I don't have Conquests yet but starting with one extra food will make a significant difference to ones ability to REX. I say this on the basis of a little experiment I tried with Civ3.
I played a game with a cow in my starting location. I edited the map so the cow would be on a bonus grassland square and the addition of that extra starting shield made a most noticeable difference to the resulting power of my civilisation.
I wondered if an extra food would be better than an extra starting shield so edited the map again and replayed it. Once again the difference was very noticeable. (The food is probably better but I built my granary faster with the extra shield so I am not certain which is better.)
On the basis of this I would say that Agricultural will be extremely powerful with a river start, particularly if there are more suitable city sites on rivers nearby. Throw in half price aqueducts and the food bonus when you get out of despotism and you get an overpowered civilisation. What if you also started with Pottery? yikes!
OTH If there is no freshwater anywhere nearby one may be better off with some other trait instead of agricultural although the cheap aqueduct and food bonus will come when you eventually get out of despotism.
I think that, depending upon your starting position and surrounding terrain, agricultural could be anything from grossly overpowered to somewhat weak.
I played a game with a cow in my starting location. I edited the map so the cow would be on a bonus grassland square and the addition of that extra starting shield made a most noticeable difference to the resulting power of my civilisation.
I wondered if an extra food would be better than an extra starting shield so edited the map again and replayed it. Once again the difference was very noticeable. (The food is probably better but I built my granary faster with the extra shield so I am not certain which is better.)
On the basis of this I would say that Agricultural will be extremely powerful with a river start, particularly if there are more suitable city sites on rivers nearby. Throw in half price aqueducts and the food bonus when you get out of despotism and you get an overpowered civilisation. What if you also started with Pottery? yikes!
OTH If there is no freshwater anywhere nearby one may be better off with some other trait instead of agricultural although the cheap aqueduct and food bonus will come when you eventually get out of despotism.
I think that, depending upon your starting position and surrounding terrain, agricultural could be anything from grossly overpowered to somewhat weak.
Comment