Is Overlapping Overrated?

[Handel]

From what I understood it depends on which difficulty you play and what kind of player are you. Myself, I am an empire builder and I am a casual player on monarch. As such I like huge and well developed cities. So for me the overlapping is not that really needed.
BUT - on high difficulties where you try to "snatch" the victory from the AI I guess the overlapping is very useful.

 

[auagxa]

Even late game it's more efficient usually to have almost no cities over size 10.

And that includes Space Victories?

 

[ohjames]

Even empire builders should try to specialize their cities, and certain specializations don't reward high populations. I think it's generally beneficial to have the helper cities working overlap tiles even if you're aiming for later win condition, because there are all sorts of useful tasks for which the helper cities are ideal, like pumping out garrison units, missionaries/executives, spies, and whipping/drafting.

 

[Amao]

And that includes Space Victories?

There are 2 kinds of SVs. The last resort to salvage a game, the HOF attempt for best date. For the first one, you usually want to win the game, so overlapping is still much needed. The second one is not a common practice. It requires too many conditions to be met, such as early rush, added AIs, map picking, etc, etc...

 

[pigswill]

As Handel already noted its likely to be related to level of difficulty. On diety with fast AI expansion and high city maintenance overlapping is probably essential. On noble its easier to spread out more to grab more resources with the same number of cities. A question for the deity level players is how often they overlap cities if they're playing a lower difficulty level.

 

[Strickl3r]

Other than trade related things, i don't think something that is more efficient on deity is less efficient on noble.(some rushes that involve +% comabt odds against certain units that the ai doesn't have, if you rush early on lower difficulties maybe also)
Yes there is no high maintanance, but does that make the happy cap higher?

 

[Amao]

Other than trade related things, i don't think something that is more efficient on deity is less efficient on noble.(some rushes that involve +% comabt odds against certain units that the ai doesn't have, if you rush early on lower difficulties maybe also)
Yes there is no high maintanance, but does that make the happy cap higher?

your statement is correct. it's the other way around. something is doable on noble but not possible on deity, say warrior rush. (don't tell me about inca. that's one of kind.) and something is more efficient on noble that is less efficient on deity, say chariot rush.

the happy cap is the same from noble through deity. however, with slower ai expansion and aggressive rex, it's much easier to get more happy resources on noble level than higher ones. yet, just like higher level games, the most important work are the first 100-150 turns, when not many cities has the time to grow past size 10.

 

[pigswill]

As Amao said if you can rex further and faster and get more happy resources in your empire in the early game the happy cap would be higher on noble than deity.

Basically the strategies that are optimal for deity aren't optimal for noble. Micro-management is level independent and its where experienced players have a distinct edge.

When I've seen deity level players play a noble game they tend to HA rush everyone and win by 1ad, which is not something they do at deity.

 

[soundjata]

Agree with Fippy, drewisfat and pomthom LOL