Molachs Egyptians

[Molach]

Okay, aaaaand we're home free.

Well, there is little to say. I moved units in and took land, technological advantage is technological advantage.
Some things:


I wanted to get my units here into the fight. However they were blocked by Hong Kong (allied) forces. I ended up deleting them. I think they would have made the front if Hong Kong had been an enemy, because then they could blast their way through. Big tiles + 1 upt = traffic jam. It wasn't easy for me to get my units through here, so how does anyone expect an AI to move even remotely effectively? 1upt needs to go. (more later)


In this pic I have just taken two arab cities, and am pushing towards his capital. Good thing here, my advance force of 4 knights were not able to do much to the city defenses...even after surrounding the city, besieging it. City walls hold against regular units, as they should. My knights would take 50% damage, the city very little damage. So that is good. Once I brought up a bombard it was game over, though.

But also in that photo...A new city! Yay me. Except this was from a settler stolen from Mecca when I captured it. And look at that new city! It is on river, with a lux, and....it is just incomprehensible that AI was unable to see that spot. I could have made a settling subroutine better than this. And I am no programmer!

Seriously, did these guys really playtest the game at prince difficulty level? Did they not see all this? Or did they spot all this stuff and just realize there was no time to fix it before release?

Anyways, bye.


For Japan, I decided to just go for the jugular.  Also because the jugular/capital was near my new border city of mecca. I realized, happily but sloppily playing along, that I had sent too many forces up north to arabian capital. No worry, bought a few units with faith and some gold, and back in business.

He had (of course) denounced me, which gave me a casus belli to attack. But I also had a holy war casus, and the colonialism one (opponent 2 tech levels behind. I chose one of the latter 2.



This bombard was in position to hit capital before I declared war. Japan spotted me walking my units near his border, I said I was passing thorugh, later I got message that my promise had failed....then nothing? I was able to sneak forces all around here. 1 turn of bombing, then this shot killed the will to resist on war-turn 2. Then I sent in the cavalry. Or knights, never got cavalry.

Game over, man. Game over.


Hey this is good too. Clear victory on prince, super dominant...and only 534 score. Nero. Hm. I like that there are more goals to reach, obviously prince is way too easy for a RB-er...but what will the 'casual' crowd think of this? "After 3 games on settler/warlord I tried a prince game, and *I rocked* and *I fought battles soo good and took over the world* and *OMFGUS I only get NERO!?!?! FIRAXIS BROKEN FIX PLZ*"

Some quick thoughts:
Barbs really are a nuicance throughout the ages. They one enter with swordmen and stuff, and I did not build out my lands last 50 turns when I was conquesting, but it is annoying when they pop up in backlines all the time.

Faith unit purchases is strong.

Some city states have a really 'meh' suzerain bonus. Some are broken. "Treat all water as river". Any coastal city suddenly gets the crazy housing bonus from rivers? That one single-handedly turns all those slow-growing coastal cities into fertile, thriving colonies of growth.

District price scaling....well I agree that if they were too cheap, people would get cheap industrial everywhere...but why should a river/water-less city founded late spend 60 turns building an aqueduct district?

City spam is very much in. Moar is betterer.

Early war does not cripple your tech rate and lead to a long catch-up to get your new, distant city's maintenance under control - it does the opposite, give you a significant tech and culture boost.

DOMINATION VICTORY needs to come back in. The one I won just now I rename "Conquest victory" or "Kill 'em all victory" - but the game needs to realize that the player has become the dominant power (land/pop/tech lead...some kind of formula) and that the game is a slog from there on. "Take all capitals" means that AIs will never win if you just keep your capital safe and snug. Also, it can really be abused with magical sea transport always available you should be able to snipe capitals quickly enough. In fact, I want to try such a game...commando strike forces hitting capitals around the world. Need to find out if I need to hold them, or just take them once.

Okay, this game is fun and holds promise. Not promise in the sense that Firaxis will fix 1upt, because they wont. No, we will discuss and argue and then create a mod that will have the best from civ4 and this game. We will have stacks with some limitations and it will be really great. And the AI will suddenly work again because no more traffic jams.

[BRickAstley]

Okay, this game is fun and holds promise. Not promise in the sense that Firaxis will fix 1upt, because they wont. No, we will discuss and argue and then create a mod that will have the best from civ4 and this game. We will have stacks with some limitations and it will be really great. And the AI will suddenly work again because no more traffic jams.

Stop reading my mind.

Fun report, thanks for it!

[Ruined Everything]

Report was an educational read - thanks!

Two questions:
Did you notice any hit to your economy when you took a city? I suspect part of what makes conquest a strong option is that capturing mature cities (even early on) is a pure economic boost (no distance penalty, no increased city expenses for other cities, no resistance, and amenities are easy to manage.)

How were you generating production? Just i-zones + apprentice/industrial mines + trade routes? Anything special?

[Molach]

I noticed only good things when I took more cities. More everything. In the end-game, more visibiity to stop barb camps.

I built some ind. districts here and there, but really didn't need to- enough prod from mines and tiles to build archer/crossbows, swordmen, knights and catapults for conquest. For cities outside my core, any district was a 40 turn build so beyond the event horizon of the game.
Some new cities built a defending swordman though.