Not a lot of message traffic in this group, so I thought
I'd see if I can stir something up. I always check in
here before I fire up the game, just in case there is
some particularly inspiring story or strategic insight.
I like this better than the websites, but I'm not sure
just why. Maybe because I can post without having to
add yet another username/password to my pc.
After the romp I had in the last game on monarch, I
decided to give emperor a try, and with a couple
more civs. But no barbarians so I wouldn't have to
spend so many early hammers on self-defense. With
only 5 civs on a huge map aggression becomes...
impractical. Alexander attacked me, and I'm now
way ahead of him in tech. The turn after I gave
him one to get him off my back, I turned around
and gave him two more to attack the french!
Two or three turns after that, Alex is asking me
to join him. I'm not getting in any wars until
I'm good and ready, though. Meanwhile, I've
caught up to the other civs in tech thanks to
building universities instead of cossacks, and
research instead of culture. The three turns
I had to wait to change civics don't seem to
have hurt me any. I was also able to hurry
broadway and oxford university. I've got two
great engineers and three great merchants,
and I'm two turns away from another great
person. Hopefully something besides yet
another merchant. I've been putting off
building factories because I like to start
a golden age and build them everywhere at
once. Usually as soon as I can. This time
I want to save the engineers for hurrying
the three gorges dam. The map is one huge
continent, with a big island (empty) north
of me with a few smaller islands around it.
There are a couple of narrows where I want
to build cities to make it easier for my
navy to get around. These are controlled
by the french, and would enable me to attack
alex by sea, instead of marching overland.
....and marching, and marching.
I like the heavy forest/light jungle option
on smartmap. I can almost always chop a
granary before any given city gets to size 2.
I also like many rivers/few lakes. No peaks
and a few extra hills, and I can build a
productive city just about anywhere, and so
can the ai. Makes for a more interesting
game with all the units that inevitably
get produced. Even though I got the short
end of the stick in the war with Alex, my
empire was so big by the time he got his
stack of doom on my doorstep that I hardly
noticed the loss of three cities. Right
now, my biggest worry is where to build
the iron works. Any city that has enough
specialists to fill the engineer slots
tends not to have enough hammers to build
it in a reasonable amount of time, let
alone make practical use of it. In the
right town, though, it's like having a
second heroic epic. My idea of the right
town has 54 slices of bread and at least
as many hammers. How often does that
happen?
I think I'll give immortal a try when I finish
this game.
--
Don't drink that! I peed in it.
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