ICS kind of...It works!!

[fender]

After reading the ICS thread, and not having much luck with a good game on Transcend, I decided to give it a shot. It’s not a real tight formation as in some of the pix. I have 24 bases, 4 rows down and 6 rows across. Plenty of boreholes, condensers, crawlers and hybrid forests.
My base spacing is 4 tiles from base to base, and I'm playing Zak.

Lal is just slightly in the lead going by the bar graph, but I’m ahead in tech and wealth. I’m in a pact with Dee, which she suggested, without asking to go to war against anyone. This was a first. Morgan also did the same, but broke the pact a few years back as I’m running Green.

Some details: Year is 2250
SE: is Dem, Green, Wealth
Secret Projects: HG, EG, VW, SC, AV, CF (in the works)
Map size is huge
Labs are at 80%, and breakthroughs are at 3 years. Income is only 39, but I don’t need the money right now and have 1136 credits.
Lal is on a bit of a rampage, so I want to keep the tech up to keep him off my back.

Believers are gone, thanks to Lal. Spartans are the only faction at war with me, but she’s too busy fighting off Lal to even show up. The Hive are going down fast. Dee is looking after that.

I have Superlube Choppers, Aircraft and rovers in all bases if anyone should try something.

Lal has Chaos, but no air power or fusion. No one else is even close to a threat.

It looks like I’m on my way to my first Transcend Level victory. I have to give the credit to my version of ICS, which I never would have used before. (thanks) It’s not real pretty, even with my much greater spacing, but it’s very effective.

I’ll let you know how the game works out. I know it’s nothing compared to some of you guys out there, but it’s a step forward for me.

Note: I did have to give up some tech and some credits to Lal and the Spartans, to keep them at bay early in the game. And I did change to Demo when Lal first showed up on my turf. ( he’s right next to me by the way, as is Morgan.) When I went Demo he not only left without me asking, he left me a unit for defense and few turns later.
So, I have had to give in to some degree, and it’s not a calkwalk yet, but I soon think it will be.

Comments please.

[smacksim]

Well, keep in mind that ICS doesn't always look like Skanky's picture. It just means infinite cities...infinite expansion, whether you are a pure 1-space'r like Skanky, or a 2-space'r (base-space-space-base), or even larger. The point is to keep expanding. Congrats on your first Transcend victory!

[Maniac]

Do you have a screenshot of your base placement?

[redazncommieDXP]

I can do pretty well against the comp even without ICS, on transcend. I'll post a screenshot as someone tells me how. Damn sunspots just ended, so now I can talk to everyone.

I'm the governor!

[Skanky Burns]

People can win on Transend with only one city. Obviously ICS isn't needed to win.

[Dis]

I was going to post a screenshot of mine for you all to look at, for some reason my screen shots come out like this.

In any case, that's as close as I like to put my bases. And I didn't use hardly any supply crawlers in between those bases. I tried, but I just don't like it. Why use crawlers to get one resource when you can use workers to get 3?

I can't see putting them as close as Skanky's pictures. I play with abundant life forms. That means you would have to clear away the fungus before you can build a city . I don't like that. Some of my cities are farther apart because I had to go around fungus and clear it later.

[Chaos Theory]

Originally posted by Dissident
And I didn't use hardly any supply crawlers in between those bases. I tried, but I just don't like it. Why use crawlers to get one resource when you can use workers to get 3?

Because you can't build population units and their drone control and sufficient housing for 3 mineral rows each. Having 3 workers and 5 crawlers harvesting early on is a lot nicer than having 4 workers. Also, even though you can only crawl one resource, you can crawl whatever is most important at the time - minerals early, nutrients later, and maybe energy at an energy park.

[Skanky Burns]

Diss, keep SMAC open when you alt-tab to the graphics editing program you paste the picture in. Then when you paste, the picture will actually turn out.

[Qwerty88]

Also changing alt-tabing to properties and changing them back to your normal settings helps.

[fender]

Here is the layout that I'm using. Not a true ICS, but it's working. I know people can win with one base, by the way. I'm just not one of them.

Anyway, it's just four rows by 6 rows. Morgan is at the top, and Lal is to the right and bottom. I have room to expand to the left for a bit.

[fender]

Well, for those interested the game is over.

Lal demanded tech in 2265 and I refused. Vendetta was the result. He was never able to even get on my soil with this set up. It’s so easy to defend. Interceptors, Pentraters, and Shard Choppers were waiting for him. I had some Fusion drop shard rovers, but soon had Singularity Shard drop hover tanks and first went after the base that had the Hunter Seeker. I hate probe teams.

Anyway, except for that base and one or two others, I gave the rest to Dee, Morgan and one to Sparta. Lal had enough in 2299 and surrendered. I could have dragged the game out, but I went for the “Get behind me for Leader” diplomatic victory.
I’m anxious to try the same thing again and see what happens.

[Whoha]

Heres my first real attempt at ICS,first actual one was the first time I played civ, played quite a bit of an old empire game in which cities=good so I tried to place a city next to a city, and when that didn't work went 1 city over. Absolutely crushed the AI that game(was chieftain though), but i also switched to demo from monarchy with a bunch of cities with no improvements at all and 10 units in the field, it wasn't pretty.

[GeoModder]

Aw, another yellow igniter...

/me shields his eyes from the glare.

[Alex]

my eyes! my eyes!

[smacksim]

Egad, that is yellow. I can't see other colors now. Retina burnt out.

Now we just need an example of 2-space ICS: base-space-space-base.