War Chariot Rush and why ICS is not dead

[Kc7mxo]

infinite city sleaze if you hated it

infinite city strategy if you loved it

[Martinus]

I think Mongols are even better for early rush, since they get Aggressive and Keshiks can move on any terrain as if it was plains.

[Freddz]

The early unique units are, of course, more relatively powerful on small and tiny maps. That strat you had was not going to work as well on a larger map, I believe. Try playing that strat on Prince/monarch and/or larger map.
Noble is supposed to be easy and your map settings made it even easier.

[Cookie Monster]

Based on my experience with the game so far I have to agree that ICS isn't totally dead. It can still be practiced but in a controled and restrained way.

Have an army of workers ready because you need to improve all those new cities fast. Once some of them grow and start bringing in income you'll be fine. No need to turn down science too low. Plus I've noticed in my games that I'm only 3 or 4 techs behind the leaders. If I play my diplomatic card right I can get 1 maybe 2 friends to trade with.

You definately need to adopt some religion if you're going to attempt ICS because the core cities will get unhappy fast due too their fast growth.

Just my random thoughts but I'm definately not entirely convinced that ICS is totally eliminated. My experience however has been limited to noble so it may be much more harder at the higher levels.

[Freddz]

Well, it seems ICS requires some skill to execute well, at least.

[Martinus]

I think it is possible to pull off REX, but that does not make it ICS.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
Based on my experience with the game so far I have to agree that ICS isn't totally dead. It can still be practiced but in a controled and restrained way.

I think that's the rub (for those that disagree with you) ICS isn't supposed to be controlled nor restrained. It's supposed to be an absolute spamming of cities as close as possible for no other reason than to push the borders back as far as possible before settling in.

The simple fact that you paused, with only 5 cities, long enough to build over a dozen War chariots kills the ICS scenario, IMHO.

(EDIT - Sorry, didn't mean you Cookie Monster. I meant peyoan )

Not to detract from your victory (heck, I havn't won once yet) just making sure the deffinitions are being used correctly. We hammered on these guys to balance this out and they worked hard to do so. Changing the deffinition now is not fair. Let's give credit where credit is due.

Tom P.

[Nikolai]

I'll join the choir, this doesn't sound like ICS. But I miss yin here, would be interesting to see what he has to say.

[peyoan]

I see the point. Although i expanded with conquest, you could easily have expanded rapidly peacefully with cities in true ICS mode.

The moral is that if you can make friends you can bypass the maintenance once you get certain semi-early techs. With the larger territory, come more resources to milk also.

I hated ICS in civ series, and yes, it is a conditional aspect now, but the fact still remains that more cities = more power in the long run. If Rome or Persia invaded me, it would have been different, but it just shows that ICS is still alive, albeit in a different package and requiring SOME thought.

Look at the world today, we have large lots of open land. By civ standards, even with the tweaked system, your world is packed by 1000 AD. All combat/strategy takes place on borders or in and around the cities, no open field conflicts really.

However, i do love the way that, after my initial conquests, i was so hurting for cash i just HAD to continue waging war if only to get the gold from city capture and pillaging. Kinda makes me think, did the real Roman and Greek empires HAVE to keep expanding just to finance their fattened empires? lol. good subtext

[spiralx]

Actually yes, the Roman empire was certainly based upon expansion and when that stopped, its decline started

[Common Sensei]

This is ICS. Settler spam, spam, spam.

Is this is still possible in CIV? I'd like to see settler spam-spam-spam tried on at Prince or higher and see where it gets you.

There seems to be a drive to prove that it's not dead almost like people WANT it to be there. This isn't a personal attack on the original poster or anything like that, but it's a trend I see in CIV related forums.

[Volstag]

I wouldn't call this ICS. ICS, to me, is scads of cities packed very tightly together -- the vast majority of which are founded/settled by the player.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Martinus
I think it is possible to pull off REX, but that does not make it ICS.

I do REX all the time. It's still a winning strategy in civ4 (you just have to balance the initial city growth and building a settler too early). If you have more cities than the AI, you win. I've found this to be the case every game so far.

[Cookie Monster]

I meant REX not ICS. I had a bad morning so when I posted earlier I didn't know what I was saying. Sorry folks!