Insight or insanity--you make the call--combining OCC and ICS strategies

[Flavor Dave]

I hope this hasn’t been touched upon in the months I infrequently visited here.

One of the insights the Civ community has gotten from the one city challenge is that having one super science city, and not having to put *any* revenue into luxuries, allows you a tech rate not that different from your typical midsize or large civ, which requires ~20% luxuries. But it occurred to me that there is a further step.

It seems that the best civ would have the super science city, with all the fixin’s we associate with the OCC. In addition, the civ would have a bunch of small cities, size 5 max. In addition to the OCC wonders, you’d have JSB or Mike’s. These small cities would produce enough settlers,and work enough mined hills, to be in food stasis. They’d have temples, only. I think you could run this civ with no luxuries, as well, as long as it wasn’t ridiculously large.

So you’d get the awesome beaker count from your OCC style capital, *and* some additional beakers from your little cities. Further, if you’ve built both MC and JSB, you could have a pretty nice military, even in demo. The main thing you’d get from the small cities is one-two military units that could leave home, so you could put your defensive front anywhere, and help with your spaceship (disband caravans, buy the rest).

What I’m saying is, it seems like the ultimate civ would have a OCC style capital, and a large number of ICS cities. The ICS cities would pretty much build nothing but settlers and caravans, once defended. I wouldn’t build marketplaces or libraries there. The purpose of these cities is to add a little to the science rate, provide more cities for building the SS, and a nice punitive-military strike force, with JSB.

Has anyone tried to follow a OCC strategy with one hand, and a modified ICS with the other? This civ’s weakness, as I see it, would be protecting its science from dips.

[DaveV]

I did something very similar to this, except I stayed in Communism and built over a hundred cities instead of MC and JSBC. For more info, see http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=23:19

[SandMonkey]

It seems to me that is basically what most people do in ICS anyways. I have always played ICS with a Super Science City. I guess i don't take it as far as an OCC type city, but it's near to that. I usually don't have many improvements in that city, and it shows: early in my current ICS game i am making over 100 gold per turn. But I digress..... check out the other thread on ICS, i think it's talked over there.

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SandMonkey

"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say that you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, 'Think again, bat man'"

[Smash]

the science city should include any improvements that give more arrows or beakers.Shakes does the rest.Good plan!

[Theben]

I also have to agree: that's pretty much what I do. Although I usually expand to a point and then switch to builder, until late in the game when I go all-out warmonger. But the SSC ALWAYS gets city improvements, concentrating on science and money/lux items. And 3+ caravans. It's only purpose is to improve itself; all other cities take care of the rest of my empire.

[jpk]

I build a fully loaded super science city. I build improvements in other cities only if they will be needed to keep out of disorder or get into We Love The President Days.

One problem I see nothing but small cites is that the caravans will not be very valuable. Once you have a fleet of transports or, better yet, airports I generally get most of your science from trade.

The other problem with the infinite sleeze part of the strategy is the time it takes to deal with all the cities. I usually play on 10,000 square maps. When I conquer the world there are usally about 100 cities. If I started playing the infinite sleeze approach I would end up with over 200 cities. This is not a criticism of the strategy as such, only an observation concerning how much tedium I can stand.

The key issue is whether or not you can get more than one advance from the science generated by your cities. If you are able to to that then your science will be tremendous. I don't know how many small cities that would take. It also depends on how good your science city is. If some one knows the answer to this question I would appreciate hearing it.

If you can't get more than one advance from the science generated by your cities, you may be better off letting your cites grow so that the caravans are more valuable.

If you choose to attack other civilizations, say you want to conquer the world, the 0% luxury rate will create a problem when you capture a large city.

I don't have any experience playing OCC so perhaps my comments are gibberish. If so, please enlighten me.


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If you can not think of a good reason to build something other than a caravan, build a caravan!

[Campo]

jpk said: "One problem I see nothing but small cites is that the caravans will not be very valuable."

Good point, if your preference is to trade within your own civ. (I've lost enough caravans to last-minute sneak attacks to appreciate that approach.)

So how about this: build TWO big cities. One would be the science city, of course. The other could be a production city or whatever. Grow and improve them in parallel as much as possible and make them trading partners. Then build 20-30 small cities with just the bare essentials to provide defense, settlers, and supply caravans to the two big cities.

I think I'll give this a try after Christmas.

[Genghis Al]

Send all your caravans to the SSC first, tell them to support from there, thenyou will get the money/science bonus as if they are from there.

Thanks Smash

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Ah man! Ghandi! New game.

-Genghis Al