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lads,
i don't want to appear a smartarse, but i believe a bit of open criticism and comments are necessary.
after having scouted your waters with my caravels (both) and partially seeing your cities due to espionage (krazy) and thereby seeing a good part of your lands, i've seen a lot of things where you guys could massively improve your game.
first: expansion!
adam, you started off quite well. at one stage you were ahead of me in number of cities (also because i foolishly had an undefended settler). but then you didn't seem to push further.
eric: i have the feeling you built 3-4 cities and then never expanded further. even gilgamesh has placed a city on your continent right next to your capital's borders. he's got wheat, water, jungle (=future grasslands) and hills (production).
you should both have 8-12 cities around this time. if not built on your own due to space, then conquered! huayna capac is a might foe, but gilgamesh would easily be beatable.
both of you should expand much more, especially eric. there's no problem if you run only 50-60% research for a long time. in the long run even your island and jungle cities will be effective. they help financing more units and they grab lands. 5 of my cities were located in pure water/jungle areas... but by sending 2 workers constantly working there, these cities were pretty soon usable.
that brings me to workers
your cities should hardly ever work unimproved tiles (exceptions are forests (because lumbermills come late) and water (lighthouses)). grassland and plains should always have stuff on. here again i'm surprised to see how little eric's capital has been improved.
next, very important: use of slavery:
neither of you was running slavery. it is -without doubt- the most powerful early civic until you have enough happiness&health! but you were both using the unimproved civic. and now both running serfdom???
in a recent poll on apolyton, serfdom is the 3rd-least used civic... and as we are running quick game speed, what is the advantage for you? just 3 turns for mining instead of 4? build plantation in 4 instead of 6 turns? these are nice things, but really not critical - especially if you havn't got enough workers to actually execute the work!
and something specific to adam: i even told you you would beat me to optics. i was about 4-5 turns behind you there. but the very turn i got it, i whipped out several units. in the end i had 7 caravels, 3 going west, 4 went east. why so many? first, to shorten the distances by going both ways (meet on the other side of the world). second, many units got blocked by bays or icebergs... so by spreading them out i went quite sure that at least one would find a way through. i even loaded an explorer on one boat so that in case there would be a northpole-southpole continent, i could still get through. as you see, i beat you to the travel and now am enjoying the +1 movement on a water heavy map!
trust me, by improving just the first three points, you'd be ahead of all AIs and not far behind me - maybe even in front due to my suboptimal starting location.
krazy: you can even see the difference between adam and you in score. he was better in both expansion and working (though there's still room for improvement).
for now i just recommend that you build a lot of workers and quickly build some more cities.
pity we have tech trading off because i'd give you both a jump-start in techs so you can also expand further (like astronomy, etc).
i don't want to appear a smartarse, but i believe a bit of open criticism and comments are necessary.
after having scouted your waters with my caravels (both) and partially seeing your cities due to espionage (krazy) and thereby seeing a good part of your lands, i've seen a lot of things where you guys could massively improve your game.
first: expansion!
adam, you started off quite well. at one stage you were ahead of me in number of cities (also because i foolishly had an undefended settler). but then you didn't seem to push further.
eric: i have the feeling you built 3-4 cities and then never expanded further. even gilgamesh has placed a city on your continent right next to your capital's borders. he's got wheat, water, jungle (=future grasslands) and hills (production).
you should both have 8-12 cities around this time. if not built on your own due to space, then conquered! huayna capac is a might foe, but gilgamesh would easily be beatable.
both of you should expand much more, especially eric. there's no problem if you run only 50-60% research for a long time. in the long run even your island and jungle cities will be effective. they help financing more units and they grab lands. 5 of my cities were located in pure water/jungle areas... but by sending 2 workers constantly working there, these cities were pretty soon usable.
that brings me to workers
your cities should hardly ever work unimproved tiles (exceptions are forests (because lumbermills come late) and water (lighthouses)). grassland and plains should always have stuff on. here again i'm surprised to see how little eric's capital has been improved.
next, very important: use of slavery:
neither of you was running slavery. it is -without doubt- the most powerful early civic until you have enough happiness&health! but you were both using the unimproved civic. and now both running serfdom???
in a recent poll on apolyton, serfdom is the 3rd-least used civic... and as we are running quick game speed, what is the advantage for you? just 3 turns for mining instead of 4? build plantation in 4 instead of 6 turns? these are nice things, but really not critical - especially if you havn't got enough workers to actually execute the work!
and something specific to adam: i even told you you would beat me to optics. i was about 4-5 turns behind you there. but the very turn i got it, i whipped out several units. in the end i had 7 caravels, 3 going west, 4 went east. why so many? first, to shorten the distances by going both ways (meet on the other side of the world). second, many units got blocked by bays or icebergs... so by spreading them out i went quite sure that at least one would find a way through. i even loaded an explorer on one boat so that in case there would be a northpole-southpole continent, i could still get through. as you see, i beat you to the travel and now am enjoying the +1 movement on a water heavy map!
trust me, by improving just the first three points, you'd be ahead of all AIs and not far behind me - maybe even in front due to my suboptimal starting location.
krazy: you can even see the difference between adam and you in score. he was better in both expansion and working (though there's still room for improvement).
for now i just recommend that you build a lot of workers and quickly build some more cities.
pity we have tech trading off because i'd give you both a jump-start in techs so you can also expand further (like astronomy, etc).
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