to trying this after I finish the game of the month (due in 7 days!). I may turn down the difficulty to prince to try and get the strategy right. On emperor I inevitably fall behind due to DoW from neighbors and having to build a small army to fight them off.

I just can't seem to find where to get enough hammers to build constant settlers + Coliseum + Library + warriors/archers in mostly size 2 cities.

I bought about half of my stuff if I am playing ICS. Not in the beginning, but eventually.

 

[ZwodahS]

I bought about half of my stuff if I am playing ICS. Not in the beginning, but eventually.

but if you are going for space vict, eventually you will need prod city =/

 

[EasyGoin]

1) Grow capital with Food tiles.
2) Find a neighbor. Declare war, steal Workers and send them home.
3) Spam Warriors in the capital. 5-6 total (including the one you started with) will do.
4) Warrior rush your neighbor and flip the non-capital city, building Settlers in your capital.
5) Annex the foreign city and spam Settlers.
6) Burn the foreign city down once Happiness starts to become an issue.
7) Replace it with the last Settler it produces. Move it if the AI was stupid about placement.
8) Declare war again and steal more Workers from the capital.
9) Tech Iron after Construction and Writing, and upgrade your Warriors.

Now the AI will leave you alone for a good long while. If it doesn't, you'll trash it. Just make sure you build some siege at some point.

Thank you Martin, and congrats on your Diety t200 Space race. Ill be trying this strategy later today.

 

[HermannLombard]

There are only 5 parts to the SS and you have to transport those parts to your capital once they're built. So your 5 best production cities, provided their close to the capital for the fastest build and launch.

Six pieces: 3 boosters, cockpit, engine, and stasis chamber. No wonder your last one launched on the diagonal!

 

[RedRover57]

Yeah, specialists are crucial. Nine size-2 cities each running one scientist will get you to the 55 science mark.

How do you run scientists in a size 2 city? How do you have enough hammers in a size 2 city to build a Library in less than 60 turns? How do you have enough gold per turn in a size 2 city to buy a Library and Colosseum if you don't have the hammers to make them? How do you get enough gold with size 2 cities to buy off maritime CS, which you obviously need if you aren't working any food tiles?

I've been trying the ICS strategy with China or France on Emperor difficulty just to get the hang of it, and it is going OK domination-wise but I'm not really getting the explosive expansion that I have seen in some posts by the pros. In my current game I have about 10 cities and 3 or 4 puppeted cities from conquering a neighbor, all at around 4-6 pop each. Some are running scientists, but a few are focused on hammers for building troops, and a few are focused on working gold tiles. This is at around turn 150.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

1) Grow capital with Food tiles.
2) Find a neighbor. Declare war, steal Workers and send them home.
3) Spam Warriors in the capital. 5-6 total (including the one you started with) will do.
4) Warrior rush your neighbor and flip the non-capital city, building Settlers in your capital.

I can't seem to execute this. I've tried this a couple of times now, and there just isn't a non-capitol city. The warriors show up and the neighboring civ hasn't built a settler yet, even though he's quite distant. I can declare war and steal one worker, but then if he builds a settler, it stays hidden in the capitol. Sending captured workers back often is iffy as well, since if the enemy is at all distant, there's likely a barbarian camp in between my capitol and his.

The net result is that my own development is set back quite a bit because I have to build a worker after all, and a lot of time has gone by in the meantime. I end up kind of stunted, and the neighbor's capitol isn't much of a bonus this early.

 

[Martin Alvito]

On Deity, the AI starts with two Settlers, so there will always be a second city.

On Immortal, the AI should settle a second city around the time you want to take it.

On lower difficulties, you probably will have to spam Settlers after reaching size 2.

As for Hammers, with a single Maritime ally you can exclusively work Hills and produce 6-8 Hammers per turn depending on how much tile improving you've managed to do. That will yield a Library in 10-14 turns. I go out of my way to plant cities in spots that add at least two Hills to the tiles I already have.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

I'm currently playing in Emperor because I don't feel up to the higher difficulties yet. I'm still trying to get a handle on early ICS. So far, it seems I don't really get ICS started until turn 150+, after I've taken out my neighbors with a Horseman rush. This is clearly not what people are talking about when they talk about early ICS.

I guess I need someone to spell out the details, since there seem to be a lot of unspoken assumptions about how you go about doing it. I'm not even sure of the timetable.

 

[Monthar]

Six pieces: 3 boosters, cockpit, engine, and stasis chamber. No wonder your last one launched on the diagonal!

Yes be it still got where it was going.

 

[EasyGoin]

On Deity, the AI starts with two Settlers, so there will always be a second city.

On Immortal, the AI should settle a second city around the time you want to take it.

On lower difficulties, you probably will have to spam Settlers after reaching size 2.

As for Hammers, with a single Maritime ally you can exclusively work Hills and produce 6-8 Hammers per turn depending on how much tile improving you've managed to do. That will yield a Library in 10-14 turns. I go out of my way to plant cities in spots that add at least two Hills to the tiles I already have.

I played a game today using Martin's space-in-200 strat using France on Emperor and it was a long time before the rival civs popped a second city. I ended up just taking Berlin (it was actually very close to me, so I would have had to conquer it either way), but the rush strat works much less efficiently on lower difficulty levels. I was only able to score 1 worker off Germany and had to borrow some from neighboring city-states.