Gamespot Video Interview

[sophist]

Originally posted by CyberShy
It wouldn't be good if a 1 city empire could beat a 100 city empire.

Why not? What if those are 100 1-pop cities vs. a single 30-pop city? Sure, that situation is highly unlikely, but if it did happen, it wouldn't be wrong for the single city to hold its own. I could imagine a scenario that had that kind of situation.

[Robert]

That's a surreal situation.

[Verenti]

Well if it was the previous situation of 1 30 to 100 1s: A centralised population of 300,000 would likely beat a bunch of farming cities of 10,000 people each. Likely the outlying cities would fall with relative ease and it would snowball from there, as the larger empire would likely be sluggish to respond due to its decentralized nature. Then again, 300,000 field an army of less that would have trouble garrisoning all those cities. That would give the 100 city empire to rally and field a sizeable army and destroy the 30 pop city.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, another tidbit from the video that has been previously picked up. Apparently harbours boost the gold value of all trade routes which run through that city. This is according to the help 'window' which appears when he passes the cursor over the harbour. However, I could have read it wrong, so could someone please confirm what I have just quoted?
If correct, though, this is going to make coastal cities very important for trade (particularly in the early game) and suggests that trades are going to somehow always have a gold per turn value (massive speculation on my part though !)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GeoModder]

If true, it sounds like an extension of the commerce system in SMAC then...