This is true for the early game. By the time you get thru Classical though, on Game speeds better than Prince, the AI's advantage in Research starts to make them tougher. As they get the newest and better units before the player does. And by this time the Barbs are getting their comeuppance, because both player and AI are taking them out. At least this was the way it was before v41 release. We shall see if this trend continues...
Not really. There's a few things that might fix them in a few other ways but warfare strategy is a bit deeper, like a lot deeper and it's a big part of WHY it needs a deep redesign to manage.
3 tiles apart as designed. Some like them packed in others like them far apart. All in playstyle.
Probably could be done with a new tag on the mapsize info. Interesting idea.
When I say 3 tiles apart this is what I mean, city placed-main tile then 1, 2 tiles and 3rd tile can be new city or fort. X-x-x-X.
We are saying the same thing.
In those pics, you have multiple cases of X-x-X. Suva Kis Eridug for example. I admit that the cities are taking up about a tile and a half in space so it's a little misleading and the plots are smaller than it looks like they'd be. Still... really looks like there's numerous cities with only one tile gap between them.
You're right - the plots are much smaller than they look.
