The ICS Experiment w/4 Civs

[RedRover57]

My game with Arabia has been quite different than what you guys are describing so far. Washington settled a city 3 tiles from my capital (dyes area) very early, blocking my way to the west. He marched a settler across the map basically to do it. I probably waited too long for my first city as I waited until Collective Rule and a 5-pop capital. I still had room to settle a bunch of cities though (7, I think), so have decided to wait until camel archers to start taking him out. I even had the chance to build the NC after 4 cities since I had the production to build libraries reasonably fast (rush bought one in one city). The upside to Washington's city spamming is that it is spreading my religion really quickly (also with the help of Religious Texts, and Desert Folklore made it all initially possible). When it comes time to attack him it won't be much of a challenge since he is spread very thin and still has early units (warriors/archers). I should be able to clear out more space to expand very easily.

If this wasn't an ICS challenge I would have done a 4-city Tradition start instead based on the circumstances in my game. I could have had 4 relatively high pop cities by now and reached camel archers earlier. I don't think that ICS offers any advantages really - it's only a novelty strategy.

 

[budweiser]

God I hate it when that happens.

I think its OK to open with a few cities and expand later. To me, the spirit is end with 20-25 cities, not sprint to make them all at once. That would be sub-optimal.

I'm glad I have Washington under control in my game. I look forward to punishing him more with my camel archers. Mwuhaha. Camel Archers are one of my favorites.

 

[RedRover57]

I just wish I had access to more than 6 horses. I will need to take out Siam to get more unless I can maybe buy more from Cathy. The map is definitely lacking in horses. The CS don't have them either.

 

[budweiser]

Ahh. I see. Rammy was dumb enough to attack me in the cbow phase so i killed him and took all the horses. Then I teched to chivalry and rush bought all of the camel archers. I had some bank saved (1500+). I have 1 regular horseman to take the city while the rest are camel archers to shoot it down.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

france game up to ~t180:

Spoiler :

im at t180 with France. ive taken stockholm and 1 other swedish city and decided to wait on China cuz she wouldnt build a 3rd city (took the other one). dont want to take that diplo hit yet. Ive taken 2 of Hiawatha's city's and about to take his capital if i can get one more gatling in range. Im also on my way to Haile's cap. Got Adwa in a peace deal so im just waiting 10 turns to get some roads thru the jungles and get into position. China got the GW and has chu's now so im waiting til i can take them on with better units. she might be last with bombers since I still have to get to Montezuma and Greece. I have 11 or 12 cities settled and +22 happiness for the next couple cities.

Stockholm had machu pichu, CI, statue of zeus and GL. machu got me to over 100gpt w/out a golden age. I have my religion in ~20 cities (+1f/+1c from wine/incense, asceticism, mosques, ceremonial burial, itinerant preachers). this is going to be much later than i thought. i forgot about the french 3 musketeers achievement and forgot to tech to them. its on the way. i have about 200bpt and 150cpt. unis in maybe 5 cities though and my cap is at 14 pop, stocholm annexed at 11 and the rest 5 and under. i completed liberty and honor and have order opener coming in about 8 turns. thought about going patronage as i have about 5 CSs in my pocket and friends with maybe 3 more but sp's are expensive now. but with france i can finish 2 whole trees and then some while with others im lucky to even start a 3rd tree.

i delayed 2 settlers for about 15 turn to get the NC. i had 6 cities at the time. i also had happy issues so it worked out anyway. not sure NC was necessary. i got it around t120 with 6 cities. my ability to spam lots of cities didnt come til about t160 after i got religion rolling. the happiness issue was the only thing to really hold me back and religion took care of most if not all of it.

i got the oracle and it got me the 50% xp honor policy. i got alhambra and pisa too. i had a spy tell me Hiawatha was building Pisa and only had 6 turns left, same as me. so i had to figure out how to squeeze 1 turn faster production. Had to drop some gold on buying a forge for only 2 more hammers but it got the job done. i was torn on what to use my GP on. i could rush ND or FP or get another GS to plant or an admiral to search the seas. i decided on a GE and held him til Taj Mahal for the GA. I built ND in 9 turns, got a natural GA and rushed Taj since I had CI now. I dont think any of this was a good decision as i could have just rushed FP and gotten more units/settlers instead. but i didnt know how much happy it would get me as ND was more tangible. shaking off old build desires is a pain but the 24+ golden age turns funded the upgrades to gatlings and an alliance or two. im still in it for a few more turns.

i agree that ICS (or wide in general) is more of a novelty strategy. i think small and tall 3-4 city trad will always be faster in any VC. even 6 city liberty or 6-city trad would be faster, imo. but i like it for the variety and planning challenge. each turn takes forever micromanaging workers and city build orders and wars. im definitely losing grasp of the bigger picture with this much going on each turn so efficiency is a real hassle. i need a note pad to remind me of what i had planned for each city between sessions. when im done with this one ill do the immortal one. i both am and am not surprised more people think its easier. they are much better players than me, haha, but i had a tough time with america in my 2 tries so far.

its only spoilered for being a large wall of text. no real need, i guess, haha.

 

[chazzycat]

yeah i'm totally skipping NC in my Maya game. if you're worried about science you can go messenger of the gods...though I am doing ok without it just based on pyramids. at the end of my expansion phase i'm only 3% behind the leader in literacy. i took pretty much all happiness benefits in my religion (sacred waters, ceremonial burial, pagodas, asceticism) so I should be poised for a long period of growth & economic success. will let you know how it turns out. I think i'm going to go for a similar game plan from the France game, albeit with less policies. i'm just not a fan of domination...will probably go diplo again because its hard to generate many scientists with Maya (and culture is obviously not an option).

I think I did luck out a bit on the AI settling patterns...neither of them came at me. Siam is confined to 2 cities in the south, I have everything north & west of them. America has been pre-occupied with the Byzantines and didn't expand towards me either. my cities are all around his in a big arc going down that peninsula to the southwest and to the east of the mountain ranges. I tried to take some screenshots but it crashes my game for some reason

timing the settling with religious expansion is definitely key. I only used 1 missionary and just based on the timing, the rest of my 19 cities all converted naturally. all american & Siamese cities were naturally converted too, plus all the CS. Itinerant preachers helps. religion is basically fueling my expansion, it would be impossible without it.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

my only missionary got me 2 CSs (gotten before enhancing) and natural pressure got my 1pop cities hooked up very quickly. while i was planning where my cities went i was also planning where the roads would need to be. my last 3 cities all settled and immediately were hooked up to the trade network. so happy costs were 1 less already with liberty policy. i could rush buy shrines for another 1h. and within a couple turns they were converted and adding pressure. ive been trying to settle my first 4-5 cities far enough away to have a filler spot prefectly between them. im not doing it so much RedRover57 style but dealing with some concentric placement while also settling on the 'better' spot. i should have screen shots on my victory. ill try to maybe list the order of settled cities based on the names list in the game files to see how i planned the first 10-12. its probably pretty flawed but i want to see at the end of the game what i was thinking at the beginning.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Well, the game crashed on me on turn 96, right after I settled 7th city, so it's a good time to report on my progress, I guess.
Soon, I'm going to settle 3 more (or 4 or 5 ) cities and then plan to kill Siam. He ruins my ICS pattern. And acts like a crazy man. I stole a worker from him on turn 15. Very quickly he agreed to even peace and few turns later offered a DoF. I accepted it, then after I started expanding he denounced me. Oh well... He's not gonna live for long.

I've taken a non-traditional approach, I assume. Beelined GL and got Philo on turn 40 (so it's more than iffy strategy, but I thought why not to try?) Totally forgot about ruins of course and was unpleasantly surprised, really wanted a scarcher. I took Representation right in time to speed up the end of GL and most of NC. Bought a first settler, and an atla... archer. Barbs are too annoying. Capital never grew past size 4, kicks out settlers for last 40+ turns. New cities all build pyramid, monument and CB's.
Beelined Writing, obviously, then Mining, AH, Masonry, Calendar, Trapping, Theology, IW, Civil Service which is 5 turns away. Took GS first and planted an academy, and GE second (for ND?). Didn't know whether GP will increase the cost of a naturally born one. Which ironically turned out to be very expensive anyways, like 250 . I took happiness from cities on rivers, Pagodas and Ceremonial Burial so far. Haven't enhanced yet. Was lucky with CS quests and allied Belgrade and Antwerp. Currently I'm running at ~15 . Got one ballista, waiting for more.
Playing as Maya, btw.

 

[chazzycat]

figured out to take screenshots...probably about time. some pics of the end of my expansion phase:

map:

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[/IMG]

my last settler is on his way down the peninsula.

demographics:

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[The Pilgrim]

Yeah, I think we overkilled it with happiness beliefs just a little.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

chazzy, did you raze some american cities or did he just not settle where your cities are? he settled right up to 6 tiles from my borders almost in a straight line of cities.

 

[RedRover57]

Chazzy said in a previous post that he didn't have any resistance, which is why he could expand so fast. In my case I need to clear out all of America's cities, some of which are difficult to get to, so it's slower going. Plus Arabia just isn't as OP as the Mayans in terms of ICS. Also in my game Siam has 3 decent sized cities and a religion, plus he built the Hagia and the GMoD, so I have to deal with his Great Prophet and missionary spam. I still have much higher pressure though. He will definitely need to go next after I deal with Washington.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

okay, thanks. in my france game Ethiopia is also spamming missionaries everywhere but i have so much pressure now that its just to keep a couple of his cities and to try for some CSs. Eth got pagodas, 2 CS related beliefs and one other enhancement i cant remember so he's clearly trying for CS spread. i have 1 inquisitor by my cap and thats it. i captured one of his prophets in hope it hadnt been used yet but it had. i deleted it instead of gifting it. ive got maybe 5 of my mosques going but they cost 400 each now that im in Industrial. i forget what my fpt is but its maybe in the 40s or so. gonna finish it tonight.

 

[chazzycat]

chazzy, did you raze some american cities or did he just not settle where your cities are? he settled right up to 6 tiles from my borders almost in a straight line of cities.

luck of the draw I suppose...settled them all myself. would have gone to war if necessary, but didn't have to.

 

[chazzycat]

Yeah, I think we overkilled it with happiness beliefs just a little.

it looks that way now...but you can never have too much happiness in an ICS game, IMO. it will all get used...all my cities are growing like mad now. Allied both maritime Cs nearby and am pushing farms/granaries/aqueducts in all cities. because my cities are close together, they will hit max capacity soon then i will start putting all that growth into specialists.

i have some interesting policy choices coming up. I'm 1 policy away from protectionism, but i don't really need that happiness right now. About to hit industrial in a few turns (i'm at 170 now) and so those options are available too...but I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Order seems the obvious choice but again, don't really need the happiness right now. Policy costs are still big, but my culture is improving rapidly as my cities focus on infrastructure. hopefully I will meet more cultural CS soon, as I only have 1 allied right now.

oh also there was room for one more city at the bottom of the peninsula (with 3 fish no less), so i'm at 20 now.

 

[The Pilgrim]

it looks that way now...but you can never have too much happiness in an ICS game, IMO.

Yeah, I've learned that pretty fast. The hard way.

Turn 125. Everything goes pretty smoothly. Stupid Rammi DoWed me two turns after my previous post. So I took his capital and after a while he offered his third city near Old Faithful. In third ring. I could have razed it, but preferred to annex, it has library and market already, so be it. Didn't plan to make peace with him at all, but didn't want to fight under 10 even more. Also don't know what I was thinking, taking Commerce opener before Meritocracy. Lesson learned. I'm at 12 cities and two more on the way right in Washington's face, escorted by crossbows, ballistas, horsemen and a swordsman. Russia is chewing him up from the west. And he has mighty warriors and archers. If there is something I dislike about the patch, that must be it. Immortal AI should not fight with warriors and archers at turn 125. He hit Medieval a long long time ago.
I'm first in literacy and third in military. This game is so over...

 

[budweiser]

Here's me at t200. You can see my cities and the Arab/Byzantine coalition in action. I have been unhappy many turn this game, but protectionism finally solved it.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Am I the only one who feels like AI? I just keep placing cities in crappy locations, don't micromanage anything and put no thought whatsoever into my actions.

Played till 171. Just planted my last 28th city. Washington is dead. Rammy is still alive, mainly because I have no patience to deal with so many things at once. I can actually settle one more city on mainland between Russia and former America and there are several one tile islands. Meh... I've got enough. The plan for the nearest future is to set up infrastructure, few universities, grow a little and finish off Rammy. Byzantine is down to one city, the Dutch to three, Celts to two. Incas and Russia are the the only semi-competitive forces left. Have no idea what VC to pursue. This is not going to be fast finish no matter what, which only proves that ICS is not beneficial indeed. But domination is the most obvious choice for me given the circumstances.

P.S. I have camel archers of my own.

 

[chazzycat]

266 diplo win, Maya

I managed to stay peaceful pretty much the entire game after a brief spat with Rammy in the early going, who I forgave. I just stopped at 20 cities and figured that was enough. I managed to stay friendly with almost all the AI all the time, meaning I could sell a ridiculous number of luxuries at good price. At first I pumped the money into infrastructure like aqueducts, lighthouses, etc plus maritime CS all to get the cities growing, since I had so much happiness. Then I turned to the rest of the CS. Only signed 2 RAs all game.

For the bonus great people, I went Engineer (ND), admiral (explore), scientist, merchant, artist. I didn't have great luck with the admiral...he was stuck in the sea to the northwest. The order was somewhat based on my needs, but also a lot of city state quests were fulfilled.

Purchased 2 scientists with faith and grew exactly ONE 'naturally'. also bought an engineer for the UN with faith.

Policies went something like this:
liberty-->republic-->collective rule-->citizenship-->meritocracy-->representation
(engineer from liberty finisher built the oracle)-->commerce opener
trade unions-->mercantilism
rationalism opener-->secularism
patronage opener-->philanthropy
order opener

Here are some pics...

final demographics:

Spoiler :

UN vote results:

Spoiler :

(two CS were coup'ed on the last turn, one I never met)

and my fully developed lands, east side:

Spoiler :

west side:

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and the dangly part:

Spoiler :

pretty fun game. honestly at turn 150 I could have gone for any VC, but this seemed the most logical given the massive amounts of cash I was bringing in, plus being in such good position to win lots of city state quests.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

okay, finished the france game. i thought i might have to get into oil/planes but i was way off. ics let me flood a lot more units than i thought. final settled count was 21 or 22, i think St Etienne was the last city i settled. the last 6 or so were finding edge spots between conquered caps. finished off Monty last and bum rushed china maybe 10 turn earlier. didnt count the puppets but it was maybe 10. i annexed every cap except the last 2.

got the musketeer achievement and forgot i was trying. 1 unit didnt really look like it was flanking. victory was such a forgone conclusion with every civ a third of my game score and less that i wasnt trying to get much more than 20 cities. only china got eliminated and that was very late, t230 or so. on my way to Monty i liberated 2 of spain's cities for her and she intensely hated me. i bought OB from her and she had no problem but when i declared on monty and gave her 2 cities back she was livid. haha, C'est la vie.

my finishing cpt was a little off. i finished sistine just before victory so that total is inflated. i was actually 2 turns from the next policy. i forgot what city was the last to get a mosque but i never saw a way to get a count on it. it was over 10 for sure but i dont know how many over.

edit: never had to take Madrid. Monty did pre-t150 so one less cap for me to deal with.