Paeanblack
Prince
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2001
- Messages
- 518
Well sure, we would have lost losing units at 5:1. The deity AIs can produce 5 times as many units, and we were at war with three of them at the same time! But I don't see how that changes the fact that the economy/building part of this game is so broken. If we hadn't taken advantage of the broken economy features, the AI would have had a lot more than 5 times as many units.
I don't see how you can say it's "a fine game" when the best building strategy is to ignore 90% of the buildings in the game.
Assume, for a moment, that we had an AI that was sufficiently adept with tactical movement that you could, at best, achieve a 5:1 kill ratio. All other Deity bonuses are left unchanged.
Against such an AI, you would definitely need to turtle, and turtle hard, at certain points in the game. There wasn't really a point during RB3 when you needed to do this. Some of the tactical situations were certainly dicey, but you were still able to maintain relatively steady expansion until the end.
Instead, you would be more reliant on Barracks/Walls/Castles/Forges/Heroic Epic/etc to hold your ground. Oligarchy and the Honor tree look much more enticing. Instead of building settlers, you have fewer cities with larger populations. Libraries/Universities/PSchools would give a better return for the investment. Capturing a city from the AI becomes a much more expensive undertaking, and you need a strong reason (like a Wonder) to attempt it.
It also means that some starts, like the RB3 one, would probably be unwinnable. Combined with tougher building choices, that would make me happy.