A few numbers (maintenance costs for # of cities)

[Velociryx]

Also, keep in mind...while 13 cities might not SOUND like a lot, two things to remember: 1) settlers are 100 food/hammers each....radically more expensive than before. 2) you can't cram cities as close together as you like. What constitutes ICS *here* in this game, is rather wide spacing by traditional ICS standards.

So far tho...I would have to say that the claim that "ICS is dead" was a bit of an oversimplification.

Undeniably weakened, for sure.

Dead?

I'm beginning to get the sense that it isn't.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Well...I think I just found the outer boundary.

On a standard map, when I built my 18th city, it pushed my maintenance costs to 99gpt....looks like a soft cap up to ~18 on a regular map, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks.

I'm building courthouses everywhere my maint. is at least two, and that'll help bring it back down, but even at that, I'm still at tech pairity with everyone, and the timing couldn't have been better, cos there's not an available scrap of land left on the continent to be colonized in any case. (well, there's one more little smidgeon of marginal land, and I've already got a settler headed there, but aside from that one, the continent is as crammed full of cities as me and the AI can make it.

Final analysis....with regards to manifest destiny style continental ICS....not dead.

Not dead and still strong enough to be viable.

More games will be needed to compare it as a strategy vs. more traditional methods of playing, but so far, I'm dominating the continent, and I've done nothing but build workers, settlers, and warriors (here recently, I'm beginning to build archers and swordsmen--2 archers and 1 sword, to be specific. And I just crossed into the middle ages, tech wise, so my default garrisons are now spears, rather than warriors.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Well...I think I just found the outer boundary.

On a standard map, when I built my 18th city, it pushed my maintenance costs to 99gpt....looks like a soft cap up to ~18 on a regular map, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks.

I think what actually happened is rounding at work: when the number of cities maintenance increases from 1.45 to 1.55, it rounds off from 1 to 2. However, this effect gets multiplied by your 18 cities, which explains the jump.

But anyway, this number of 18 cities is most certainly going to scale with dificulty level: Noble is the level at which AIs need to compete. They can't be curtailed too much when it comes to early expansion. Try Prince, and see how that goes. In Civ3, ICS was the ultimate tactic on deity and emperor, not on the lowest levels...

DeepO

[Fried-Psitalon]

Yeah, Noble is a pretty low difficulty level for major strategic analysis. It's only used in MP to play in an environment where humans are only battling humans, not the game.

[ktbutts]

Vel,
Does the reliance on cottages in order to implement this rapid expansion dilute the returns of ICS? For example, the spam city needs to work the cottage square rather than hammer producing squares.
Also, it would be interesting to record research points being generated in order to find a point of maximum returns (Does 60% research with 12 cities yield more than a higher % with fewer cities?)
Based on your above posts it looks like this might work well in single player because your inflated points allow you to diplomatically bully the AI (potentialy making up for your reseach shortfall). However, in MP the inflated points probably wouldn't matter as much

[Velociryx]

Quite true on all counts....and, as time goes by, we'll be hearing more about this (when some die-hard ICS folks begin conducting their own experiments).

For the moment, however, I thought it was worth the mention.

I can say that it's an absolutely awful way to play Civ IV....the relentless focus on expansion means that you almost toally ignore all the really COOL stuff, so I believe that this was my first and last experiment down this road.

Mostly, I was just...testing the waters.

-=Vel=-

[Fried-Psitalon]

Well, I can't speak for SP, but in MP, if you're using cottage spam to maintain your cities while ICSing, that's definitely a major step towards sticking a knife in your belly. When a player sees a massive skew between your production and GNP, he knows you're going for cottage madness. (Likewise, an extremely low GNP signifies someone who has badly overexpanded and is dead meat from disbanding/obsolete units.)

Respectfully, if your strategy is building warriors then perhaps the AI needs to be patch-notified of that manuever. A human who saw warrior/worker/settler spam would march in with axes and eat an ICS'ers lunch.

[Common Sensei]

I had one game where I was trying to expand rapidly and Montezuma was a close neighbor to the south, and Catherine (also a close neighbor) had quickly established a large cultural zone with her Creative trait to the north. No sooner than the next round after I plop down the third city does Montezuma declare war and send some Axemen to my doorstep. Since I was trying to expand quickly, I did not have a very large military at all.

I think there are other factors besides to consider besides whether or not ICS is economically feasible before we declare it dead, on its deathbed, ailing, healthy or strong.

[DeepO]

I didn't run any formal tests, but from my experience I would say it's definately dead. While there may be situations which allow you to ICS, I very much doubt if those situations wouldn't have given you an even larger lead by being a bit more moderate in settler spamming, allowing your empire to grow mature.

So, if you ICS and fill a continent in 500 AD, being more moderate might have lead to have the continent filled in 500 AD as well, but you having a larger tech or military lead, and a better future as not all your cities are size 2.

DeepO

[Metaliturtle]

Yeah, I wonder if developing 4 core cities and then trying to ICS might make things go a lot easier as far as ICS is concerned. I'll probably try this tonight if nobody beats me to it.

[vmxa1]

One of the civics reduces maint, so you could try that.

I am surprised that you could get away on Noble with making so many cities and no AI came at you with better units.

If you get Aztecs or any Aggressive civ next to you, that could be painful. It will be painful as you move up.

Now what I am imterested in is what the impact is of not getting much else done. IOW less infrastruture and fewer workers (I presume)?

Do you have the 4000bc start to try it with a different emphasize to see if your research is farther or less far down the tree?

What about GP and culture? I would think pushing on settlers would have to hurt those areas?

[DeepO]

Metaliturtle, that's basically how I play CIV.

First of all, build your capital and get a second city on a good spot asap (depending on situation after worker and lots of warriors).

Build a little, let it grow.

Then quickly expand to another 2-3 cities, for a total of 4-5. All in good spots, except maybe a barb city, or a strategical city (you can support 1 non-productive city at this point). Possibly take these cities from the AI instead of settling them.

Build a little, let it grow.

Next wave: another 3-5 cities. You capital and second city are up to size 8 now, and can support your empire on their own. For these cities, placement is less important, which alows you to keep certain AI cities that aren't quite perfect.

Build a little, let it grow

Depending on whether you conquered or settled last wave, the commerce your empire is generating will very quickly allow another wave. And you can keep this up for a long time...

I wonder where the breaking point is: where cities of size X are so much faster at producing settlers, and supporting maintenance that it will be faster than doing it in size 1 or 2 cities.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vmxa1
What about GP and culture? I would think pushing on settlers would have to hurt those areas?

What about wonders?

vmxa, Vel said he built nothing but settlers, workers, and units. I wondered to what date he played, though, and what size his biggest city was when he reached 18.

DeepO

[upsidedown]

The one thing that does seem to be universally smart move to make is to build as many cities before the AI kicks in their little city building spree.

Also in a multiplayer game or a resourceful single player game, losing the tech advantage doesn't really matter when you can just trade for all that tech. I mean you're not going to win a cultural or space race, but domination/UN become a lot easier.

[Velociryx]

Biggest city in that run was size four....culture CAN be weak, but then again...mayhaps not....for example....if you're playing a creative Civ, you get +2 culture, and the bonus is based upon the number of cities you found. Thus, you could very well be a cultural heavyweight, by focusing on nothing but expansion (with the right civ).

Likewise, I'd imagine that Organized, Expansive, or Financial civs would have advantages in terms of cranking out relatively MORE cities than their near rivals.

With regards to the better units....didn't seem to make much difference. In the partial game I mentioned above, one of the cities I absorbed was a barbarian city, defended by a spear, an archer and two warriors. Used nothing but warriors to attack it and absorbed it without much of a hiccup (lost ~6-8 warriors, but at the rate I was cranking them out, I didn't feel it).

And btw, I HEARTILY support the notion of patch notifying the AI, cos frankly, it was a cheesy way to play....

-=Vel=-