Just lost two multiplayer games in a row: How do you play food-heavy starts?

[GenericKen]

Actually, you could whip for all eternity if you wanted, since the unhappiness from consecutive whips don't add to -2 and more, but rather add turns of unhappiness.

Even if you whipped something every second turn for 100 turns, you'd still only be at -1 unhappiness, although you'd be stuck at that -1 for centuries after that point.

In my experience, you're completely wrong. Every whip adds more unhappiness. Have you ever actually used slavery?

Sirian was mistaken earlier thinking that slavery's unhappiness was cumulative for the duration of the unhappiness. Each whip has its own memory, and disapears in turn.

 

[Renata]

Get slavery and be super-aggressive. Send five or six archers in to pillage his lands while he's still building his second axeman. Might not work, but it's more fun than sitting back and waiting for your doom.

 

[CiverDan]

THats kind of the "slavers gambit" If it works and you pillage his metal and his axes are dead, you win. If it fails you will be to weak to keep up with him long term. Same goes for India chopping units. This almost worked against me in one MP game. but the other player made the mistake of trying to attack the city (which I reinforced just before he attacked) instead of pillaging my metal. If this fails, you have some catching up to do city improvement wise and since the Fast worker is most useful in chopping and mining that trait wont help you as much not to catch back up.

 

[hollebeek]

On a very floodplain-heavy start, consider using slavery for all your
production.

I'm not kidding.