Rhino - Deity Hatty - Random Personalities

[OneLeggedRhino]

Closing Thoughts

Well, that was a really challenging opening, then smooth sailing after conquering Saladin. It really helped having three pushovers on my island. Here's what I learned:

Opening

In my initial opening (the one that didn't work, with grabbing that far-away city), I was scared of Deity war. My goal was to claim land so I wouldn't have to war until midgame. It didn't work, but there's a larger lesson in this game.

Deity war isn't scary. Once I started rolling on Saladin, he was a pushover. (Before the war started, though, I thought I was doomed. Turns out, tech lead doesn't matter all that much, as long as you're willing to sacrifice some units to take cities).

So, for next game, I plan to make a compact empire, tech enough to build a decent stack, and conquer my way to first place. Which makes Charismatic an attractive trait.

Creative

My first high-level game with Creative. It's nice, but not huge. It can get you another city, if you have a good blocking location that requires a border pop. (Gold, in this game). And it's nice for culture pressure. But it's nothing that blows me away.

Especially if the plan is to claim nearby cities that are good right now, Creative doesn't seem that necessary.

Disband Your Army

Disbanding the army and swapping to Pacifism was awesome. Huge impact on my tech rate, and it's easy enough to draft / whip an army when you need one, especially if you have a tech lead. There would be plenty of games where you need a standing army, but I'll definitely do more disbanding in the future. Even just losing a few low-promotion units could have a big impact on costs.

Trade Routes

Claiming a small island can have a huge impact on your economy. Especially if you only have one trading partner, or intend to stay in Mercantilism for a while, prioritize off-shore cities. The island added around 50 CPT.

Thanks for reading. Happy holidays, and see you next game.

-Rhino

 

[MyOtherName]

Especially if the plan is to claim nearby cities that are good right now, Creative doesn't seem that necessary.

How would you have settled if you didn't have creative? Same city sites? Or would you have moved them? How much worse are the moved locations?


Without creative:

• For Sugar/Cow, having the 3 city tile requires a border pop to pick up the cows. (generally speaking, I think it's better to settle on Sugar rather than next to it)
• Copper needs both a border pop and a work boat before it can really grow -- a lot more effort without creative. Or it has to move 1E and need a border pop to pick up the copper.
• Gold also has to wait for a border pop to pick up the gold -- or it would have to be pushed one tile further out, further separating it from your core cities (and having to wait for a border-pop in order to block the passage by the peaks)

I think half of your starting cities would have been much weaker in the "right now" time-frame.

Of course, there is some luck involved. Sometimes all of the good city sites have the important stuff in the inner ring. Sometimes, they don't.


You also mentioned at one point you had so little military you had to go scouting with workers. How much worse would it have been if you had to spend another 90 on those two libraries early?

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

^ That's a really good question. First, here's a shot of my early cities:

Spoiler :

Gold, I wouldn't have been able to grab, at least, not early. It needs a border pop to seal off my backfill, so without Cre, I would have had to take Inner Silk early, and not grab Gold until later (if it was still available.

Copper has the copper and a grass mine to work. On that one, Cre is convenient, but not huge. (And don't worry about the workboat, since it comes from Thebes).

Sugar would have been a big deal. It would have been stuck working cottages at just +3F without the cow, which would have slowed it a good bit.

I guess I'm trying to weigh "a few cities come online faster" with something like Charismatic, that makes all your cities better, or Organized, that makes your economy better. And my general feeling is, if you make all the cities 10% better, that matters more than making one city 30% better. (Not that the numbers mean anything specific, just the general idea).

But you make a fair point: Saving the 90 hammers per monument and 135 hammers per library is pretty helpful. Maybe I'll give Cre another look.