(August 28th, 2015, 09:45)T-hawk Wrote: It's more that internal routes work too well, and overshadow the interesting complexity of the foreign route system. 8 free food for a newly founded city is just too much. And I'm finding that you don't switch them to external routes later. Food or production always does more at least as long as you're researching fast enough to have things to build. If you want gold, don't do it by trade routes, do it by food to work trading posts or merchants, or production to build banks. I think the game should have cut the internal route part entirely - we've already got city connections for that.
I think it depends on when you stop expanding. +8 food/city (or more typically +4) is a lot for a brand new city, not so much for a mature one. More precisely, much of Civ5 is balanced (as you've noted before) on whether returns materialize before the expected victory date. A gold route NOW that allows for the immediate purchase of an additional Public School when that tech is researched is better than a food route that will eventually produce a citizen to work a trading post or become a merchant. And I'm not sure how efficient the hammer-to-gold ratio is for Banks. I usually only maintain food routes to a Tradition capital. Production trade routes are great, but I usually dive deep into the top half of the tech tree, and arrive late to Workshops. Maybe that's a mistake. If anything, though, they should scrap city connection bonuses AND road maintenance, and leave the trade routes alone.
(August 28th, 2015, 09:45)T-hawk Wrote: Like everything glued on to Civ 5, the trade routes are a look-at-me mechanic overly generous to get your attention while subsuming the terrain yields that are supposed to be the core lifeblood of Civilization. It's a serious strategic loss that ocean tiles got eviscerated into uselessness.
Well, yes, Civ5 goes to great lengths to reduce the importance of terrain yields in favor of everything else: buildings, wonders, city-states, social policies, trade routes, religion, ideologies. I'd call it more of a deliberate design choice than a strategic loss. It means that almost any start is competitive. It also means that early game micro is not nearly as important as it is in Civ4. You might run into a Religious city-state in the fog, throwing off all of your plans - only for it to ask you for a Great Admiral as its first quest.
Whimsical? Or frustrating? Depends on the player.As far as ocean goes, though.... It's almost always a mistake to (grow to) work bare ocean tiles (2 food, 1 gold) in Civ4 AND Civ5. Removing the gold just makes it that much more obvious.
(August 28th, 2015, 09:45)T-hawk Wrote: I saw that too, browsing through the forum. It's more of a gimmick than a real strategy, and the author kind of admits it. The entire space section is theory and he says so. There's no real reason to go Piety over Tradition/Liberty, it's just a guide for doing it for kicks. There is a real thing about keeping your own cities small so that they convert from pressure, but that's hardly an entire game plan, just one small point.
that guide Wrote:Total # of bribes to AI for DoW: Zulu 4 (to occupy his army)
Found the mechanic he's really abusing there.
Eh, you start next to a Deity Zulu AI in any iteration of Civ, you'll have to resort to something similar to survive. The more interesting metrics, in my view, are:
that guide Wrote:275 turns to win, China was the only civ who finished Apollo (with two boosters) at this point.
0 total world wonders built.
On turn 160, I finished the NC.
On turn 220, I had not yet opened Rationalism.
Total units built/bought: 1 scout, 3 triremes, 1 worker (1 stolen from CS)
Total great scientists used: 1 generated, 1 gifted by CS, 1 faith-bought.
Religion used: Taoism. Goddess of Festivals, Papal Primacy, Monasteries, Choral Music, Religious Unity, Evangelism
A very respectable end date, comparable with your games (not that you were racing for fastest victory, either). No Wonders, no power options for religion, few Great Scientists.
The point is it pays to be humble in this game, not to pink-dot every AI into a corner, and bluff your way with meaningless diplo modifiers and cardboard cutouts. You miss a wonder or a city site? It's not the end of the world, you can totally mount a comeback. Whenever you play against an AI with starting bonuses, it's simply a matter of which mechanics you want to abuse.