A question about ICS

SandMonkey · December 16, 1999, 17:00

Okay, i have recently been playing Civ2 using the ICS strategy, and a few questions were aroused. Now i have been doing great so far (two games on King level).In the first i conquered the world with dragoons (Small world, 3 civs). Since i did pretty well with that i decided to bump it up a bit, so for my current game it's a medium world, 4 civs. But this is quite as easy as the last game, since i am on a large island by myself. I have filled up my entire island (about 50 cities worth of space) and am currently colonizing another island (10 cities so far). I know the whole deal with keep building the settlers, and i have around 95 or so. I also know not to build any improvements in my "worker" cities. I have kept true to that, and the dividends have been great, I'm making around 120 gold a turn (I think income is about 135 and cost is 17) and currently have 5 times as much gold as my nearest opponent.

So now my question: Would it be wise to wait and build Mike's Chapel AND Adam Smith's Co. to help my trade out? The way i figure it, MC will help keep the people happy, and AS will pay for everything costing 1 gold, so i could build a temple and a library and let all my cities grow to size 8. I haven't irrigated any squares excepot for the ones in my capitol, but i built roads over everything, so irrigating wouldn't take too long with the hoards of settlers i have. I was just wondering if building these two wonders could work to my advantage.

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SandMonkey

"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say that you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, 'Think again, bat man'"

VetLegion · December 16, 1999, 17:10

What is ICS strategy?

Sieve Too · December 16, 1999, 17:25

ICS - infinite city sleaze (strategy).

SM: Do you have Leo and SOL? If not, get them ASAP. Don't waste time building Libraries or other improvements except perhaps a Temple. With SOL go Fundy and never worry about unhappiness again. Use all your cities to build Knights or Dragoons or ships, when needed.

I always add MC in ICS games but you can skip it. If you have it, bribery is much easier. Adam Smith isn't worth the trouble.

jpk · December 16, 1999, 17:27

ICS = Infinite City Sleaze.

Basically you build lots and lots of cities all of them very close together.

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If you can not think of a good reason to build something other than a caravan, build a caravan!

SandMonkey · December 16, 1999, 17:32

Sieve -

I have Leo's, i made a conscious effort to get that, i know it's very important to this game. Unfortunetely, i missed SoL, the Americans got that. My theory behind the libraries was that my science would accelerate quickly, and with AS i wouldn't have to pay a thing, thus keeping the cash flow highly on my side.

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SandMonkey

"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say that you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, 'Think again, bat man'"

[This message has been edited by SandMonkey (edited December 16, 1999).]

Smash · December 16, 1999, 18:01

yes
yes

you should be at the point now where you are building nothing but caravans and should have your pick of any and all wonders you want.

Genghis Al · December 17, 1999, 00:45

I did the ICS and I hit the max # of cities. I didn't know whhat to do. Built improvments. go all out army. I was lost

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A russian never forgets

Smash · December 17, 1999, 04:05

256?I never go that far.Yikes!40 to 50 is plenty enough to manage for me.Just keep building and delivering caravans.Once you get Spaceflight start Apollo in enough cities to build a spaceship plus one.Thats minimum 15 structurals,6 components and 3 modules.So 25 cities start Apollo.Dont rush this one.Wait for super conductor then build Apollo and switch 15 "Apollo cities" to structurals,6 to components and 3 to modules.You should have enough gold by now to finish your spaceship in 1 turn.Try to time it with the discovery of Fusion Power.There is no sheild loss when switching from wonders to spaceship parts.Seems like a bug to me but works like a charm.
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[This message has been edited by Smash (edited December 17, 1999).]

kcbob · December 17, 1999, 14:35

Is there a variation of ICS? I mean a pseudo-official variation with a name, e.g., "ICS, the Munich gambit"? I more or less play ICS. Lots of cities. But they are not necessarily close together. I send out settlers, find good locations, i.e. multiple special squares, and build there. Then I build more settlers to connect my cities with roads. When I find an AI opponent, his empire almost always looks like what I suppose "classic ICS" would look like.

I guess I'm figuring that the more land I control, the less the AI will have to control. Make sense?

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Frodo lives!

Smash · December 17, 1999, 17:14

Thats sounds like plain old fashioned expansion.
ICS ers will:
build a city,build a defender,build a settler,build 1 road,build a city.Repeat.You cover the map in a checkerboard of cities.You have to modify as terrain dictates..The ai overlaps it outside squares.Not quite ICS but the same idea

kcbob · December 17, 1999, 17:49

People actually play like that??? Cities one square apart? Do they win? Is there an advantage? And how many cities do you stop at?

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Frodo lives!

And better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or.......

Puaxant Tuvip · December 17, 1999, 19:27

I guess they do win. Through conquest and space.

I'd like to try. I always build 20 to 30 cities. But build many improvements. But I guess the point is to build no improvements except maybe a temple right? And what about barracks (I'm big on veteran units). But it seems you trade city micromanagent to settler/engineer micromanagement.

Smash · December 17, 1999, 20:54

Yes people play like this.Where do they stop?Not sure can't go higher than 256 though.

yes they win.Arii uses a modified ICS and landed in 1075 -small map,deity.7 civs,raging hoardes.You do make at least one "normal" city and this becomes the "super science city"All the others are more or less support cities.

While its not what the game designers had in mind,it is highly effective and I don't consider a cheat or bug.Just population density.Try it sometime,you'll be surprised at how many cities you'll have and how fast you have them.

Early on, cities don't produce high amounts of beakers so more cities = more beakers.Once you get started its like a snowball.Just keeps getting better and better.Use the Gardens to pacify size 1 redheads and, as usual, Mich's.

There is one slight risk early on in MP at least.An ICS civ can be wiped out very quickly as the cities are all close and connected but the window is small.This becomes an advantage to the defender once suitable defense technology is discovered.No worries when it comes to the ai.
Missing the Gardens can be a pain also.

Genghis Al · December 18, 1999, 01:25

Do you ever improve terrian? Should I not overlap my science city? I mean give science city the max space all others 1 apart?

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al

Smash · December 18, 1999, 03:35

Seems like a good plan to let your science city get as big as possible.This doesn't necessarily mean that no overlapping should occur but eventually it should be working every square that produces trade in its radius and enough food of course.

You don't have to be religious about 1 square spacing.You build as terrain best allows.This may mean clusters or pairs bypassing poor terrain or not.You decide.You may go with 5 close cities then 1 larger city,then 5 close 1 large etc.

Since cities are close and have less squares available I like to improve as much terrain as I can.At some point you may decide "enough cities allready"then you have a small army of settlers to irrigate,road,mine etc

Jim W · December 19, 1999, 19:16

In my latest map, I have a problem getting any two cities within three days camel trek of each other, let alone very close to each other. There are many mountains, dozens of deserts, lots of lakes, so that you can have one city, but the next city has nothing to live on. So I have to defend a long string of cities. Fortunately, I got Gunpowder about 780B, and am on the verge of getting Riflemen, while my enemies still haven't gotten beyond Legions.

However, I can't get enough troops together to conquer my enemies, because by the time I get them gathered to where the enemy is, they ask for a cease-fire, and so I start trying to expand colonies again. And then the Bad Guys pull a sneak attack, and then...

Well, you get the idea.

JimW

Genghis Al · December 19, 1999, 21:02

I started my first OCS game and it is working awsome. I started at the bottem of africa (large world) and the persians above me. I built about 40 cities all one apart excapt my scince capital moscaw, that has some room. All my cities are 4-7, and Moscow is 39. I sent out my spis and bought persia.

Here is my probleme though. All my cities are terrible shield wise. It is space race time (1790). I heard poeple saying build apallo and use caravans to speed it up... Can somone simplifiy that for me?

And one more question. What is alot of science in the city? Mine is making 1400 beakers, is that alot?

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al

Smash · December 19, 1999, 22:32

1400 is an awesome number for a super science city.

once you discover spaceflight start Apollo in at least 25 cities.Finish it in 1 city and switch the other 24 to the various spaceship parts.Try to time Apollo with the discovery of Fusion Power, then switch and build,launch your spaceship in 1 turn.There is no sheild penalty when switching from a wonder to a spaceship part.

wonderdog4 · December 19, 1999, 22:44

See, now that's why I come back here every few months. A post starts out with a newbie question and ends up telling you something new.

Thanks, Smash. I did not know that.

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Vote Equity
http://www.equityparty.ab.ca

Genghis Al · December 19, 1999, 23:45

How many caravabs should I have? I am sorry to say I stoped building them and started capataizing to afford all the inciting I was doing. so I have no caravans. and how many cities do I need to start appallo in to get max pionts?

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al

Genghis Al · December 20, 1999, 00:00

I already got fusion power, is that bad? I get a discovery every 1 turn so I can't aviod it.

I hear all this talk about sild being the supreme science city booster. I don't get it... Wine is just as good and that gives you tons of shields with a mine, or gold that is like 3 trade better? Why is siik so special?

And can somone please explain a few caravan things to me.

1. Why do all my cities supply dye and noone wants any?

2. When do AI civ's start demanding oil?

3. when does uranium come into the picture?

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al

Puaxant Tuvip · December 20, 1999, 00:03

I'd say wine is better. It gives 4 trade. Silk gives 3.

Don't know about Dye. I usually have no problem getting a city that wants dye

There was another thread about this, but I don't know if it's been verified. I think the era determines the ai cities demands.
I think oil demand starts in industrial period and uranium would be in the modern era.

Smash · December 20, 1999, 01:13

Sounds to me like you can do whatever you want.Buy up the world if you like.

Any trade special is good but my fav is GOLD.

A max ship is 12 modules(yes 4 each)16 components and 39(?) structurals.I think.So thats 67 cities....wait a minute...you have fusion?Then you can build the parts now.Buy em if you have to.Disband units and caravans from the other cities to help.

If you want to finish this one as fast as you can then build 33 structurals,16 components and just 3 modules.This gives a flight time of 5.7 years

Steve Clark · December 20, 1999, 11:54

Genghis: You can use caravans to build SS parts by disbanding them in the cities that are building the parts. They contribute 25 shields (regardless of commodity). It works best if you have many (>100) caravans already stacked outside of those cities. That way the parts can be built in a few turns. The minimum (I think) number of shields to build a complete spaceships is 3120 (assuming 15-3-3-1-1-1). That would be about 125 caravans. Of course, if you have the gold, rush buying those 320 shields parts would be faster. Hope this helps.

Smash · December 20, 1999, 16:46

One little thing I think Ming mentioned a hundred years ago,I would keep those caravans inside cities.It would be a shame if a barb or AI unit popped up and killed them.
[This message has been edited by Smash (edited December 20, 1999).]

toofergo · December 20, 1999, 16:58

Actually, you can get 50 shields per caravan for space ship construction, assuming there's a wonder left unbuilt. Switch the city to the wonder (say, the Manhattan project), move the caravan into the city, and switch back to SS construction. All at zero cost.

Steve Clark · December 20, 1999, 17:28

Good points. I forgot to mention that I usually have the caravans on a fortress with a NONE unit defending.

too: Is there not a penalty for switching? I don't remember if the parts are wonders or improvements or units. Seems like when I was building the parts, I couldn't easily tell.

Xin Yu · December 20, 1999, 17:44

SS parts, wonders, and capitalization are of one group. So switching among them has no penalty. If you can't time the SS modules with the Apollo, just switch the fast cities to capitalization and wait for several turns. Then in one turn you have all things ready simultaneously. You can't build anything in between but you get some cash.

Genghis Al · December 20, 1999, 18:38

Thanks a lot

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al

SandMonkey · December 20, 1999, 21:18

So, which does everyone feel ICS is better for: conquest or space race?

My initial response would be conquest, but after seeing Arii's 1075 game, i think it's really up in the air. What does everyone think?

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SandMonkey

"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say that you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, 'Think again, bat man'"