The most enjoyable game I've had so far: A booming strategy

[futurehermit]

I tend to get tired of games I start where I go knocking heads, wiping out AIs. I end up with a ragtag empire and a lot of unsettled land. Leaves me missing the domination land/pop requirements from cIV.

In contrast, I've been enjoying my ICS starts, as I was always a hardcore REXer in cIV. So, I decided I would try an ICS booming (i.e., focus on growth/economy) strategy this time around.

So, I fire up an immortal game as France. I start ICSing as per usual, going down to meritocracy, though I was just expanding off of luxuries to start. I had Gandhi to my east and Egypt east of him. As I started to settle a bunch of cities toward Gandhi, he started to get upset. I built a couple of defensive units--a warrior and an archer and positioned them in behind the city closest to Gandhi. I also beelined HBR after I had everything I needed for my economy.

Gandhi attacked shortly after I hit HBR. I rushbought a horseman in the city closest to Gandhi and using the city + horseman + defensively positioned archer and warrior, I was able to repel his first attack and eventually get him to sign peace.

Then I continued ICSing, now adding some coliseums as I was running out of Meanwhile, I was trying to build relations with Egypt. Then Gandhi got pikes and came after me again while I was beelining for knights. I was just able to hold him off long enough that I hit chivalry. Then I upgraded 1 horseman to a knight and rushbought another. I took a couple of losses, but was able to hold him off.

Meanwhile, Egypt has enough of Gandhi the warmongerer and declares on him, thus helping me to continue to build relations with Egypt. Fortunately, Egypt starts doing damage (now that I've wiped out Gandhi's military) and I'm able to get Gandhi to settle for peace giving me 2 luxuries and a pile of

Then I continue ICSing to the point where I've almost settled the land available to me. I ally with a cultural CS and get a couple of GSs helping me power my way through to banking, starting on the FP in the capital. Once in the renaissance, I grab freedom and civil society planning for a mid-to-late game scientist spam.

Then I set the beeline for rifles planning to ultimately take out India once I get there, while drawing on the might of my economy.

Really fun game and I'm enjoying the look of my empire. It looks and feels more like an empire would've in cIV, but perhaps I'm just waxing nostalgic

EDIT: forgot to mention that I didn't worry about halting growth in any of my cities, just let them grow as they would.

 

[fuzzynutz]

Interesting, you are tired of knocking heads, yet you play the simplest, most mind-numbingly tedious strategy?

If thats what you enjoy, that is fine, but nothing in this post sounds different from most other ICS games I read about. I mean, growth/economy ICS isn't some neat idea you came up with, I am sure most people have tried a form of ICS with Maritime CS and Trading posts everwhere, dont you?

I dunno, I gues I am more tired of ICS games then I am of you knocking heads, and please don't take this the wrong way. I am happy that you are enjoying yourself.

 

[futurehermit]

Well, I never claimed to have invented some fantabulous strategy, just sharing. I didn't find the approach to be mind-numbingly tedious (hence my edit of not really micromanaging the cities). Just building up while maintaining a hard border against Gandhi while expanding. Led to a larger, more well-established empire than if I had horse-rushed Gandhi then Egypt leaving an empire of 2 cities + a handful of puppets.

EDIT: It also gave me an opportunity to have a friend in Egypt and I haven't had many friends in the games I've played.

 

[ClarenceSeedorf]

Interesting, you are tired of knocking heads, yet you play the simplest, most mind-numbingly tedious strategy?

If thats what you enjoy, that is fine, but nothing in this post sounds different from most other ICS games I read about. I mean, growth/economy ICS isn't some neat idea you came up with, I am sure most people have tried a form of ICS with Maritime CS and Trading posts everwhere, dont you?

I dunno, I gues I am more tired of ICS games then I am of you knocking heads, and please don't take this the wrong way. I am happy that you are enjoying yourself.

Well said.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I never claimed to have invented some fantabulous strategy, just sharing. I didn't find the approach to be mind-numbingly tedious (hence my edit of not really micromanaging the cities). Just building up while maintaining a hard border against Gandhi while expanding. Led to a larger, more well-established empire than if I had horse-rushed Gandhi then Egypt leaving an empire of 2 cities + a handful of puppets.

EDIT: It also gave me an opportunity to have a friend in Egypt and I haven't had many friends in the games I've played.

You really need to spam PoS and PoC with the AIs more. My LP of the "club immortal" game with washington shows an example of the differences doing so can make; a lot of people got hit by DoW early thanks to their settling patterns/diplo. I actually orchestrated a dogpile and did not draw ire or DoW from the AI until after I'd captured my 2nd AI capitol. Despite playing in very sloppy fashion, early diplo + war tactics have vaulted me into a very strong position. Those videos aren't done yet so I've not yet posted them forum-side as an announcement, but my position as of ep 21 on youtube (the furthest i've gotten) is very strong.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, I've been working on PoS and PoC. With only Gandhi and Egypt on the small continent though, it was a bit tricky. Gandhi was doomed to be an enemy due to his proximity and it took a bit for Egypt to warm up to PoS against India. Once Egypt came on board, things were fine in this game.

In my more recent games, I've been working more on the pacts. One thing I keep reminding myself about is to keep luxuries and gold in reserve to bribe the AI into pacts and wars. Sometimes though they won't do it for a luxury plus some gold. It's unclear to me exactly how the AI makes its diplo decisions, but hopefully I'll figure it out as I go along.

The strongest diplo approach I've used so far is wiping out all of the civs on my continent early