Monarch to Emperor

[Golden Bear]

As usual, good replies that get me thinking.

It was funny to see that poor settler go splat and then get kicked to the end of game screens. I think that I was "Joan the Hopeless."

I tend not to build Marketplace for the cash but for the happiness. Unless I misread something, I need Marketplace so that my luxuries have effect. I feel that happiness gets more important and harder to achieve at higher levels, hence I have been valuing Marketplace higher. What are your opinions about this?

I am playing at Emperor level which makes this decision making more important to me - I can't just build everything quickly and be done with it.

I guess that I build Temple to help discourage cultural reversion and to fill in gaps to get my land % up for domination. I'm mixing city stage and purpose here. I have been building courthouse second so that I can get some shields working. If they are just useless cities I don't bother, and if they are core I don't worry about it.

I really am undecided about Library vs. Market. Tech vs. happiness.

[vmxa1]

Markets are very important at emperor and above. The only point that I hope I made was that it has no value if you do not have some luxs.

IOW if you have 3 or more luxs, that market is great. If you have one lux, you may want to look closely at its value. Remember we are also talking about non core cities, hence they will not be building it quickly.

You have to note that I menioned the pop size. If it is not going over size 6, you need to look very closely at the other factors I just mentioned, before construction.

So in short, you do not have a rule of thumb, you need to evaluate. These issues are what makes play at emperor and higher more work.

If you play at lower levels, you can slack off, unless you feel compelled to really throttle the AI. You just can't lose, unless you have no understanding of the game or have some outrageous start.

[Golden Bear]

"If you play at lower levels, you can slack off, unless you feel compelled to really throttle the AI. You just can't lose, unless you have no understanding of the game or have some outrageous start."

No slacking off here!!

[Barinthus]

I lost Newton's University to some puny AI last night on Chieftain

[vmxa1]

Did they have an SGL? Did you build the GL and then sit on your hands, research wise?

If you build the GL at chief, you should act as if you did not build it and steam on researching. Maybe take a few turns to raise cash for upgrades.

If you do that they will not get to the tech in time to build it first. If you try to slow down, the AI will not research fast enough to get you techs, especially if you do not have all of them contacted.

[Barinthus]

Mmm the year NU was established was in 1950s

Also I rexxed too fast and over a wide swarth of terrority with maximum spacing (I know it's not advised by most players, I figured I'm on chieftain so why not?) on a pangea map. So my tile development was very slow and I had high unit maintance costs which resulted in my research to be set on very low for a good portion of the game.