tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Good work Tusker! 
Two down, five to go! Actually, more like four-and-a-half, now...
Aztecs are Agri, so Desert tiles will irrigate to 2 FPT (same as Plains) and then rail to 3 FPT (if the game goes as far as Steam), which means we'd easily have enough food for some good CxxC'd Pop12-ers down there (e.g. if we wanted to go Commie later): in that case we might want to avoid ICS. OTOH, if we think that the game will be over with Cavs, then we could ICS it — but in that case there's no real point in irrigating it (since ICS'd towns won't get buildings/ go above Pop6, we might as well just leave them at Pop2: 1 labourer, 1 specialist).
That said, (as I might have mentioned already!) I don't like ICS, and for AW-Conquest, it seems undesirable to 'waste' Settlers on more marginal territory that we don't 'need' (if not going for Domination), while at the same time also presenting the AI-Civs with a target-rich environment which we may not be able to adequately defend, because our attack-units are being walked/shipped to our ever-more-distant war-front(s) instead. So I'd rather plant any new towns near resources, or for strategic reasons (like channelling irrigation!).
(Also, leaving 'holes' between towns may tempt the AI to drop off Settlers which we can then enslave...)
With the Mongols dead and the Incas on the run, we'll have our Continent under our control soon, and then we'll have to sail over quite a wide Ocean to fight the Dutch. But since we can't get any techs from the GLib unless we know at least 2 other Civs (that we haven't killed!), we should probably resign ourselves to not getting (m)any techs beyond Education anyway, shouldn't we?
I would argue that we are going to need at least Astro (=safe Sea-travel) to make the crossing, and we're probably still going to lose a few troop-carrying Galleons to inclement weather before we get Navi (=safe Ocean-travel, Magellans) or Magnets. So we are going to need Edu sooner rather than later anyway, and should already be prepping to do our own research in preparation for the GLib's expiration.
On which subject...
Core-towns (<50% corrupt on building)
Barracks + Harbour (if coastal, i.e. most of them!) + 'Duct + Lib (if high-commerce; i.e. likely most/all of the coastal towns) + Market (for Lux-happiness*, plus end-of-research-project TAX%-windfalls) + Uni (after Edu)
Semi-core towns (50-70% corrupt)
Courthouse + Barracks or [Harbour+Lib] + Duct + Market
Everywhere else (>70% corrupt), maybe:
Walls (if coastal)
Harbour (if Fish nearby, and/or on an island with a new [Lux-]resource)
Building units should probably still take priority though. Now that our GA is over, I wouldn't put more than 1-2 of our core-towns on infrastructure-builds during any given turn.
*(The ToA-Temples are nice to have for the free border-pop(s), but we likely won't miss them once this Continent — and its at least 3 Luxes — is ours)
Two down, five to go! Actually, more like four-and-a-half, now...
There's possibly a decision to be made here, depending on how long we think the game is going to run.
Aztecs are Agri, so Desert tiles will irrigate to 2 FPT (same as Plains) and then rail to 3 FPT (if the game goes as far as Steam), which means we'd easily have enough food for some good CxxC'd Pop12-ers down there (e.g. if we wanted to go Commie later): in that case we might want to avoid ICS. OTOH, if we think that the game will be over with Cavs, then we could ICS it — but in that case there's no real point in irrigating it (since ICS'd towns won't get buildings/ go above Pop6, we might as well just leave them at Pop2: 1 labourer, 1 specialist).
That said, (as I might have mentioned already!) I don't like ICS, and for AW-Conquest, it seems undesirable to 'waste' Settlers on more marginal territory that we don't 'need' (if not going for Domination), while at the same time also presenting the AI-Civs with a target-rich environment which we may not be able to adequately defend, because our attack-units are being walked/shipped to our ever-more-distant war-front(s) instead. So I'd rather plant any new towns near resources, or for strategic reasons (like channelling irrigation!).
(Also, leaving 'holes' between towns may tempt the AI to drop off Settlers which we can then enslave...)
Are you suggesting that we don't go out and meet more Civs? Kind of hard to play AW that way, no?
With the Mongols dead and the Incas on the run, we'll have our Continent under our control soon, and then we'll have to sail over quite a wide Ocean to fight the Dutch. But since we can't get any techs from the GLib unless we know at least 2 other Civs (that we haven't killed!), we should probably resign ourselves to not getting (m)any techs beyond Education anyway, shouldn't we?
I would argue that we are going to need at least Astro (=safe Sea-travel) to make the crossing, and we're probably still going to lose a few troop-carrying Galleons to inclement weather before we get Navi (=safe Ocean-travel, Magellans) or Magnets. So we are going to need Edu sooner rather than later anyway, and should already be prepping to do our own research in preparation for the GLib's expiration.
On which subject...
The way I see it, we will eventually need (where they haven't already been built)
Core-towns (<50% corrupt on building)
Barracks + Harbour (if coastal, i.e. most of them!) + 'Duct + Lib (if high-commerce; i.e. likely most/all of the coastal towns) + Market (for Lux-happiness*, plus end-of-research-project TAX%-windfalls) + Uni (after Edu)
Semi-core towns (50-70% corrupt)
Courthouse + Barracks or [Harbour+Lib] + Duct + Market
Everywhere else (>70% corrupt), maybe:
Walls (if coastal)
Harbour (if Fish nearby, and/or on an island with a new [Lux-]resource)
Building units should probably still take priority though. Now that our GA is over, I wouldn't put more than 1-2 of our core-towns on infrastructure-builds during any given turn.
*(The ToA-Temples are nice to have for the free border-pop(s), but we likely won't miss them once this Continent — and its at least 3 Luxes — is ours)
Really, though, I should have skipped any further ocean exploration. It's probably worth keeping our Galleys in home waters from now on (at least, until a Caravel or Galleon shows up on our borders!)
