posted July 04, 2001 03:14 PM
badly placed advanced tribes a problem??????
That must be taken in context, as I mentioned earlier. For me, I plan city placement and expansion thousands of years in advance. A good deal of thinking goes into how the cities should fit tegether and support each other as they grow and approach maturity in mid/late game. For instance, I hate unnecessary overlaps because I intend to have all cities at/near their max productivity. Cities that can eventually produce 40/44/54/60/80 shields are important. Overlap (or lack thereof) is often the determining factor in getting the production in the proper multiple.
Now, when I get an Advanced tribe as opposed to a NONE settler, I'm often disappointed, because of the city's location. Almost without exception, that new advanced tribe will cause at least one of my "important" cities to have a red citizen appear on the bottom line of happiness. That almost invariably means that a finely balanced food/shield producing city is disrupted.
The Advanced tribe (in most of my games of fast expansion) is typically producing one shield and one science, since the first citizen will be black (and the citizen must be an entertainer to keep happiness before MC, at deity). So what is really forced upon me is a remote city that takes lots of gold to make it viable, usually at a time when the wonder race is tight in my core empire.
What I really would like is a NONE settler. It could irrigate and make roads, then found the city in an optimum location when I'm ready (in terms of empire happiness and finances) to make it take off.
Of course the ultimate difficulty with an Advanced Tribe that I have not touched on is defense and the possibility of losing tech(s). It takes gold to quickly build units and dips to support a city that is too "forward" strategically.
I'm not "complaining" about Advanced Tribes, just explaining why they are, more often than not, a pain. Contrast that with a "NONE" settler that is never a pain!
So my own view is that I really like getting nomads (NONE settlers) from huts. There is no downside, and they do not adversely affect the empire in any way (science, units, or advanced tribes all can hurt you, at times).
But the game never asks me what I want, so I play the hand as it's dealt. I just wish I could get more Nomads!!
