Has anyone succeeded in settling mainland (from an island start) with a fast sailing approach?
First, thanks for the pointers to the AI personality stuff (also LowtherCastle & everyone else). Haven't had time to look at it much yet but it looks pretty comprehensive!
I finally got to do a quick run on the island test save (though I was half asleep -- been working > 12 hour days). I did get a mainland city, but only a mediocre location (on the coastal river opening SW of the starting loc in the island test save), and was able to do very little scouting of locations before grabbing it, by the time I popped the settler it was clear the coastal regions nearby were being gobbled up fast. I do think if I could figure out how to accelerate it even a couple turns I could have a much better selection though -- one thing I did was build 2wb in a row (built first then immediately whipped 2nd to make use of slavery on first turn available, reasoning the lost of one pop would be pretty quickly outweighed by the +2 food to throw at the settler build & to fuel future whips), that may have delayed me just enough to lose a lot of options. I'll have to try again & be even more focused. Even in what I did though, I was able to steal an AI civ's first worker & do a fair amount of pillaging of mines built by whatever AI was down there (it was purple ... Asoka? can't remember, like I said, I was half asleep).
Ohmygod. I tried a test map and I got myself nicely spanked before the AD years. The AI kept sending wave upon wave of bad guys. DoW'ing (sorry Jenarie) all AI is not clever at all. It's actually madness and I can't imagine I will win this game.
I'm glad you've conceded that. When you originally posted that idea and I replied right away asking why, saying it was "interesting" & I must not be experienced enough to understand the reasons for doing that, I was trying to be polite ... privately I thought you were stark raving nuts, in the sesne that you had a death wish or something
With warriors (weak) and archers (no city attack promotion, taking on other archers fortified in cities), having to first have a navy to stage a d-day style invasion, then paying maintenance on them being in enemy land & taking on fortified archers in cities+maybe hills, and the cities probably stuffed because each civ may only get enough room for tow cities -- and then if you raze, another civ would just move into the space ASAP, otherwise to hold you have to leave a trail of defenders, and probably be surrounded by foreign cultural influence sea, at least until you clear a pretty wide swath?!? Ugh!
Without a doubt there are much better players here than me, but you'd have to be a true uber player to pull that off! To me it sounds like trying to push back the tide with the palm of your hand ...