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Here is the 636AD save.
Note that score means nearly nothing - for example each tech provides basically the same amount of score regardless of cost. You can easily raise your score by trading for techs, especially junk techs, but this kind of rampant trading causes "We fear you are becoming too advanced" (it's based on # techs traded not their beaker count), by avoiding tech trading as much as possible (in favor of extortion and getting gold for your techs then doing self research) you can delay seeing "WFYABTA" for much, much longer.
Another way that score is limited is that skilled players will tend to whip more which lowers population which lowers score - yet the acts of whipping were certainly not harmful - a granary is far more useful than the 2 pop killed to get it - yet the 2 pop registers on score but the granary doesn't. And returning to the cheap tech things - if you research all the cheap techs - even fi you don't need them, you'll have a high score! Yet it's usually stronger to pursue a depth-first research strategy. Often a high score is really an inflated score and indicative that you're actually doing something wrong! In MP games I am quite disturbed if early on I am high in score without a good reason (ie hut tech pop) partly because it means others must be playing equally efficiently...
When you want to assess the strength of a position there's a few demographics which are very important:
1) Food. Food is an excellent indication of how much population you have and how much stuff you can produce (by working mines or whipping), being high food is very good.
2) Land Area. This indicates your potential for growth without conquering, even if you're in a "bad" position NOW, if you have the largest land area you'll usually be able to make a comeback in all other fields.
Astute observation. Um is it the engineering quote about perfection being taking away everything which isn't needed? That's how a good research strategy works - if you don't need something - don't get it! You can see I do that by totally ignoring the religious line because I didn't need it to complete my objectives - which was conquer territory and improve my economy.
Um yeah failure to scout and make bold moves to claim critical city sites definitely costs you! And Iron is simply the best for Rome - silly little units like Horse Archers just don't compare with the mighty Praetorian. In terms of bang-for-buck Praets are probably the best unit in the game, leveraging this advantage quickly puts you in a strong position.
I really can't stress scouting enough - I spent a long time not scouting as much as I should, now I tend to spam out as many as half a dozen warriors (depending on map size) and send them out scouting, later they come in useful as fogbusters and stuff. You do need to send out a lot of scouting units because many get eaten. The thing about scouting is - if scouting allows you to settle an uber site like my ricies site, or the Pigs/Iron site, then it definitely more than pays for the scout unit because the city will be so much more productive than a lesser city would be... (also accounting for things like happy resources boosting the empires production).
I was surprised how close my score was to Blake's - OK, I know about the limitations of the score, but none the less I was surprised.
Another way that score is limited is that skilled players will tend to whip more which lowers population which lowers score - yet the acts of whipping were certainly not harmful - a granary is far more useful than the 2 pop killed to get it - yet the 2 pop registers on score but the granary doesn't. And returning to the cheap tech things - if you research all the cheap techs - even fi you don't need them, you'll have a high score! Yet it's usually stronger to pursue a depth-first research strategy. Often a high score is really an inflated score and indicative that you're actually doing something wrong! In MP games I am quite disturbed if early on I am high in score without a good reason (ie hut tech pop) partly because it means others must be playing equally efficiently...
When you want to assess the strength of a position there's a few demographics which are very important:
1) Food. Food is an excellent indication of how much population you have and how much stuff you can produce (by working mines or whipping), being high food is very good.
2) Land Area. This indicates your potential for growth without conquering, even if you're in a "bad" position NOW, if you have the largest land area you'll usually be able to make a comeback in all other fields.
Another key difference is that Blake's tech research is much more closely aligned to his play strategy than mine. I was frequently trying to play a builder style evolved at noble level in circumstances that didn't suit it.
Another difference that may or may not be significant is that I failed to discover the iron that he is exploiting. I'm not sure whether this made much difference in practice.
I really can't stress scouting enough - I spent a long time not scouting as much as I should, now I tend to spam out as many as half a dozen warriors (depending on map size) and send them out scouting, later they come in useful as fogbusters and stuff. You do need to send out a lot of scouting units because many get eaten. The thing about scouting is - if scouting allows you to settle an uber site like my ricies site, or the Pigs/Iron site, then it definitely more than pays for the scout unit because the city will be so much more productive than a lesser city would be... (also accounting for things like happy resources boosting the empires production).
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