ICS is back with a vengeance

[Sir Og]

You actually give quite good definition of ICS. The question is if it is the best strategy. Just being one of the strategies and not the best one, is OK. And at least the example shown gives no impression of "lots of small cites". His REX ended at turn 100 with 5 cites and admittance that he is out of happiness, so that he can not expand more.

MxM check this thread for lots of examples with pictures and numbers.

This strategy gives you the best science, production and gold. It also gives you the most culture but that does not necessarily translate to this strategy being the best for culture win, because of the way SP costs scale and the effect of wonders and cultural CSs.
Best science, production and gold means that this strat is the best for all victory conditions except cultural.

[jobe]

Out of those 15 sites, can you estimate how many you build yourself in 110 turns? Because the example that was provides shows just 5 sites start at turn 100.

I´m not sure I´ve understood your question. I wanted to say with my initial post - now I see how it could be missunderstood - that I built 15-20 myself AND to those you have to add the conquered ones.

By example provided you mean the one from Sulla? Adn that he had 5 cities turn 100 there? In MP we play quick speed, that might be one difference.

[MxM]

MxM check this thread for lots of examples with pictures and numbers.

This strategy gives you the best science, production and gold. It also gives you the most culture but that does not necessarily translate to this strategy being the best for culture win, because of the way SP costs scale and the effect of wonders and cultural CSs.
Best science, production and gold means that this strat is the best for all victory conditions except cultural.

WOW! That's convincing. That IS ICS. Agree.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

Are you old-school in-crowd done make inner circle references now?

[notyoueither]

MxM check this thread for lots of examples with pictures and numbers.

This strategy gives you the best science, production and gold. It also gives you the most culture but that does not necessarily translate to this strategy being the best for culture win, because of the way SP costs scale and the effect of wonders and cultural CSs.
Best science, production and gold means that this strat is the best for all victory conditions except cultural.

I'm thinking the large problem is that culture is being saved for social policies in later eras. The same ability powers Rah's CS exploit.

I wonder what happens if the ability to save up culture for future social policies is limited or removed.

[MxM]

The main reason for ICS being so powerful is that "first city tile".
What I do not understand is why in Civ series you allays had had 2 tiles worked by city of size 1. If size 1 city would would just 1 tile (and could chose whether it is the city/central tile or not) then most Civ games would not have this problem. Of course you may need to give extra food to new city somehow, so that it could grow, but that's about. Say, city size 1 should have +2 food on its city tile. But that's it.

[MxM]

WOW! That's convincing. That IS ICS. Agree.

On second thought, I am not 100% sure how to classify it. It is definitely City Spam, but, a) It could not have been done in the beginning of the game, you had to wait for the right polices, b) it is not exactly infinite, but rather sudden. The reason why he could do is because of quite bad AI - he was not attacked when he did not have military and was quite weak (no social policies). But because it does show close packing and at least in principle can continue (though at much slower speed, so that it would not contribute to the game) it can be called ICS.

It is single player exploit, I think, and could be fixed by better AI.

[MxM]

I´m not sure I´ve understood your question. I wanted to say with my initial post - now I see how it could be missunderstood - that I built 15-20 myself AND to those you have to add the conquered ones.

By example provided you mean the one from Sulla? Adn that he had 5 cities turn 100 there? In MP we play quick speed, that might be one difference.

I see. May be it is related to the game settings. But I myself simply do not find the way to go with more than 5 cities in first 100 turns on normal speed. You have to build units to protect from barbarians, and the new cities have to build coliseums...

I will try today (or whenever I have time to find) the most optimal curve of civ expansion without barbarians with close packing.

One question that I have, with ICS, do you still make capital to grow without limitations?

[Sir Og]

I think having one one or two big cities is a good idea. (mostly for wonder building)

[notyoueither]

Social Policies should work like science. You pick your target and develop it.

This would eliminate slingshots/exploits like this and Who's Your Buddy. Players could still do it, but it would take time.

[Ming]

The ICS approach pretty much removes social policies from the game. With each new city adding 33% to the next target, it puts them pretty much out of reach after the first early few. Sure, later on, you will have a ton of cities that can generate culture, but only after massive building/infrastructure. So many of the advantages offered by social policies will not be available with an ICS type approach.

[MxM]

The ICS approach pretty much removes social policies from the game. With each new city adding 33% to the next target, it puts them pretty much out of reach after the first early few. Sure, later on, you will have a ton of cities that can generate culture, but only after massive building/infrastructure. So many of the advantages offered by social policies will not be available with an ICS type approach.

Yes, but who cares, really, if you can build 2 units per turn? You just conquer the wold...

[MxM]

Interesting, if you do this, will it slow down ICS? Basically, it limits number of workers per player to 1. Not only it reduces ICS, it also resolve "end of turn" issues, and reduces micromanagement of the game.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

yes with 1 worker per civ it may be worth to play it... but as it is, ICS it is, if you want the "winning" strategy...

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/liberteordre2.html

With another twenty turns of reckless expansion, the benefits of the mass city strategy were really starting to make themselves felt. I was #1 in all of these categories by a very sizable margin, and most of the statistical metrics had increased by 30-50% since I last recorded the Demographics. I was literally out of places to go on the main continent, leading me to start throwing down settlers on some of the offshore islands, often in truly hideous iceball locations. They still made me stronger, and were still cities worth founding. If I had had a single large continent to work with, and not had to fool with offshore antics, I would have been even further ahead. The AI has absolutely no answer for this strategy; it can only be effective when it lucks into the same thing by killing other civs and becoming a runaway. Even with all of those cities and the Immortal bonuses, the Iroquois were far, far behind me by now. My explosive growth has raced me past them, and they will never catch up. I could destroy them with ease, if I wasn't intent on playing a peaceful game.

just the tip of the iceberg... and I did not play enough to realise some more in depth points on how the game is broken which are written about in that post... so ultimate city size is 6 or 7... anyhow, I guess it will be playing Civ V for a bit more to see this for myself, and than waiting for a fix, which if it happens will make this game into more like Civ V.V and quite far away from current state, game mechanic wise...

maybe we will see return of corruption or some such concept meant to break ICS. At the moment it looks like it is a sandbox, good for a few runs to see what it is, and than move on, as there is not much to explore after the shiny new concepts are seen once.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yes, but who cares, really, if you can build 2 units per turn? You just conquer the wold...

Hence the balance issues....


Much of the strategy in these games comes from basically trying to find the optimum parameters for your empire. How much do you focus on culture? How many cities do you build? What types and how many city states should you befriend? What units should you make? What resources should you try to get? When any of these parameters is pegged or just insignificant, it eliminates an element of strategy to the game. A balanced game is one where there are many possible parameterizations that can achieve victory against many other parameterizations. ICS pwns all the other strategies. The game is broken.