Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Two

[Capt Dizle]

Vel, I agree with you completely about the ICS strategy. I have tried it and it is unbelievable. Far more powerful than in SMAC. By using forced labor and doing no research you can build a large base in little time. You will not fall behind in tech as its easy to buy or trade it for a fraction of what it costs to research.

I have played several games and I never got behind in research up until the point I decided to switch gears and research myself. Then I would easily get ahead and sell my techs to finance my needs. From the point where you build the TOE you will take a lead that you never lose.

Its way to easy. ISC needs to be tamed, forced labor needs to be neutered, and tech swapping needs to be reduced.

jt

[DK36]

Eeeeeep at ICS!! Freaked me out, dude..

[Jumping Choya]

"This isn't cheating, amazingly enough. If you look around the map, you'll notice that most landmasses are separated by, at most, a square or two of sea. You can normally see across it if you go to the pre-Great Lighthouse edge. So, the AI builds the lighthouse to get across the short sea gap and then follows along the string of shallow water, resulting in a map that looks like some serious shenanigans have occured. ;0"

I understand that, but I mean that this gap was HUGE! If I centered the screen at the center of their path, I couldn't see land on either side!

[Sevorak]

I think my last post was made in an episode of Civ2-like thinking. Or something like that. (I've played ten or so games of Civ3, and I was still for some reason assuming that 2 moves = 2 attacks...read the rather flawed reasoning in the middle of the last post... Oops.)

I still maintain that people won't be seriously building Musketmen or Knights, so I'll generalize it so that all I'll say is that I expect a lot of Ancient warfare, just because early middle ages units just aren't worth it. Specifically the musketman, for which I think a lot of people will be severing their own connections to saltpeter in order to get the the better two-pikeman deal.

-Sev

[silver_blue]

sorry, bit of a Sid Meier novice...what is ICS?

[Carolus Rex]

Ok silver_blue, I'll bite!

ICS = Infinite City Strategy (if you like the strat) or ICS = Infinite City Sleaze (if you hate it! ).

Build a zillion cities... The basic idea being that every newly founded city works two squares (the city square + one in the city radius), whereas a growing city only works one additional square. Very effective in the early game or if you start with crappy terrain.

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

For an introduction by the master sleazer himself , check out this link:

http://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/wittgenstein/davev's_ics_strategy.htm

Carolus

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
Ok silver_blue, I'll bite!

ICS = Infinite City Strategy (if you like the strat) or ICS = Infinite City Sleaze (if you hate it! ).

Build a zillion cities... The basic idea being that every newly founded city works two squares (the city square + one in the city radius), whereas a growing city only works one additional square. Very effective in the early game or if you start with crappy terrain.

Carolus

Infinite City *Sprawl*

I too am tugged at the military adv. screen, checking my might against that of my allies. To my great discontent ( ), the Emperor AI does a heck of a job building up new units. Of course, it keeps a pile of obsolete ones as well.
In my current game the Russians went from 4 Tanks to 19 in 2 turns... while the Germans went from 0 Panzers to 16 in 1 turn. Ahem.

The lesson learned: strike before it is too late, and don't wait until your armies consist of a nicely rounded number or something like that. At the sight of the first modern enemy unit on that screen, attack is mandatory.

[Quurgoth]

My own strategy

I like to give peace a chance.

Vel, you're clearly a strategic mastermind, and I'm out of my depth posting here. I've played RTS games since Civ2 came out, and I love them, but you guys are in another league

Having said that, here's what I've been doing, to good success:

1. I play the peacetime civs: French, Babylonian, basically any civ with a combination of industrial/commercial/scientific/religious.
2. I try to establish a large block of cities, 35+ on a standard map. If this means early warfare to get a good size, so be it.
3. After my initial war is over, I begin making myself the most-loved leader in the game. I offer something (from small sums of gold, to luxuries, to tech, to maps) to the other civs FREQUENTLY, occasionally for free. Eventually, they come to love me. Those techs, when traded to every other civ, generate a lot of gold/turn.

This means, later in the game:

1. I have a large civ, with little need for military units outside of the defenders I've stacked in my frontier towns.
2. I have no need of mutual protection pacts, so when things explode, I can sit back, continue donating to both sides of every battle, and watch the AI eat its members.
3. I can focus my efforts on cultural advancement (especially in my border towns) and wonder building.

I've done quite well with this strategy... each of the AI civs (regent level) are currently the same size as one another, and they recently finished off Elizabeth. We're all at the same place in tech development, with the exception of Egypt. I've got my own continent, my cultural advantage is huge, and I have a comparatively large number of high-production cities.

Overall, I think my strategy also appeals to the part of me that enjoys a little realism... I've basically made myself into a larger version of Switzerland.

[Master Marcus]

I've just printed this whole thread. Thanks Vel and all for sharing your strats. Tremendous job!

I'm already beating Monarch with a peaceful beginning, now with this Emperor is at range. Hope I can reach someday Deity without being forced to wage early wars ( I manage my firsts wars in the "mid" Middle Ages).

[Velociryx]

Early Conclusions:

I played a Monarch level game (wanted to start off kinna easy on myself to give me freedom to tweak the process). Standard map, 8 Civs, as Babylon (didn't wanna play Persia or Iroquois because of their insane advantages, so I picked a civ that had no outrageously powerful UU and one that fit my builderesque nature.

Anybody ever seen photos of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia? That's pretty much where I started off.

At the tip of a peninsula divided by mountains, tundra in the southern tip...no rivers....UGH....was a pretty rocky start to say the least!

But, I was determined to give it a go.

The Persians and Zulu wound up on the same continent with me, and of course, they wouldn't trade SQAT with me, cos I was "outside" the circle. Oh...when I finally got a road built to the Persian capitol, they threw me a bone or two in exchange for some of my excess luxuries, but for the most part, they left me out in the cold.

One good thing: The largish peninsula I was on left me room for 11 "regular" cities, with ten good spots for training camps, and I could block it off with two warriors at the choke point, which I did.

Several barbarian horde invasions later (which cost me two settlers and a worker, in addition to a number of guardian troops....DAYUM but why did I set the Barbarians to Raging!?)

So....a number of steep challenges for this, my first "pseudo ICS" strategy.

But...I kept chugging along....got all my core bases established in good time, built a few extra workers, cos I found a small (one tile) freshwater lake in the center of my peninsula, and mapped out a plan to clear a path (choppin trees) so I could irrigate down to my bonus food tiles eventually and help growth.

Pop-Rushed what infrastructure I could build in record time, found myself with three sources of iron (couldn't get the Persian World Map for anything tho! GRRR), so I duly set about cranking out swordsmen and hauling them up the LOOOOONG peninsula to the Persian border.

And I waited.

36 Swordsmen later (which really didn't take that long!), my military showed up as being "strong" compared to the Persians.

So I called them up, paid HANDSOMELY for their world map, which nicely revealed the Zulu Empire too, and then demanded the farm. In a wonderful bit of news, Persipolis, the Persian capitol was two tiles from my army of 36 swordsmen....Heh....

They laughed at my primative Civ, so I declared war, and duly marched my soldiers across the border.

The following turn, we captured Persipolis, and I tried to contact good ol Xerxes, who did't wanna talk about it.

So...we marched toward Antioch.

Two turns later, Antioch fell.

Silence from the Persian camp.

Three turns after that....Tarsus fell and they cried uncle, giving me all the tech on the "first tier" of the ancient age I didn't have yet (caveat here - if the civ you're demanding from has "higher level" techs that you don't have the pre-requisites for, they don't even appear on the diplo screen, so you can't demand them), some cash, and the latest and greatest Persian map.

I also re-negotiated my trade deal with them, selling them spices and bettering my cash position a bit more.

Then I marched to the Zulu border (having 42 Swordsmen in my army now...AND, a quick check of the f8 screen showed me FAR ahead in Culture as well!).

The Impis actually fared better than the Persians, who lacked Iron, and could not make their feared Immortals. But those Impis were actually pretty tenacious, ambushing my slow moving juggernaught as they approached Zimbabwe (where the famed Pyramids had been built).

It was a fierce battle, and I lost a great many swordsmen breaking down their defenses, but in the end, our swarm overcame their defenses, and the Pyramids were ours!

Two more Zulu cities fell in rapid succession, and the Zulu were ready to make peace.

2 techs, contact with the rest of the Civs, and some money later, and we settled in, my army (now 56 swordsmen strong, and growing), turned again toward the Persians, who still had 3 juicy techs we craved.....

In short....staggering success.

The "training camp" approach allows me to keep my culture heads and shoulders above everyone else WHILE churning out sufficient numbers of troops to be a genuine *menace* to the AI.

I intentionally designed a linear attack force and built NO barracks to see what I could do with just a horde of grunts. Most are veteran plus now, and tho I have not gotten a GL out of the battles, if I keep at it, it'll happen.

Also, because of the particular nature of my peninsular Empire, I decided to relocate my palace to the dead center, which should pretty much kill corruption at my core cities. Of course, sans leader, it'll take almost 300 turns, but....it's a long term project.

Anyway....staggering, stunning, unbelievable success at the price of having the lower portion of my Empire looking a bit cluttered for all the cities packed into it.

That's where I saved for the night, but my plan is this:

I have not (yet) been able to obtain world maps from any of the Civs not on my continent, but the Indians are by far the weakest of the others, and will be my probable target. Soon as I have a harbor, I'll see if I can arrange to trade some luxuries and cash for a WM, and then I'll be able to plan how next to proceed.

I've not quite yet stopped building swordsmen, but probably will soon, so I can turn my attention to galleys. GAWD but I hope the Indians are close. I shudder to think about transporting those swordsmen a great distance!

So far tho....the ability to play both the agressive game AND the culture game has been a Godsend, and here are a few additional notes I made:

* The "pairing" technique is so effective because score is apparently based in large part on the NUMBER of cities you build/capture.

* It also makes your "training camps" much more resistant to being culturally absorbed by rival civs, as they're under the cultural umbrella of their paired city, which is chock full of cultural improvements and quite nearby.

* More production centers = more free troop slots and more places to build them.

* Despotism/Communism/Corruption REALLY needs to be re-examined, and this strategy only underscores the point. I was okay with corruption levles before this experiment, but now am convinced that corruption must be reduced to make Republic/Dem viable alternatives to Despotism/Communism. As it stands now, the pop-rush makes Despotism the hands down best government form in the game until Communism, which then takes its place. Democracy and Republic were *supposed* to be the best, but in truth, they can't even BEGIN to hold a candle to those two....corruption eats up too much of your potential gain.

I'll finish the game out, but I can see where it's going already. The other Civs are quite simply doomed. If I were a bit more daring, I'd say they were doomed without me having to build any additional units till the modern age, but I don't know enough about the other civs to make that claim yet.

Suffice it to say that if you're looking for a way to compete head to head with the AI in production, but don't wanna give up your culture game, AND if you don't mind a little clutter on the map....pair your cities.....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Other notes about this...."pseudo-ICS" strategy:

The following Civ-Traits work VERY well with the approach:

Expansionistic - Early game granaries and the ability to rapidly get a feel for the terrain (best city spots) make them naturals at the approach.

Industrious - You WILL be fighting other Civs, which means you'll be inheriting free workers. An AWESOME boon!

Scientific - Only one tech away from Ironworking....one of the hallmarks of the plan. These guys have a natural edge here.

Militaristic - For obvious reasons.

Pretty much the only "traits" that are not really helped by the Pseudo-ICS approach are Commercial (Despotism has wretched effie, but it's not something you're concerned about, cos it's not how you're producing anyway!), and Religious (though the abiltiy to rush in cheap temples in newly captured cities is nice, it's not *directly* related to the strat).

Because of this, I'd peg India as being the least successful with this idea, though they could certainly make it work....it's just that it doesn't play into their other, "native" strengths like it would with other civs.

Also...it "feels" like a very different game.

Through most of the BC years, I kept thinking to myself, "this is never gonan work!...I'm soooooo far behind!"

And I was.

But it worked amazingly well....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Thanks Master Marcus! I've got some more ideas in the works and testing stage....so if they work, I'll hopefully have no shortage of additional material!

Quurgoth - EXCELLENT approach! And 35+ cities on a standard map sounds like you're pretty much already doing the pseudo ICS approach! LOL....as it stands now, after fighting two wars back to back in my latest game, I still don't have that many! I will tho....I will....

JT: Yessir....that's been my conclusion as well. The presence of Despotism in its current form is, I think, what sends ICS over the top compared to ICS in SMAC. Sheesh....I mean, with the growth rates being slightly different in all my towns, I could rely on 2-5 swordsmen PER TURN, and oftentimes, this would MORE than offset any incidental losses I'd take from turn to turn while fighting and shuffling troops to the front. Just too strong to ignore on the higher levels of play.

-=Vel=-

[DaveV]

The pop-rush strategy reminds me of my favorite quote from the Civ 1 FAQ:

You can always play Despotic Conquest, regardless of the world you find yourself starting with, and always can win without using any of the many ways to cheat. When you choose any other strategy, you are deliberately risking a loss in order to make the game more interesting. Winning the same way all the time is boring. If you don't lose sometimes, you are doing something wrong.

[Arrian]

Vel -

Oh dear. Imagine, if you will, what you could accomplish using that strategy with the Iroquois. Provided you have horses and iron, you could hit with not only swordsmen, but mounted warriors as well. *Shiver* And you did it with the Babs in what sounds like a TERRIBLE starting position! The Persians may well be the best for your strat, given the combo of their attributes and UU.

I think forced labor is a little too strong...or rather the penalty for using it is too weak. Use it too much, and your city should revolt -maybe turn into a barbarian encampment that you will have to kill (obviously, this wouldn't happen after 1 or 2 times, but if you are literally punching out a swordsman every time the city hits pop2). I see your point about corruption, which I do think needs some tweaking, but making it too weak will screw up the balance in other ways. I say weaken forced labor more than strengthen non-forced labor govt's (by decreasing corruption).

I noticed something a little odd in my latest game that I think is worth mentioning. The Persians declared war on me (totally out of the blue). I contacted our common neighbor, Chairman Mao, and asked for an alliance against Xerxes. No dice. I mean, I offered Mao something like 3 techs, a resource and 4000 gold. "They will never accept such a deal." Hmm. So, I ask for a mutual protection pact. For horses, they did it. Next turn, I got what I wanted - "China has declared war on Persia." Now, I do realize that the MPP carries with it more inherent danger for me than a straight alliance, as the Chinese could have gotten me into another war (which, in this game, would quickly have exploded into WWI). Still, why the HUGE disparity between two options that essentially meant the same thing?

-Arrian

p.s. I think I'm gonna move on up to Monarch, having won my most recent Regent game in the mid-19th century with well over double the score of my strongest opponent. I could have won via domination easily, but for some reason, the Spaceship is the only option that feels like victory to me.