Screenshot showcasing results of ICS

[Smote]

1v2 victory on west vs east. Nothing really happened all game, they seemed scared to attack. I ICS'd very fast off of 2 horse capital as Russia + Liberty. [Spent maybe 50 turns building settlers in Moscow] Got to 13 cities before collosseums [was at -10 happy for 3 turns! (accidently grew from -9)], then never built another. It seems that in 1v2 game, the 1 must research techs with the beakers required of a 2 person team. [AH took 9 turns on quick] I was behind in tech until turn ~100, after getting 13 universities up [and 13 science specialists]. I had 2 maritimes running all game, which is necessary ! Never had a solid enough tech edge to want to attack vs himeji+oligarchy until bombers .

Social Policy order was: Liberty-Piety-Organized Religion-Theocracy-Order -> Communism [got to 1 policy away- never had the hammers to invest in culture buildings until after factories]

Here is ending screenshot on the turn they quit.




You can see that attacking an ICS player is a necessity, because if you don't attack, they will outproduce and outtech you eventually. This is shown by me outteching the combined science output of 2 small city players.

 

[Tabarnak]

Lot of city states. Did they have same amount?

Did you fight somewhere? They where really scared lol
A great force of units x2 against you and it was game over.

Breaking an ICS player must be prioritized below turn 100 with a powerful blow. After this, ICS can fly away.

 

[Smote]

Lot of city states. Did they have same amount?

Did you fight somewhere? They where really scared lol
A great force of units x2 against you and it was game over.

I think my pikeman -> rifleman ancient ruin [~turn 75] scared them too much to consider attack They got to see 2 cannons + my 1 rifle [which were some of my first real combat units] when I killed a city state Germany has allied. tech order was beeline education -> metallurgy [yes, I got education before iron working].

They really should have attacked with longswords. Even just 4 could've probably taken 4 cities. 8 would've ended me. They did not expand enough to have the hammers to support this type of invasion, I suspect.

I also had to deal with 20+ barbarian camps throughout the game. Maybe they had barbarian troubles as well. Lack of expansion makes barbarians hurt a lot more

 

[Smote]

Breaking an ICS player must be prioritized below turn 100 with a powerful blow. After this, ICS can fly away.

Yep!

The thing was, any rush of mine would have been too slow, since I had a huge tech disadvantage early game. They start with 8 beakers/turn, I start with 4 beakers/turn, and it just gets worse once they get NC. ICS was the gamble I came up with that seemed to be the most likely strategy to win with. The gamble was that I don't get rushed. I regularly checked demographics to see when I should start building military, and the answer was always "unnecessary"

 

[Smote]

Lot of city states. Did they have same amount? .

It was 2v1 with mapsize = small. I suspect 12 CS total, though I never scouted enough to verify.

 

[MasterMishi]

i thought the setup always defaults to 4 players and would auto make an ai your partner...
how did you launch with 3? map size tiny? or duel and you made an extra civ play somehow?

 

[swordspider]

LOL @ them quitting before a shot is even fired. No question you aced them though.

My biggest question- were you going to go at Infantry or hold up for Mechs or Moderns?

 

[Smote]

LOL @ them quitting before a shot is even fired. No question you aced them though.

My biggest question- were you going to go at Infantry or hold up for Mechs or Moderns?

Bombers and paratroopers actually, because i was too lazy to embark Nukes and Giant Death robots if I didn't immediately win.

 

[Kurobox]

Smote: Even though they have more beakers, techs get more expensive for each teammate. I'm not sure of the number, but I think the techs costs 50% more in a team of 2. The still research faster then you, but not by that much.

 

[Smote]

Smote: Even though they have more beakers, techs get more expensive for each teammate. I'm not sure of the number, but I think the techs costs 50% more in a team of 2. The still research faster then you, but not by that much.

That effect was for me as well. Techs took noticeably more beakers than usual.

 

[mekane]

Is there a difference between ICS and just plain rapid expansion?

And what is "small city" approach? Is that where you only build a few cities? Why wouldn't that be called "big city", wouldn't you have just a few big cities?

I tried rapid expansion / ics on emperor and got wayyy behind on population and military. Is this still a viable tactic on diety?

 

[Smote]

Is there a difference between ICS and just plain rapid expansion?

And what is "small city" approach? Is that where you only build a few cities? Why wouldn't that be called "big city", wouldn't you have just a few big cities?

I tried rapid expansion / ics on emperor and got wayyy behind on population and military. Is this still a viable tactic on diety?

I do not fully understand what people mean when they say "rapid expansion". I have never seen it properly defined, while I have seen ICS defined. From my understanding, rapid expansion is merely building a few settlers in a row.

ICS means you take Liberty and your capital will only build settlers until about turn 50 [quick]. You build cities on luxuries and off luxuries until your happy is -9. Then you build collosseums. You grow your cities to whatever size will maximize their production, whether it be 1, 2, or 3. If in danger, you build military and wait on collosseums/libraries.

Eventually, you will get 10+ libraries and after that 10+ universities. When the universities arrive, your research rate is extremely high. ICS tends to fall behind on tech from until libraries, then catch up to gain on tech when universities are done. Maritimes are KEY for ICS when collosseums are finished, to grow all cities to high sizes to catch up on research. Maritimes can even be good while unhappy, if cities are in such locations that extra food converts to extra hammers.

What I call "small city" is to build up to 2-6 cities asap, all in decent-good locations. Then you never build another settler for the rest of the game. The goal is to make your limited number of cities very good, and maybe get a puppet empire to go along with it later. Small refers to number of cities. I find it is the best balance of tech and production up to about turn 80-90. Tradition works better up to 3 cities [MAYBE 4], Liberty works better from 4-6.

What I find:
2city -> More hammers than 1city, equal tech
3city -> More hammers than 2city, equal tech, requires 1 settled luxury, 2 luxuries in border
4city -> More hammers than 3city, slower tech [catches up at turn ~70], requires 2 settled luxuries, 4 luxuries in border
5/6city -> More hammers than 4city, slower tech [catches up at turn ~75], requires 3 settled luxuries, 5 luxuries in border

The luxury requirements are due to the fact that the point of "small city" is to have a low enough number of cities that building collosseums is not necessary for a long time, and libraries/units can be built instead. National wonders can be built easily, which is a good boon when Ironworks comes along. If planning on building collosseums, you might as well ICS first.

Reason to do 1city over 2city -> Arrogance, wonderful 1st city spot and no good 2nd city spot
Reason to do 2city over 3city -> lack of luxury or lack of good 3rd spot
Reason to do 3city over 4city -> lack of luxury
Reason to do 4city over 5/6city -> planning longsword rush, don't want to be slowed down, lack of luxury

 

[Smote]

I tried rapid expansion / ics on emperor and got wayyy behind on population and military. Is this still a viable tactic on diety?

I find ICS to actually be the easiest way to win on deity, because it gets good production quickly for defense, and it claims resources very fast which can be sold to AI for the equivalent of more production, or for RAs to make up for lacking tech.

ICS synergizes very well with luxury selling, and deity AIs always have gold to spend. The funny thing is it gains them nothing except slightly quicker golden ages, because deity AIs are almost immune to unhappiness.

 

[JBConquests]

When playing 1 vs. 2 and the AI is calculating it's total military power against yours, I bet the AI isn't smart enough to realize that it should calculate the combined total of it's military and it's teammates military. If this theory is true, and you use ICS to get to a size that is comparable to their combined size. Then I can see why they would be terrified of you.

 

[Smote]

When playing 1 vs. 2 and the AI is calculating it's total military power against yours, I bet the AI isn't smart enough to realize that it should calculate the combined total of it's military and it's teammates military. If this theory is true, and you use ICS to get to a size that is comparable to their combined size. Then I can see why they would be terrified of you.

I was vs players. Screenshot was from after they left. Though the terrified part is still true, I think. My expansion rate compared to theirs was huge.

 

[mekane]

I do not fully understand what people mean when they say "rapid expansion". I have never seen it properly defined, while I have seen ICS defined. From my understanding, rapid expansion is merely building a few settlers in a row.

ICS means you take Liberty and your capital will only build settlers until about turn 50 [quick]. You build cities on luxuries and off luxuries until your happy is -9. Then you build collosseums. You grow your cities to whatever size will maximize their production, whether it be 1, 2, or 3. If in danger, you build military and wait on collosseums/libraries.

Eventually, you will get 10+ libraries and after that 10+ universities. When the universities arrive, your research rate is extremely high. ICS tends to fall behind on tech from until libraries, then catch up to gain on tech when universities are done. Maritimes are KEY for ICS when collosseums are finished, to grow all cities to high sizes to catch up on research. Maritimes can even be good while unhappy, if cities are in such locations that extra food converts to extra hammers.

What I call "small city" is to build up to 2-6 cities asap, all in decent-good locations. Then you never build another settler for the rest of the game. The goal is to make your limited number of cities very good, and maybe get a puppet empire to go along with it later. Small refers to number of cities. I find it is the best balance of tech and production up to about turn 80-90. Tradition works better up to 3 cities [MAYBE 4], Liberty works better from 4-6.

What I find:
2city -> More hammers than 1city, equal tech
3city -> More hammers than 2city, equal tech, requires 1 settled luxury, 2 luxuries in border
4city -> More hammers than 3city, slower tech [catches up at turn ~70], requires 2 settled luxuries, 4 luxuries in border
5/6city -> More hammers than 4city, slower tech [catches up at turn ~75], requires 3 settled luxuries, 5 luxuries in border

The luxury requirements are due to the fact that the point of "small city" is to have a low enough number of cities that building collosseums is not necessary for a long time, and libraries/units can be built instead. National wonders can be built easily, which is a good boon when Ironworks comes along. If planning on building collosseums, you might as well ICS first.

Reason to do 1city over 2city -> Arrogance, wonderful 1st city spot and no good 2nd city spot
Reason to do 2city over 3city -> lack of luxury or lack of good 3rd spot
Reason to do 3city over 4city -> lack of luxury
Reason to do 4city over 5/6city -> planning longsword rush, don't want to be slowed down, lack of luxury

Great breakdown.

From the sounds of it, you don't do the NC until after all your settlers are built. I think this was my problem, tried to do both (3 settlers, NC, then 7 more settlers, half of which were from my new cities, wasted hammers there).

I should have capped my cities growth, it was the first time I had really tried this ICS, didn't realize I would have massive happiness issues. It will just be weird to look at the demographis and see some civs have 5 times more people than me.

 

[Smote]

Great breakdown.

From the sounds of it, you don't do the NC until after all your settlers are built. I think this was my problem, tried to do both (3 settlers, NC, then 7 more settlers, half of which were from my new cities, wasted hammers there).

I should have capped my cities growth, it was the first time I had really tried this ICS, didn't realize I would have massive happiness issues. It will just be weird to look at the demographis and see some civs have 5 times more people than me.

The population demographic is not linear with total number of citizens in the empire. It weights concentrated population much more than spread out population. 20 population spread out will have a number sometimes 10x less than 15 population concentrated. More important numbers are Literacy and Manufactured Goods, which is % of tech tree completed, and total production per turn, respectively.

Literacy can be misleading as well, because it equally rates low-beaker techs and high-beaker techs. Thus if you rifle rush and have some very expensive techs, you may be equal or less literacy to someone who does a "fill-in" tech strategy, such that they always research the lowest cost tech. However, you may have more beakers invested in tech and be ahead of them, regardless of what literacy says.

Manufactured goods never lies. The integral of manufactured goods over time is usually a pretty good indicator of who's winning. Whoever accumulates the most hammers is usually the favorite. If one player is consistently ahead of everyone else, try to get 2 other players to ally versus him with you, and launch a joint invasion. Convince them of the necessity via demographics screen.

GNP is dangerous as well. If someone has high GNP, they are in a strong position, though not quite as strong as high manufactured goods.

 

[mekane]

The population demographic is not linear with total number of citizens in the empire. It weights concentrated population much more than spread out population. 20 population spread out will have a number sometimes 10x less than 15 population concentrated. More important numbers are Literacy and Manufactured Goods, which is % of tech tree completed, and total production per turn, respectively.

Literacy can be misleading as well, because it equally rates low-beaker techs and high-beaker techs. Thus if you rifle rush and have some very expensive techs, you may be equal or less literacy to someone who does a "fill-in" tech strategy, such that they always research the lowest cost tech. However, you may have more beakers invested in tech and be ahead of them, regardless of what literacy says.

Manufactured goods never lies. The integral of manufactured goods over time is usually a pretty good indicator of who's winning. Whoever accumulates the most hammers is usually the favorite. If one player is consistently ahead of everyone else, try to get 2 other players to ally versus him with you, and launch a joint invasion. Convince them of the necessity via demographics screen.

GNP is dangerous as well. If someone has high GNP, they are in a strong position, though not quite as strong as high manufactured goods.

Thanks, I did catch the thread for city size -> population but I guess i didn't realize the scaling.

Funny how I have spent a lot of time on these threads but still can't really seem to find that much actual strategy advice that I just had to ask someone about the most common strategies. Everyone seems caught up in complaining about how bad the game is.