(October 25th, 2015, 15:37)Hail Wrote: neither. the devs do not play their own game.
I'm starting to perceive this is actually pretty common in the industry. The people making games are the people who want to make games. It's a different skill set and interest area from playing games. Sirian has commented on this around here, that he hasn't really played the games he's worked on much after release.
It took me five years to find it (and I have a great eye for exploits), no real surprise if the devs never did. They would've been playing their own game the way you're supposed to and we always do too, with granaries and farms in the capital so you never end up with a food shortage. It's not like the game tells you it's happening. You only notice if you actually run a shortage on a settler (why would you?) and carefully check the food storage box (who does that?) If you're building a settler, you're probably at size 5+ with the food box size at 40+, and you're not planning to grow anytime soon, so why would you look.
Anyway, I started a game last night that pushed that exploit pretty heavily. It'll be a while before I finish it to report (it's going to a science win, not Sacred Sites.) But for amusement, we could guess what civilization it might be. I didn't have the exploit in mind when starting the game, but quickly realized that the civ choice lent itself perfectly to doing that, perhaps the most suitable civ of all.