Rah's saturday game III

[Dominae]

The chosen game is full.

[Dominae]

Well I'll see you all next week then..

[snoopy369]

AI is open for you, wonder why it's not letting you in?

[Toni]

GG all, great job Lz holding your ground

[LzPrst]

GG yes, my corps of knights really kicked butt. vassalage, theocracy, stables and barracks gave me lots of advantage. and snoopy didnt seem to have more than a single pikeman in all his armies. and those oromo's, wow, I am impressed. they kick butt when upgraded properly. but I was of course doomed, snoopy was so far ahead in tech, production and sheer power that I was merely fighting to see how long I could stave him off, which was quite long, but though I never saw the full size of his empire I suspect it was beyond huge. oh well, better luck to me next time

[LzPrst]

oh, and thanks for the game! (where are my manners)

and congrats to snoopy369, I must admit I am quite curious as to how you managed to get so far ahead so quickly.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by LzPrst
oh, and thanks for the game! (where are my manners)

and congrats to snoopy369, I must admit I am quite curious as to how you managed to get so far ahead so quickly.

Yes sir Me too! ?

[snoopy369]

To be honest, most of us don't use horsed units quite that much, so I wasn't really thinking about it... and I underestimated your forces by quite a bit. I built some pikemen later on, but by that point you had cuirassiers. I need more spies next time to see the approaching armies...

I got ahead so quickly just like Dom usually does ... build a ton of cities. Didn't hurt that I got to take out Isabella, of course, which gave me a bunch of free cities and plenty of room. I was running 40% science until I got code of laws, after which I built a ton of courthouses Madrid was in a perfect spot for a forbidden palace really, that increased my income by a lot.

That first GA helped a lot also

[LzPrst]

interesting. my experience in singleplayer is usually that my economy collapses if I expand too much, but I tend to play higher difficulty ratings. guess more MP experience is key. maybe I'll join you again the coming weekend

[snoopy369]

Expanding in MP is what decides the winner, easily. As long as you balance power (military) with it, you will win if you out expand everyone else... as long as your science rate stays acceptable.

Though that's largely true in AI games as well, in my experience, it's just that you have to be a lot more careful with your power in those as the AI attacks earlier on than most human players will (excepting weak opponents or poor/close starts).

[LzPrst]

i actually hate that aspect of civ... size = power. the main problem is that food resources cant be transported. so the result is that cities are basically reduced to their surrounding terrain for growth, which hasnt been the case since the early bronze age...

anyway, enough of that. I'll keep it in mind for next time

[Toni]

Lz playing next game?

Same time and day as last week, so u know

[Dominae]

Originally posted by LzPrst
the main problem is that food resources cant be transported. so the result is that cities are basically reduced to their surrounding terrain for growth, which hasnt been the case since the early bronze age...

...but that's exactly when you're doing most of your critical expansion.

In any case you've correctly identified (at least in my opinion) that which drives a successful empire: Food resources. So many times in rah's saturday games do I see cities founded for their strategic importance, but with next to no growth potential. I consider any of my first 5 expansions a "loss" if they can't access extra Food. About the only time I let myself do this (unless I have no choice because there's no Food around) is to grab Horses or Bronze. Unless you're playing a Creative civ you almost always want to position your cities directly adjacent to Food resources.

[LzPrst]

my point is actually that the game is flawed since local food resources are the only determinant of city size. which isnt remotely historical or realistic (since the bronze age). cities grew large from culture, trade and political centralization. food was imported. Rome got most of it's grain from Egypt in the ancient era. New York and Tokyo dont produce food, they consume it. if you look at trade throughout world history (including now) food is one of the main trade resources. the game does not reflect this. that's what I dont like. ingame, heck, I hardly ever build a city without food specials.

this is not really relevant for our saturday night game, it is just an annoyance I have towards civ in general. a resource of horses, sheep or cattle cannot be bred and expanded. why not? nor can rice or wheat or maize. doesnt make any sense to me.

you see my point? I would like to see a slightly more realistic treatment of city growth and resource/food management. hopefully it will appear in civ5...


/quoth the raven, Nevermore!

[Dominae]

I see your point.

Everyone has their realism pet peeve. Mine is travel: how does that single caveman map out an entire continent, and report back everything he's seen?!