Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
After I finished this game I downloaded and installed the official 3.13 patch. I'm getting those black backgrounds too; I suspect it might do that on slightly lower-powered computers, or maybe there's a setting that is affecting it.One question that I had earlier, and might as well ask now, is this: with all those XPs for Siege units, were you ever tempted to vary the promotions a little? I'm thinking of having a few Trebuchets with CR1 and Barrage 2 to speed things up after all the defenders have been damaged, or using a Drill 3 Treb first to see if it made any difference in the survival rate. (I'm thinking that it might be time for more Accuracy promotions, but that's for another time and place.) Or is there no room to get cute once you get past Prince?
It's been a while, but from what I can remember from checking the early saves with the WB, the AIs were cranking out Workers at a reasonable pace early in the game, something that was a noticeable problem earlier in the BtS games. Not sure if it was the patch or the level, but it meant the AI wasn't saddled with poorly developed cities for the first half of the game.
Congrats on the win. Any opinion yet on whether you'll use the official or unofficial 3.13 patch? The black backgrounds for diplomacy and Wonder movies are surprising at first, but I got used to it right away. The half game I played last night with the official patch was much, much better in many ways, and should make the next game a tad more challenging.
It didn't occur to me to vary the Treb promotions, but perhaps I should have. I just tend to find that CR gives them the best survival rate. Trebs get a built-in CR bonus anyway, so like Swordsmen, it makes sense to promote them to further take advantage of that edge. I really should have held off on Economics, though, until after I'd built a few Cannons. I tend to very their promotions more so I can use them against counter attacks.
Well, I more or less ran a hybrid economy this time around, hence the mix of cottages for some cities and farms for others. A merchant specialist will bring in more gold than a town, or close to it, so I ran a lot of those.Sisiutil, I noticed that a lot of your cities have few (if any) cottages. What are your ideas behind city specialization and tile improvement, and is that due to your chosen victory condition of domination?