Recent content by patmcq

If you ignore the late timing then the god of all units is the stealth bomber. I'm surprised they weren't an option on the poll, and nobody has mentioned them yet. A large force of stealth bombers enables my ground army to defeat an army five times its size without breaking a sweat. Cities go...

Lurker comments: Interesting game, will be quite interested to see what type of victory you end up pursuing, as your options seem pretty open at this point. Merz - I assume your name refers to the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. Although I suspect his "music" causes permanent insanity I...

Someone on this board once posted a screenshot of a barbarian holy city. I guess it can happen if you neglect them long enough.

If you're going for artists, scientists or merchants, then use the caste system civic. You can run as many of those types of specialists as your food can support, pretty much guaranteeing you of the GP you want. With the national epic in my GP farm there is always a small chance I'll pop an...

If you want a high score then read Moonsinger's deity intro in the articles section. The basic formula is to play on a panagea as Rome and conquer everybody with praetorians as fast as possible. There's a little more to it so just read the article. You will definetely get a very high score using...

Ok, thanks for clearing that up for me. I just don't like the idea of a game like that claiming high honors in the HOF. I trust you guys will do a great job with the final version.

I'm just curious as to what measures you guys take to enforce the integrity of the hall of fame. I know it's still a beta but there are some suspicious games on there. There is one game where I am certain the player cheated. It is currently the #1 fastest finish on Deity difficulty. A conquest...

I like Washington because financial and organized work extremely well together, and can significantly negate the harsh maintenance of higher difficulties. Commerce is power, and Washington has the best commerce producing capablilities of any leader. This gives him great flexibility for attaining...

Sometimes, if you are very far behind, the nicer AI's will offer you free techs unsolicited. I've seen Mansa Musa, Cyrus and FDR do it, and this is on emperor. Also if you can secure a permanent alliance you get all of their technologies for free, and you can ask for any resource or any amount...

I always turn on permanent alliances because otherwise diplomacy has little purpose on higher difficulties. Without PA's it's pretty much impossible to win any victory on emperor or above without significant aggression and expansion. I think it's balanced because it's very, very hard to get a PA...

Those numbers make some sense to me, although Genghis and Tokugawa seem a little less than "amicable". Alexander is the bane of my existence, and he always seems to find his way into any game where I don't select the leaders. I always go out of my way to raze all of his cities to get revenge...

I just finished playing this sort of game myself. Small continents, standard settings, monarch. I had a large continent to myself, I ended up with 8 cities on it with little overlap. I was Washington, who is cementing himself as my favorite leader as I play harder difficulties. When I made...

If you ask me you're both right. If you want to win faster or are playing on higher difficulty then swords and catapaults will take you a long way. If you're dedicated enough to military you won't need much more to wipe out your opponents completely. However, on continents/archipelago maps or...

Both traits are great, that's why Washington is in the game. Organized lets you focus on expansion, chopping and hooking up resources early and gets courthouses out faster, leading to getting your forbidden palace sooner, so you pay less maintenance earlier. Financial gives you the extra...

I disagree with your evaluation of several traits. Versatility is not a major concern for me, they gave leaders traits so there would be a certain way to use them best. I have found that having a cohesive strategy and sticking to it for the whole game helps me win on higher difficulty, because...