Final gameplay thoughts:
- Choosing to go for more cities but smaller pop was right, the game ended before I would have the happy cap to grow them big.
- Speaking of happy cap, I should have got HR or a religion to grow my cities quicker. It seriously sets me behind when every city is 2-3 pop smaller than they could be.
- As industrious, forges should have been built way earlier.
- Never built the northern fishing village.. That, and the southern one, both should have been up earlier.
- I read criticism on the location of Denerim (the one on top of horses). I chose that spot for two reasons: I saw the dry wheat as a relatively weak tile, and I wanted to make use of the second pigs in Denerim while it grows, and then let the northern city have the already-improved pigs once it's founded. The clam that I missed to the south would have been picked up by a fishing village. More feedback is welcome now that you know my thinking on it.
- As industrious with marble (and later Stone) I probably should have gone for more wonders. Even if I don't get them, the hammers to gold ratio from fail gold should be good due to the modifiers I have.
- The attack on Sian was a mistake. Okay, it went much better than it could have.. I got practically all the land between us (he only had one city towards me!), and it was relatively cheap at around 10 units spent on it. I also ran very thin defenses for most of the game despite being at war with him. But if he really wanted vengeance, he could have built 100% military instead of sailing to the new continent. I would win that war, but it would hurt me. So what did I gain? A lot of land that I didn't need. There was a whole new continent, and also plenty of land in the middle. I never claimed those because my economy couldn't afford it. If I let Sian have a slice of the lands between us, I could instead build towards the middle and on my half of the north, and still have the same city count that I had. Okay, I would have a stronger neighbor too that could one day go through me, but in this game it would have been a good thing because he could better stand up to Thestick.
- I still think there is some merit to having weak neighbors. But now that I know that a lot of RB players are ready to wreck their own game for vengeance, I don't think aggression is a good tool to achieve that. You can still have weaker neighbors, but you need to get them by making yourself stronger, rather than making them weaker. Only become aggressive when you can either finish them off, or when you know that you won't have any trouble dealing with them if they seek vengeance. I would personally prefer a meta where everyone plays to win no matter how pitiful their situation was, but I have to accept the prevalent meta and play with it in mind.
- There were some comments about the 1-tile inland sea island. How much of a mistake was it to not settle it?
- Optimizing play for GP use and Golden Ages would be a good idea. Even without PHI trait or Pacifism I was getting GP's much faster than I expected.
- Choosing to go for more cities but smaller pop was right, the game ended before I would have the happy cap to grow them big.
- Speaking of happy cap, I should have got HR or a religion to grow my cities quicker. It seriously sets me behind when every city is 2-3 pop smaller than they could be.
- As industrious, forges should have been built way earlier.
- Never built the northern fishing village.. That, and the southern one, both should have been up earlier.
- I read criticism on the location of Denerim (the one on top of horses). I chose that spot for two reasons: I saw the dry wheat as a relatively weak tile, and I wanted to make use of the second pigs in Denerim while it grows, and then let the northern city have the already-improved pigs once it's founded. The clam that I missed to the south would have been picked up by a fishing village. More feedback is welcome now that you know my thinking on it.
- As industrious with marble (and later Stone) I probably should have gone for more wonders. Even if I don't get them, the hammers to gold ratio from fail gold should be good due to the modifiers I have.
- The attack on Sian was a mistake. Okay, it went much better than it could have.. I got practically all the land between us (he only had one city towards me!), and it was relatively cheap at around 10 units spent on it. I also ran very thin defenses for most of the game despite being at war with him. But if he really wanted vengeance, he could have built 100% military instead of sailing to the new continent. I would win that war, but it would hurt me. So what did I gain? A lot of land that I didn't need. There was a whole new continent, and also plenty of land in the middle. I never claimed those because my economy couldn't afford it. If I let Sian have a slice of the lands between us, I could instead build towards the middle and on my half of the north, and still have the same city count that I had. Okay, I would have a stronger neighbor too that could one day go through me, but in this game it would have been a good thing because he could better stand up to Thestick.
- I still think there is some merit to having weak neighbors. But now that I know that a lot of RB players are ready to wreck their own game for vengeance, I don't think aggression is a good tool to achieve that. You can still have weaker neighbors, but you need to get them by making yourself stronger, rather than making them weaker. Only become aggressive when you can either finish them off, or when you know that you won't have any trouble dealing with them if they seek vengeance. I would personally prefer a meta where everyone plays to win no matter how pitiful their situation was, but I have to accept the prevalent meta and play with it in mind.
- There were some comments about the 1-tile inland sea island. How much of a mistake was it to not settle it?
- Optimizing play for GP use and Golden Ages would be a good idea. Even without PHI trait or Pacifism I was getting GP's much faster than I expected.
