(November 2nd, 2012, 20:21)Cornflakes Wrote: Question: If Nicolae had not reinforced the empty city with a WC would you have burned it or left peacefully? This is the first all-war game I've ever watched so I'm trying to understand how it compares to an AI-diplo game. If this was AI-diplo would you respond to an empty city differently than you would here?
I would have left it alive.
If I raze it, I'd expect to provoke quite a bit of irritation, which could be really bad considering I'm still running a farmer's gambit. Especially because he's Egypt: Chariots are the most useful all-around ancient unit on this map, because mobility is important, since you have opponents equally close on all sides. And, chariots can defend reasonably well against other chariots, which is pretty much enough to deter most aggression. But war chariots screw this up; you definitely need spears to defend against them. And copper is in a really annoying location on this map; there is no first-ring food by it. War chariots are at least as threatening to me as the other three opponents combined.
And, razing it only barely helps me (it's pretty fresh city) and doesn't hurt him enough to make him no longer a threat. Plus I'd probably lose the razing chariot so I'm not even convinced it's a good hammer exchange. (I need to get better than 4:1 hammer ratio to come out ahead since it's a 5-player game.)