More mod-related game observations:
1. Playing as the Aztecs to take advantage of their buffed abilities - increased culture kills and the woodsman promo for the Jaguar - I built a second warrior instead of a scout. In my circumstances, the Jaguar worked out just as well as a scout, and inevitably led to an extension of the same plan: a Jaguar rush on my nearest neighbor, with three Jags and two archers. This beat out walls going up, and is an option to be considered.
2. I preset an Emperor game with Egypt (average) for a space victory with three cities and no TPs, using the Harder Free Tech mod as well. The map could have been designed for me: Thebes on two rivers, allowing me to build my two other cities at the and of each river, forming a triangle. This cut off Persia on a peninsula, and we were at war most of the game. I held them off at the choke point with the eventual use of the buffed citadel. (Fun!) My army stayed small - a scout/archer, swordsman and two war chariots promoted over time, with a musket added later. Rome was huge to my north, and Siam also big to their east. I promoted bad vibes between them, and had no problems with Rome the entire game, although he grew to 15 cities.
Of interest, Rome and Siam fought on one choke point front the entire game. On the other continent, the three civs also stayed even throughout. (The eighth had his own continent.
My strategy was to build wonders and take advantage of the modded GAs. This worked out perfectly, even though I lost a lot of wonders by a turn or two. I got Chichen Itza and Taj Mahal. Combined with two happy GA's I was in enhanced mode long enough to crank up a farm-and-specialist based economy that allowed me to crank out GS's (bulbing), GE's (wonders), GM's (gold) and GA's (Golden Ages). In this regard I wonder if the game itself is too GA-centered, and whether Great Artists have been buffed enough to make it worth using them otherwise (with Chichen Itza, granted).
Having only three cities and many CS being in secure locations allowed me to do well in culture without trying too hard I wound up with 21 SPs, filling tradition, patronage, rationalism and order (in that order) before moving on to something else at the very end. The GA gold, my cotton monopoly, and the policy benefits allowed me to occasionally rush buildings (research labs at the end, raising science from almost 800 beakers to over 1200), as well as buy tiles to fine tune my purposes. As a result I was well in the lead in pop with my size 20, 21 and 27 cities, despite being almost last in land (all the hex improvement mods are key), and bought enough adjacent hills and forests late to get each city between 127 and 137 hammers.
All in all, this approach targeted the advantages of the mod to growth and GA application. I wonder whether it's still too easy to be in a GA. But there's no doubt that it allowed me to play in an anti-expansive, no-TP way (zero happy buildings as well) that makes the terrain that much more rich.
and +1
at ~10 non-puppet cities, anyone know if that's high or low? You can see the map settings on the screenshot, 2nd one.
