Some sparse thoughts about our games :
Regarding city, I still think it was a good idea to build clam/fish/copper first. Though, I'm impressed with frob's game - he has already managed to put five ( incl. Green City ) - and stay head above the water with research costs.
Yes, those cities are the nearest and most valuable cities in the game at this time. And I'm also impressed with frob's 5 cities. However, in his game to keep 'head above water' research had to be lowered a level, to 18
per turn - the same as my game and Lee's game (although Lee also has -1
/turn). But I guess the only good that
serves at this point in the game is to allow high research rates to continue while the reserves are exhausted. I accidentally brought myself to 0
in my game, which I don't like - what if a random event struck...
I go along with Jamesds point of view - we should definitely settle the next one in the Sheep spot. However, I'm not sure about whether we can manage the maintanance due to distance and to the fact that it will be 5th or 6th city.
Well, my view was not necessarily that Sheep City should be settled next, I was thinking about building it after Green City - which frob has just built. This will give it a chance to become a very useful and productive city while we continue building the others. The maintenance won't be so great at the start, but in time it will pay for itself. Anyway, we've got some nice cottages/hamlets (nearly villages) in our games, so they will pay for this increased cost. It would be nice to get Code of Laws to build courthouses sometime soon, but that isn't a priority at the moment
.
As for cities, I'm generally impressed with your games and how you managed to get your cities grow and flowerish whille
. Mine got pretty much of the latter and look pitifully compared to yours. I think, the only advantage of my strategy ( which was China asap ), is to have two galleys and a nice whipping/chopping potential in barracked cities with copper ( all cities networked ).
I actually didn't whip at all - it isn't something I do in my games, I never thought the
would balance out the
from the whips, so I will use it, but only sparingly - I don't like to see my nice big cities be diminished after all the time it took them to grow. We'll see whose strategy works
- mine with sparing whips, yours with aggressive whipping!
I agree with frob - whip & copper is a great life insurance policy against barbs
Regarding China, I think frob's right when speaking about invasions getting tougher in BtS. I had the same impression in my Ethiopia game on prince. I've won through space, but the roman close neighbour had managed some nice praetorian surprises before I managed longbows. For two of my cities it was a very close call. By the time I was able to get to my other neighbour, I discovered Charlemagne's HRE pretty well defended, so I went peacefully acquiring only some cities through culture ( what a cultural warmongers these Ethiopians
).
Yeah, this war has to be planned and thought out before we attempt it. And, what is really needed is some scouts, or boats to scout out their land, just to get an idea in what we are letting ourselves into, and whether it will actually work.
So, as for China, it is interesting to get those Cats and striking hard like first planned. An early invasion would surely work in Warlords, but here we can't be sure. However, I'm tempted to do it anyway in a shadow try
If we delay China, then GLight ( Babylon ) and Moai ( clam/fish/copper ) should be in our objectives.
Yep, actually, I think the Moai Statues in ClamFish are an immediate priority, since they would increase our military unit production! It depends how long they would take. That's the one case where whipping might be useful, and actually needed.
I like the two ways that our games went : beelining for math/monarchy and beelining for IW. Time will tell which one was better, but in regard to our particular situation I might be inclined to think that the first one is better ( though I followed the 2nd one - SP game habit
).
Yeah, I like to know where my Iron is, and be able to use it - Akkad is going to be connected soon, and following that a great production bonus for it. Also, cities with nothing to do can always just build a sword or two to keep occupied...
Well, a last thought, as for now : too bad that Putchuco's 2nd try isn't in our possible choices. This Stonehenge built @ Babylon is
.
It is great, and we might use Putchuco's save if we all agree. Look at it this way - as I said before, this isn't really a competition, so what matters is what we think will bring the game forward the most. We'll discuss all the games in due course.
PS. I can't IRC neither, at least not during the week. Same reasons as Lee - difficult to make yourself convincing about the professionnal use of IRC at work
Yeah, I totally forgot about all you CFC surfers at work!! No problem, maybe we can work out something on the weekends.
from trade routes due to the size of our cities.
. We have to concentrate in getting as many GP as possible from ClamFish until we start our second GP farm (Beijing if it's near all the clam.. or some mass forested area on another island for National Parks).
