Aries
18 Aug 06, 11:02
I don't think I am much of a "scientific" player, but then neither are my local buddies I play against.
I hear guys claim to play the hardest setting and beat the game and get bored of it. and to be truthful, sometimes I think it would be nicer if they stuck to saying it drags on the ground :)
Anyway. I have been noticing a variety of dynamics in the game, and I am wondering, what others experience of the game.
For me, the earliest thing in the game is establish a religion. You need a religion to keep your people happy, as unhappy people don't produce once a city has any real size. And small cities rarely produce any real commerce or production.
I generally like Ghandi, not very warlike, no military perks. But I keep telling my friends, I'll be building "ordinary" swordsmen long before you even have the chance to build anything better than well trained warriors.
I usually go and get Budhism first thing. It leads to Priesthood, which allows the Oracle, which gives a free tech, and I always see to it it's Metalcrafting, because that means Forges, which means rapid production.
Naturally you have several techs you have to grab first.
I find Bronze Working to be critcal, and if you have a copper resource close that's definitely a home run.
If you score Iron Working soon after Metal Crafting, and have an Iron resource, you don't really "need" a military power leader, as you will be more than able to build a decent army all the same.
With the Warlord expansion, it has become apparent, that building the Great Wall is a big deal. But, if the map is small, you will soon run out of barbarian threat anyway. If you have copper and iron early on, you likely can build better military units than the barbarians too. So getting the Great Wall is only important on larger maps that can support health barbarian populations.
I usually go with either Raging Barbarians, or agressive AI though, and if you are using Raging Barbarians, yep, you WANT that Great Wall :)
The next stage of the game for me though, doesn't come till much later. I call it the cultural shoving match stage. This is where your cultural boundaries and beginning to shove back and forth with your neighbours. I have found, that the game's AI players, will routinely build massive sums of units, the moment they become the player with the smallest point score.
My friends and I basically try to be the second highest point score in the game as long as is practical, just so the loser AI player goes after the front runner. Because we have noticed, that unless you are really in their face over a specific resource, the AI always attacks the guy with the highest score.
So the last critical stage, is the military build up stage, where it's time to build a dang big military for the big attack. There usually is a "big attack" sequence in time.
And we have noticed, that no matter how powerful your units, 5 vs 20 means you likely lose, or at the very least, they ransack the hell out of your surrounding improvements, and that means a long period or rebuilding (assuming you win).
I usually play on Warlord level. I find Warlord difficulty level, with one other human, 3-4 AI players set on agressive, and no tech trading provides a fun game that can be played in about 8 hours. We usually pick medium size maps, all victory types available start from ancient, and play on quick mode speed
I hear guys claim to play the hardest setting and beat the game and get bored of it. and to be truthful, sometimes I think it would be nicer if they stuck to saying it drags on the ground :)
Anyway. I have been noticing a variety of dynamics in the game, and I am wondering, what others experience of the game.
For me, the earliest thing in the game is establish a religion. You need a religion to keep your people happy, as unhappy people don't produce once a city has any real size. And small cities rarely produce any real commerce or production.
I generally like Ghandi, not very warlike, no military perks. But I keep telling my friends, I'll be building "ordinary" swordsmen long before you even have the chance to build anything better than well trained warriors.
I usually go and get Budhism first thing. It leads to Priesthood, which allows the Oracle, which gives a free tech, and I always see to it it's Metalcrafting, because that means Forges, which means rapid production.
Naturally you have several techs you have to grab first.
I find Bronze Working to be critcal, and if you have a copper resource close that's definitely a home run.
If you score Iron Working soon after Metal Crafting, and have an Iron resource, you don't really "need" a military power leader, as you will be more than able to build a decent army all the same.
With the Warlord expansion, it has become apparent, that building the Great Wall is a big deal. But, if the map is small, you will soon run out of barbarian threat anyway. If you have copper and iron early on, you likely can build better military units than the barbarians too. So getting the Great Wall is only important on larger maps that can support health barbarian populations.
I usually go with either Raging Barbarians, or agressive AI though, and if you are using Raging Barbarians, yep, you WANT that Great Wall :)
The next stage of the game for me though, doesn't come till much later. I call it the cultural shoving match stage. This is where your cultural boundaries and beginning to shove back and forth with your neighbours. I have found, that the game's AI players, will routinely build massive sums of units, the moment they become the player with the smallest point score.
My friends and I basically try to be the second highest point score in the game as long as is practical, just so the loser AI player goes after the front runner. Because we have noticed, that unless you are really in their face over a specific resource, the AI always attacks the guy with the highest score.
So the last critical stage, is the military build up stage, where it's time to build a dang big military for the big attack. There usually is a "big attack" sequence in time.
And we have noticed, that no matter how powerful your units, 5 vs 20 means you likely lose, or at the very least, they ransack the hell out of your surrounding improvements, and that means a long period or rebuilding (assuming you win).
I usually play on Warlord level. I find Warlord difficulty level, with one other human, 3-4 AI players set on agressive, and no tech trading provides a fun game that can be played in about 8 hours. We usually pick medium size maps, all victory types available start from ancient, and play on quick mode speed