Re: Tech Tree Ends Too Soon

On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 04:52:51PM +0200 I heard the voice of
Horn G?bor, and lo! it spake thus:
> Hi!
> 
> Is it with default ruleset? It's hard for me to imagine that game, it
> might be a very huge map, or special rules, or players really close in
> skill. Most multiplayer games i saw got decided usually at
> steam/electricity, and it's not rare already at magnetism (especially
> duels). In the 200+ games i playted/watched i think i saw 1 when the 2
> remained players did nuclear war. 

I play very unusual games    8-}

A typical game is something like 2 players + 2 AI's, on a 200x100 world.
And we (the players; haven't managed to make the AI listen ;) agree to
not fight each other until at least <some time, often 500AD or so>.  And
it's not uncommon that I'm done the tech tree before then; nothing like
having nukes before the fall of the Roman empire!  It's pretty common for
me to have well over 100, often over 150, cities, sized between 7 and 25,
depending on food supplies.  So, for all those arguing about a few big
cities vs. a lot of small cities, my answer is "A lot of big cities".

We do this because, well, darnit, it's just no FUN to me to be fighting
with frigates and horsemen.  The wars generally involve fleets with a
hundred battleships, 40 or 50 carriers full of cruise missiles and
stealth bombers, land invasions of 150 armors, 50 mech infs, 100 or so
howitzers...  Rarely nukes, except in isolated instances, because the
damage to the environment is so wicked.

One of my goals is to not just win, but to win with an empire that's
actually sustainable.  If I'm fighting to keep cities up to size 5
against starvation and being laid out too close together, and getting
global warming every other turn, that's not "sustainable".  With good
transportation around my empire, plenty of workers around keeping
pollution down, terrain all transformed just to my liking, etc, then it's
sustainable.


It's unconventional, to be sure.  And it's not really a strategy that
works too great against good players who don't accept the "wait 'till N"
doctrine, since my military is practically nonexistent for much of the
game.  I usually sprint to the end of the tech tree, get my cities built
up to massive proportions, and only THEN go into production mode and
start cranking out units.  But by that time, I've got lots of cities that
can crank out a battleships every 2-3 turns; occasionally, I've had
cities with over 160 production, so they crank one out EVERY turn, and
always end up with more backlogged production.  That's kinda fun   :)

With a steady hand and a little luck, it's a hell of a lot of fun.  And
damn, but that CMA is a godsend; managing that many cities manually will
give you gray hair in no time flat.



-- 
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  [email protected]
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/

"The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
      haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"