Nara was very marginal city wise. Satsuma helped run 2-3 cottages. It can still grow on other tiles. Same for Kyoto which had 3-4 cotttages running while the capital grew. It's not uncommon to have 2 cities close to a capital to help with cottages. With the capital taking them over once it's size 12-13+. This game is a bit unique as the capital had no decent food resource tiles.
The cities near my capital are -4-5 maintenance wise. Highest costing cities -7 to -9 which is manageable. If they hit 10 maintenance a turn I might consider a court house. If nothing adds value I often run wealth. If you are building court houses in size 2 cities next to the capital you are overly worried about this. Not sure I checked these maintenance values before you asked. Not shocked the distant Egyptian cities are costing me dearly.
As for catapults. If you are going to war at 1ad against a protective AI you will likely take big losses. Hatty in my game had +25% defence in all cities. So attacking a capital with 85% cultural defences would of been a tough ask. I bombarded her capital for 2 turns to 0% defences and lost 2 units taking her capital. Similar story for all her other cities. If you wanted to take down Koreans much sooner then HA were the better choice 1000bc or so. In this instance you have left Koreans with 7 cities. At some point they will attack you again. Catapults/axes/swords would of meant you could take down 4-5+ cities.
Part of your issue with AI cities is you let the AI grab your land as your second city arrived 540 years late at 2000bc or so. On a good map aim for 4 cities by 2000bc (Double what you had). Even with this map 3 cities by 2000bc is easily possible. BW and chopping always helps if you lack pigs, irrigated corn or rice.
Exploration I didn't really bother. I had map knowledge from seeing your save. Maybe should of scouted more. What were the AI really going to do here? For trade routes it can be important early on. Only warfare was Aztecs.
Maybe should of ignored Roman request to stop trading. Cost me 5 gold per turn on resources but kept him pleased. Situational I guess.You do know you can trade gold for resources? E.g. Aztecs have 5 gold per turn up for trade. This can make a big difference as it can add up to 10-20 plus gpt. I took the religion switch as it made sense given 2-3 neighbours had it. Romans have not really done much my game. Same for most of the AI likely due to shared religions. I begged hunting and myst early game.
I have a huge unit cost here of 17 gpt. So I will likely attack the Americans soon. Units already in place. Great general for super medic too. Most hate Americans anyway.
My biggest issue was likely lack of workers. Even with one per city I never seem to have enough. With your spaced out cities it made it bit harder. To cottage as Sampsa would you want more workers than cities after you rex to 3-5 cities. Hence why chopping is so important. Each chop is worth a 1/3rd of a worker before maths. One 2 pop whip gets you a worker too. With granary that is very strong.
The cities near my capital are -4-5 maintenance wise. Highest costing cities -7 to -9 which is manageable. If they hit 10 maintenance a turn I might consider a court house. If nothing adds value I often run wealth. If you are building court houses in size 2 cities next to the capital you are overly worried about this. Not sure I checked these maintenance values before you asked. Not shocked the distant Egyptian cities are costing me dearly.
As for catapults. If you are going to war at 1ad against a protective AI you will likely take big losses. Hatty in my game had +25% defence in all cities. So attacking a capital with 85% cultural defences would of been a tough ask. I bombarded her capital for 2 turns to 0% defences and lost 2 units taking her capital. Similar story for all her other cities. If you wanted to take down Koreans much sooner then HA were the better choice 1000bc or so. In this instance you have left Koreans with 7 cities. At some point they will attack you again. Catapults/axes/swords would of meant you could take down 4-5+ cities.
Part of your issue with AI cities is you let the AI grab your land as your second city arrived 540 years late at 2000bc or so. On a good map aim for 4 cities by 2000bc (Double what you had). Even with this map 3 cities by 2000bc is easily possible. BW and chopping always helps if you lack pigs, irrigated corn or rice.
Exploration I didn't really bother. I had map knowledge from seeing your save. Maybe should of scouted more. What were the AI really going to do here? For trade routes it can be important early on. Only warfare was Aztecs.
Maybe should of ignored Roman request to stop trading. Cost me 5 gold per turn on resources but kept him pleased. Situational I guess.You do know you can trade gold for resources? E.g. Aztecs have 5 gold per turn up for trade. This can make a big difference as it can add up to 10-20 plus gpt. I took the religion switch as it made sense given 2-3 neighbours had it. Romans have not really done much my game. Same for most of the AI likely due to shared religions. I begged hunting and myst early game.
I have a huge unit cost here of 17 gpt. So I will likely attack the Americans soon. Units already in place. Great general for super medic too. Most hate Americans anyway.
My biggest issue was likely lack of workers. Even with one per city I never seem to have enough. With your spaced out cities it made it bit harder. To cottage as Sampsa would you want more workers than cities after you rex to 3-5 cities. Hence why chopping is so important. Each chop is worth a 1/3rd of a worker before maths. One 2 pop whip gets you a worker too. With granary that is very strong.
on bigger maps, just because everyone has more cities. I think game speed is more relevant though, as on marathon you have 3x more time to dump overflow into fail gold.
