Cradle Middle Game Thoughts

[Hermann the Lombard]

Most of the limited strat discussion here has been of the early game; I'd like to discuss the middle game.

I suppose I should be playing the tournament (now that the deadline has been extended a month), but so far I haven't. I've got the two Succession Games going, and a "relay" game with one friend (singing: "SG, for two, and I, for you...") and a 1.32 Global Empire game. In the latter I am (and in both SGs we are) breaking out on top of the Power Graph. I know how to get to this point, but I'm not sure where to go from here, and experimentation gets very slow with so many cities and units to control.

Status: a core group of cities built with our own resources, a larger number of cities taken from our neighbors (er, "our enemies," that's right). On a tech path Republic->Tribunal Empire->Caliphate, thus emphasizing tech (and now in rough parity with the leading AIs). City sizes ranging from 8 or 10 (for the original cities) up to 16 (captured plus slaves).

My inclination is to bulk up the cities (emphasizing growth), then bulk up the PW (emphasizing infrastructure) before embarking on the next round of conquest. I'm concerned about "losing momentum" but I suspect that once on top of the power graph I can stay there.

The next growth phase would emphasize granaries/aqueducts/apothecaries (the latter two from Wonders, hopefully) while temporarily reducing tech speed. Then I can fill the second ring with tile improvements, once I can use those efficiently. Further city specialization would occur at this point. Exploit new trade goods to have cash for the unit upgrades and selective rushbuying.

With the economic engine cranked up, go for a slight tech lead and exploit that edge for the next round of conquest (and to stave off AI rounds of conquest).

Does this sound like a reasonable plan, or am I losing my way in the middle game?

[Velociryx]

That sounds quite reasonable, and in fact, I just posted another essay in the strat section that pretty well mirrors this line of thinking.

It's gonna be your economy that keeps you at the top of the tech and overall power charts, and if you have a window of opportunity to expand the economy, then absolutely! I'd gladly sacrifice militaristic momentum for economic momentum, which is exactly what you'll get if you spend some *serious* time building that economy up! Once it's humming in high gear, it'll be VERY easy to switch back to a more militant stance, fully modernize the armies, and go hunting....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

I just GOT to the middle game in my latest exploration of Cradle, and I must say that up until the moment I got tanks, it was tooth and nail, but the AI just simply cannot handle modern warfare! (note that this is not a critism of the Cradle mod itself....I've NEVER seen a computer game, excepting for People's General, which is *entirely* modern war, where the AI could handle it.

The moment I got tanks and kept a force in the field, that's the last time the AI has won a significant battle against me. Initially, with three bigger empires pressing hard into my territory, I was losing core cities, and so, my first several (15-20) tanks were hastily put to field and literally HURLED at the enemy to stall the attack. After that, about a dozen turns of building up saw me with two tank forces of 12 units each, and the AI simply disintegrated.

Took about 25 turns to recapture all the lost cities (there were some half a dozen of these, in scattered parts of the realm, and then, my tank crews successfully fought a two front war, utterly destroying the Japanese, reducing the Harrappans to one miserable arctic island, and now, the full weight of my military might (some 70 tanks at last count) is aimed squarely at the former big dog of the planet, the Babylonians. They just simply can't hang in a tank fight, and I'm not sure if it's that they keep too many outdated troops around from previous ages, or that they're not building as many as they could be, but whichever is the case, the AI folds when you hit them with tanks (this, with my enemies having a 16-33 tech lead over me!)

Some interesting things I've noted about the middle game....that is the time for forging a new world order, with you at its head. There were NUMEROUS small, one and two-city civs that had sprung up, and I used my position of rapidly growing power (partly due to my sudden explosion on the military ranking chart, thanks to a massive tank buildup, and partly due to the rapid acquisition of a number of cities that I really didn't want for various reasons), I was able to secure peace treaties and trade agreements with six of the eight surviving civs, and further, I cemented alliances with a selected pair of them, tech shared and started giving them my "spare" conquered cities.

At this point, we regularly exchange technology, and they have been most helpful in battle, running interferance and generally chasing down rogue units of baddies while I go after the objectives with teeth. I've got one ally built up to 28 cities (this from the three he began with when he signed on with me), and have my other junior partner cranked up to 12 cities (this from his former 1). So....they're totally enraptured with the Celtic empire, and everybody's swimming in money thanks to the trade deals. The only empire that's fighting me still are the Babs, and I could force a peace with them any time I wanted to, since I've already broken their backs, militarily, but no....I think I'll just keep right on trucking....capture all of their cities, keep the ones I want, and dole the rest out to my most trusted lieutenants.....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Random side notes:

Personal bests so far:

14,000+ PW points generated by my empire in a single turn

Six (6) enemy cities captured or burned in a single turn.....next game, I'll try to top both!

-=Vel=-

[Immortal Wombat]

We need an anti-tank unit. Are SAM missile batteries high in the AI priorities? 'cos they really should be by the time the human gets tanks.

[Velociryx]

Yeah...that's true. The classic rock-paper-scissors of combat breaks (and breaks notably) at tanks, cos nothing but another tank can reliably BEAT another tank (well, the AI had a fistful of these MEAN fighter jets that tore me up on occassion, but there were never enough of them, and I'd be willing to bet money that they're lots more expensive than tanks).

Still, it's been great fun re-designing the world, I must say....

-=Vel=-

[hexagonian]

Vel,

Take a look at the unit pdf chart in the readme file and see what you think Tanks should be (as well as all the other modern and future units). I did not concentrate so much on Modern+ units when setting up Cradle, but this is something that can be easily fixed/adjusted.

I was thinking of making Tanks
Attack - 60
Range - 50
Defense - 45
Movement - 5
Cost - 3,300

I think I can also make the AI build more of them too.

BTW, what turn are you on???

[Velociryx]

Just saw this note, and so I have not had a chance to look over the actual data files to see what those numbers compare to, but the essence of the trouble is this:

Up until tanks arrive, the progression of armed forces is very gradual....one might even say a tad *too* gradual, in that historically, one could not expect to last long fighting machine gunners and artillery with infantry and cannon, but then, this is one of the tradeoffs that MUST be made in-game. Absolute historic accuracy must always take a backseat to overall balance and in-game fun, and were we to go purely "by-the-book" then the game would be a flat out race to a couple of key technologies, and that would be it. Completely linear. So....I like the gradual progression, but as I say, that breaks down at tanks, for two reasons.

Up until tanks, you have a need for three kinds of units. Machine Gunners as grunts to take the brunt of your casualties, Artillery for bombard-softening and providing power to your attacks, and cavalry for their speedy movement along your recently built rail system. This provides you a good mix of capabilities, and forces you to balance between these three radically different kinds of troops. It also accurately portrays Artillery as the "King of the Battlefield" which is dead-on. Historically, artillery fire has killed more troops than pretty much everything else combined.

With the advent of the tank you get, all rolled into a single unit:
1) The fastest moving unit on the map (a problem made more obvious by your rail system and offensive use of PW to extend that right up to enemy territory as quickly as possible.

2) A flanking unit, such that all you NEED are tanks

3) A quantum LEAP in power (IIRC, Artillery has a power of 30, while tanks are at 50).

Too many good abilities all rolled into a single unit.

To fix it, I would create a new unit (mechanized infantry or somesuch) with lesser attack but flanking ability, and remove flanking as an ability from tanks, while possibly cutting down on its movement and defense (leaving firepower alone).

Hand-in-hand with this, would be to introduce a new artillery unit right around the tank era....preferably one that's relatvely fast-moving and can keep pace with MI's and Tanks so they can stack together. This restores the balance. You MUST use combined arms once again, in order to excel (and the new arty unit should have a higher attack than a tank, such that pure tank armies would be cut to pieces by a more balanced force consisting of flankers, hard-hitting tanks, and punishing artillery).

I've not played past the era of tanks yet, so I do not know what's in store for me (tho some of my new trading partners are building GROOVY looking mag-levs, making me green with envy!

All this in the 1850's, btw....good game....MUCH fun!

-=Vel=-

[mapfi]

If you could make units that have a combat bonus against tanks, that'd be great - but since I don't see another way than using the IsMountedFlag which would result in giving pikeman also a bonus against tanks...
New units like an infantry unit with guided anti-tank-missiles (mechanized infantry sounds good) would be great, maybe even two of those - a ranged one and a flanking one. If the first thing could be made to work maybe even a better artillery (howitzers) and a ranged tank fighter.
To take away the ranged ability of tanks wouldn't be realistic but there might be no other way...

[Immortal Wombat]

Somebody might want to check if the BonusAgainstWoodenBoats (? - I'll check the name of this...) and IsWoodenBoat flags work. They aren't used, but if they work, then the name is arbitrary, they can be Tanks and anti-tank guns.

[Turambar]

What about getting the AI to use bombers more to bomb tanks? Or adding / improving air units for this?

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Velociryx

3) A quantum LEAP in power (IIRC, Artillery has a power of 30, while tanks are at 50).

-=Vel=-

Speaking from a purely scientific perspective, quantum leaps are really quite tiny. Sheesh ...ignorant Yank

[hexagonian]

Well, here are the stats from Cradle regarding Modern/Future land units. I'd rather not add new units, but alter the existing ones.

Machine Gunner
Cost - 1,400
Attack 60/Range 45/Defense 50/HP 20/FP 3/AR 1/Movement 2/Vision 2

Fascist (G)
Cost - 1,200
Attack 65/Range 45/Defense 45/HP 23/FP 3/AR 1/Movement 2/Vision 2

Marine (E)
Cost - 1,750
Attack 70/Range 40/Defense 55/HP 23/FP 3/AR 1/Movement 3/Vision 2

Paratrooper
Cost - 2,000
Attack 60/Range 30/Defense 45/HP 20/FP 3/AR 1/Movement 3/Vision 2

Tank
Cost - 2,500
Attack 60/Range 60/Defense 45/HP 20/FP 3/AR 2/Movement 7/Vision 3

Artillery
Cost - 1,750
Attack 15/Range 70/Defense 25/HP 15/FP 3/AR 2/Movement 2/Vision 2

Mobile SAM
Cost - 2,300
Attack 10/Range 80/Defense 20/HP 15/FP 3/AR 1/Movement 4/Vision 3

Hover Infantry
Cost - 2,800
Attack 85/Range 40/Defense 70/HP 25/FP 4/AR 1/Movement 5/Vision 4

Fusion Tank
Cost - 6,000
Attack 70/Range 70/Defense 65/HP 25/FP 4/AR 3/Movement 8/Vision 3

War Walker
Cost - 4,000
Attack 55/Range 95/Defense 60/HP 25/FP 4/AR 3/Movement 5/Vision 4

Leviathan
Cost - 9,100
Attack 90/Range 90/Defense 100/HP 30/FP 5/AR 4/Movement 3/Vision 3

Discuss...

BTW Vel,
I have you AAR map almost done for your next game. If we all can finetune the Modern game, I can get this posted

[J Bytheway]

What kind of defense is supplied by city improvements by this stage in the game?

[Velociryx]

Hmmm.....some juicy things coming ahead for me then, looking at the units ahead....VERY cool!

Offhand, I'd say if we knocked 1-2 movement points off of the ol' tank, and moved his flanking ability from tank to Machine Gunner, that looks like it'd do the trick. One other potential thing to do would be to make the "close" attack of Mobile SAM's a smidgeon higher (at least on par with Artillery...possibly a bit higher than that even).

If testing still reveals an imbalance, then another potential tweak would be to reduce the defensive value of the tank. Given its historic use, I think that'd be a fair tradeoff to restore balance there.

And GREAT news re: the map and AAR! I'm learning the ropes with this run through, but I think that by the time I'm ready to start on the next one, I'll have a pretty good handle on things! Impossible level?

-=Vel=-

[hexagonian]

How about this then...

++++++++++++++++++
Tank
Attack 55 (from 60)
Range 45 (from 60)
HP 18 (from 20)
Movement 5 (from 7)

This will be in line with what I did with earlier flankers - slightly weaker attack/more movement than front-line units. I would like to keep Tanks as flankers. You will not be able to focus your entire military on them, but you will need to augment them with your groundpounders.


++++++++++++++++++
Mobile SAM
Attack 20 (from 15)
Defense 30 (from 20)

This will boost them up comparably to Artillery. They still will have greater range, and better movement than artillery.


++++++++++++++++++
Hover Infantry
Movement 4 (from 5)


++++++++++++++++++
Fusion Tank
Range 55 (from 70)
HP 23 (from 25)
Armor 2 (from 3)
Movement 6 (from 8)

Same philosophy as with reg. tanks. Emphasis on flanking ability, but Hover Infantry should chew them up straight on.


++++++++++++++++++
War Walker
Defense 40 (from 60)
Armor 2 (from 3)

This is your future Artillery unit, so it should be weaker on the front lines but a killer from range. It will be a step up from SAMs too.


++++++++++++++++++
Leviathan
Cost - 7,000 (from 9,100)
Attack 60 (from 90)
Range 60 (from 90)
HP 25 (from 30)
Armor 3 (from 4)
Movement 1 (from 3)

A great late game defensive unit.

[Peter Triggs]

I've been playing with the Mobile Sam and trying to make it a counter to the Tank. From the Great Library:

The ultimate unit in the ranged line is the MLMS, or Multiple Launch Missile System. Not only can the missiles of this most modern of artillery weapons wreak incomparable destruction on land and sea units, but it is also, since the MLMS Installation provides Active Defense against any enemy aircraft within its range, one of the most potent anti-aircraft weapons in the history of modern warfare.

Any similarities to a like-named unit in a forthcoming RTS game are completely co-incidental.

We still need a proper Mechanized Infantry unit to sit defensively in the front line and absorb the tank's attacks while this ranged unit fires back from the rear.

[Dale]

How about Panzerkruppe, or Half-track?

[Velociryx]

Yes! I believe that will do the trick!

The main thing was with rails, that seven point movement was just TOO extreme. I was getting my tanks from my core cities, all the way around the planet via rail line and into battle in two turns (on a gigantic map....on a standard sized world, I'm quite sure I could mass build them and attack with them the moment they rolled off the assembly line).

So, curtailing their movement rate and taking the scythe to their attack factor accomplishes the goal....outstanding!

As to my latest game....played to 1928 last night, and one of my Lieutenants got a bit big for his britches. Just before I got Technocracy, the buffoon attacked me, captured a city, and promptly begged for peace. I got Technocracy, switched govs, ignored the attack, and the following turn, he did it again.

Was researching Chaos Theory (anxious to see what Hover Infantry look like!), so I made peace again and positioned my aging tank force within striking distance of a couple of his cities. He seems to be behaving, but that's still not gonna stop me from extracting a measure of revenge.

:: calculating::

Let's see....he took two of my cities, so an appropriate response would be:

a) recapture those two cities
b) burn down two of HIS cities
c) capture four of his cities and keep them (war reparations).

yeah, that oughta put things back to plumb!

New personal best: 32,700 PW points in a single turn (new round of terraforming, Megamines went in everywhere I had older mines or rough terrain/desert....WOW!)

-=Vel=-

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Since your now advancing into beyond the middle phase of the game. Let me add my two cents for pre-rennaisance era findings. Since this is but my first cradle game y'all are gonna have much more experience than inthese matters. (Y'all - howza 'bout that I'm already onmy way to becoming a southern boy)

I found myself rapidly becoming outpaced in terms of technology averaging about 8-14 techs behind tech leaders presumably because I went to war early and afterthat followed the sound advice of building t-forming infrastructure (namely food and mines) as opposed to facility infrastructure.

I continued prosecuting my war even after city limits were exceeded and proceeded to enslave. In doing so, I found from the notes here I could direct the slaves to specific cities with large garrisons. I ended up with cities with 30+ population points most of which were slaves. After taking enough bases forcing a peace, forcing a pact, and then extorting technologies upon threat of destroying cities I was able to achieve relative tech parity.

Now comes the dubious part. By emptying the 30+ population selected bases and allowing them to revolt and then simply retaking them the next turn all slaves became citizens and then the vast majority of the citizens were set to scientists for massive tech. Each city was contributing something onthe order of 1500 science points each.

Wow!!! All of a sudden from 8-12 techs behind I'm now tech leader and momentum building as I start cranking now on facility infrastructure all within the course of 20 ish turns.

One oddity I see is that the pop points don't require apothacaries etc., moreover the pop points don't jive with population listed (for example pop listed is say 120570 yet Number of workers/specialists is 38 which would correspond to 380000+). If I intend to grow this city organically I have to allow the population number to grow organically to catch up to the workers.

From this, I think it similar to SMAC in that specialists become huge. Matter of fact I'm now thinking the two most important resources of the game become Food, and Production and allow trade for money and specialsits for science. Yet I have not enough expereince with the game to say if this is correct.

Thoughts?

[hexagonian]

I do not know if there is a possible way to close that slave revolt loophole, because the game is structured to convert all of the revolting slaves into citizens. (After all, a successful slave revolt should mean that the slaves become free.) This would probably go down as an exploit. (unfortunately the only way to bypass this is to choose not to do it in a game situation)

As for the Apothecaries, you do not need them for slaves - You are able to grow the city beyond the cap but only with slaves until you do build an Apothercary. Slaves go to the closest cities with garrisons and are not governed by the city size caps.

In those situations, the growth bar should be showing 'starving' even though in actuality, your city is not starving...

Does your city have slaves? This may be the discrepency in your population numbers. Slaves will be counted as workers, but they cannot be used as specialists (as you already noted)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

At the point where I enslaved the pop was maxed before Apoc's at 12 (no Apocs were built). After enslavement of other Civs it jumped to upper thirties of which all but the orignal 12 were slaves. Allowing to revolt and then retake had pop of 38 all citizens and no apocs/physicians/bath house facilities. (nothing but outhouses LOL)

This is consistant with capture though of any city. Often you'll have taken the city and in the process destroyed those population enhancer facilties. You still have the pop points but aren't allowed any further growth until they are built. In this case however the pop points and the raw population tally didn't agree and after I built the requisite facilities to allow growth the population didn't grow until I actually had the raw population tally exceed via organic growth the pop point number (confused yet? LOL )


PS growth indicator indicates starving as you indicate but no pop loss occurrs also as you indicate.

Og

[Velociryx]

Dang....been trying to reply to this for most of the day, but the firewall at work was misbehaving!

Og, I agree with you. I think specialists have the potential to unbalance the game. VERRRRY potent! Is there perhaps a way to tone down how much Oomph a specialist in any given category will give?

Also, was looking over my own map, specifically at the terraforming I have done thus far.

It consists of two things: Mines and commerce enhancers.

This is because the Latifundia (and all the econo-boosters that follow it) in Cradle is SO good, that I've never seen a need for a regular farm. I think it's really cool that we get more terraforming options in Cradle, and they're very well thought out, but two games straight now, I've found myself gravitating to the same two things every time. I never build farms.

In fact, I plow the farms I DO get by proxy under to make room for more shopping malls!

If a coastal town needs food, I get it from the sea (which is a natural, since the only commerce booster you can build in the sea is coastal, leaving wide swaths of sea tiles wide open for food production to support those aforementioned specialists).

My interior cities are almost universally my production powerhouses, and my coastal cities are my specialist havens.

-=Vel=-

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

*** Nodding ***

With the power of specialists all I'm looking for at this point is maximum food to power maximum growth quickly. So on grassland I'm going with that which gives me most food output (at present advanced farms IIRC). Lati's are going on forest and plains, mines(advanced is all I've gotten so far) on hills, mountains etc. but if it's green its getting the farm at this point. As for the sea I was going with ports for awhile but now its all about strictly food production. I still use a smattering of commerce building t-forming options but normally only when food output is equivalent or close to my other options as is the case with Lati's on a number of different terrain types.

I take care of my money issues by building caravans and trade routes and work on trying to maximize my science output via the specialists which I believe are getting their contribution multiplied by facilities such as academies, uni's etc.

In any event it was quite plesent to have such a dramatic mid game swing although truth be told most of the swing came from me strong arming the other civ into yielding his techs or paying the consequences.

Og

PS By the by, 'poly was getting hammered for quite a bit today. I was getting a number of errors loading pages and responses so it may not be your firewall as much as it was the traffic.

PPS I also found my game coming together similarly. Original core cities normally become the production havens whilst outer most cities become the specialist ones (normally because as I absorb slaves from other civs I have a base or two as a jumping off point and garrisoned with a size 12 army this then logically becomes the base getting all the enslaved pop points from victim civ).

[hexagonian]

RE: Specialists

Of course this can be adjusted...Here are the specialist settings. BTW, how many entertainers are you needing to use to maintain happiness in those 30+ pop cities?

POP_ENTERTAINER
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_RELIGION
Happiness 2

POP_FARMER
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_AGRICULTURE
Food 30

POP_LABORER
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_ARCHITECTURE
Production 30

POP_MERCHANT
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_BUREAUCRACY
Commerce 20

POP_SCIENTIST
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_PHILOSOPHY
Science 30

Suggestions?????

RE: Tile Improvements
Players have three areas to improve regarding Tile Improvements (Food/Commerce/Production)

This has been trickier to strike a balance, because the AI places an inordinate priority on building food enhancers - often neglecting commerce/production improvements. (This also seems to be hardcoded.) The Latifundia was created to have the added food benefit, so at least the AI would build them. The problem, as Vel noted, was that they become almost too attractive in comparison to the normal food enhancers like Farms/Advanced Farms.

The decision on what to build has to be made on Plains/Grasslands because Farms cannot be built on Forest tiles. Here's the comparison...

Farm/Pasture
BonusFood 5/10, based on terrain

Trading Posts
BonusFood 5
BonusGold 5

Latifundia
BonusFood 10 (Forest 5)
BonusGold 5 (Forest 10)

Advanced Farms
BonusFood 20 (This was 15/Plains, 20/Grassland in 1.32)

Outlet Mall
BonusFood 10/20, based on terrain
BonusGold 10/20, based on terrain

I generally build Pastures/Farms until I get Latifundias and then exclusively build Latifundias, though you are probably beelining to the tech that enables Latifundias more than I am.

Now there are several ways to go about this
1. Push Latifundias until later in the game. As it stands now, they are too close on the heels of Trading Posts - in fact, in looking at the tech tree, players can bypass Trading Posts altogether. This will also mean that players will have to build more of the earlier improvements. It does not bother me that players have to replace old improvements - in fact you should be doing that anyhow.
2. Add a production benefit to Advanced Farms so a player will have to choose an emphasis on production or commerce.

Suggestions???

Vel, you map is done - I'd like to get everything tweaked (units, what is being discussed here, plus anything else that can be adjusted) before sending it to you though.

[Velociryx]

SWEET news, Hex!

It's a pity that we can't do something in SLIC that'd make the bonuses for the terraforming improvements be player-or-AI specific (ie - make it such that a farm produced by and controlled by the AI grants a hefty production and commerce bonus, but if that farm falls into human player hands, it behaves as a "normal" farm.) <---that'd solve the AI's hardcoded tendency to build farms and still leave lots of juicy choices for the human.

Still, I like adding a smallish production bonus to farms....that'd take it to the next level, I think, and bring back in some element of choice (and in those cases, I'd prolly be doing just what Og's doing now....farming all the green).

As to the specialists: anytime you have that sorta concept in the game, there will be people (Og, me, others) who will run it to an extreme and do what they can to break it. The Engineer in SMAC is a perfect example of this.

One of two possible fixes:

a) either make it so that output from specialists doesn't get run through the city's science, production, or gold enhancers (not sure if this is even possible)

or

b) consider halving the outputs of specialists. That way, you've got to make a tough choice. Yes, you can skew your cities into science, or gold, or production specialization, but there's very definately a tradeoff to be had. Even at an output of 15 science per specialist, I can almost guarantee you that by the time you run that through all of Cradle's science enhancers, my scientist will be cranking out more than I could by working the land. At 30 it's no contest.

Production specialists: I doubt they'll get used much, if at all ('cept on occasion by the AI) if you add the production bonus to farms. As it stands now, even with a minimized workday, about half of my 54 cities are rampant polluters (1250+ production), so if you're gonna make one specialist higher, the production would be the obvious choice (tho this would make it really easy to catch up in the early game with the AI) (militarily). :: shiver:: on second thought, don't increase laborer...that's just too tempting NOT to exploit....

-=Vel=-
PS: Played to 1956 last night....Hover infantry out and running around. Techs coming in in 2-3, and now only 1 tech behind the leaders....I'm building nature preserves everywhere I don't have mega mines, and have YET to do the first bit of sea forming (tho I inherited a goodish amount).

I've come up with a new term for those lingering little squigglies that sometimes remain when you capture an enemy territory....estates!

(sometimes, some smallish borders remain even after capture....I've been referring to those as "estates" belonging to the other side....territory that we let them keep ahold of for one reason or another....makes a good story device)
-V.

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Velociryx
(sometimes, some smallish borders remain even after capture....I've been referring to those as "estates" belonging to the other side....territory that we let them keep ahold of for one reason or another....makes a good story device)
-V.

Reservations?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Velociryx
SWEET news, Hex!

Still, I like adding a smallish production bonus to farms....that'd take it to the next level, I think, and bring back in some element of choice (and in those cases, I'd prolly be doing just what Og's doing now....farming all the green).

As to the specialists: anytime you have that sorta concept in the game, there will be people (Og, me, others) who will run it to an extreme and do what they can to break it. The Engineer in SMAC is a perfect example of this.

LOL. I prefer to think of it as experimenting with the boundaries of the game. Actually it wasn't that novel of an approach for me as I simply applied my learning of the power of specialists that I developed via SMAC and used it on this game.

Finally, I guess I gotta learn to shut my mouth. 'cause if I keep telling you guys ways that I used to beat the game, you'll end up taking them all away from and then I'll have to learn to play the game for real. LOL

Again the math is kinna simpel here to develop what is or is not a good use of specialists.

If each scientist is yielding 30 points. You'ld need to have a worker that can likewise pull in at least 30 points of commerce to stay even. (For purposes of science output, higher as the as a portion is lost as crime and a portion is lost in allocation to gold, both dependent on goverment choice.)

Of course running specialists means you give up the advantages of production and food.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I've come up with a new term for those lingering little squigglies that sometimes remain when you capture an enemy territory....estates!

(sometimes, some smallish borders remain even after capture....I've been referring to those as "estates" belonging to the other side....territory that we let them keep ahold of for one reason or another....makes a good story device)
-V.

I guess the AI put at that place a fort and then maybe put another improvement on it and so it keep the tiny territory.

-Martin

[Velociryx]

Yeah....that's a better term for what we do....'speriment with the boundaries of a game....I like it!

One caveat tho, re: specialists:

Research is derived from your total commerce such that (I think):

Total Commerce Collected - Loss via Crime = Net Commerce

Net Commerce * Science Rate = Science Collected

Net Commerce * (1-Science Rate) = Income

So your worker generating 30 commerce wouldn't generate you 30 science till you were running a Technocracy with 100% science and no crime. In the early game, with a cap of 50-60% science, that's when you really see the huge difference that specialists can make. One point of pop, by himself, can generate the same science that it'd take 4+ workers in the field to do.

-=Vel=-