louis94 wrote:So let me share my first impressions on the strategy:
Thank you for these, they're very useful. And thank you for the test game
Settlers costing 1 and creating cities at size 2 means that early growth is very exponential. You get 3 worked tiles by spending just one. The best early game strategy is max tax and build as many settlers as possible.
Yes; I think the effect I was after with that (civs don't meet while still unrealistically small for 1900) would be better achieved by having more starting settlers, rather than creating cities at size 2.
Early attacks are impossible due to the lack of fast units that can take cities. This renders the all-settlers strategy pretty much risk-free. The one with the best starting location wins because he can pump more settlers.
Perhaps this could be solved by having a unit, available from the start, that can ride on Landing Craft but is weaker than the later gliderborne/para units. And creating a distinction between (weak) WW1 Troops and a later, stronger version, so that the weak waterborne troops pose a meaningful threat early on — although attempting to invade someone who
has built defensive units, if you don't have the advantages of air-power, should, thematically, lead to static trench warfare.
Rapture growth in demo makes the strategy even more attractive. Without granaries other govs are doomed (and even granaries wouldn't allow as fast growth as demo).
The other govs are really only meant to be useful for a developed civ waging a war (especially an aggressive war) later in the game. Germany was already an industrial powerhouse in 1933 when the fascists took power, and Russia at the time of the communist revolution had a large (albeit mostly agrarian) population. And neither enjoyed much in the way of population growth — Germany had "more guns and less butter", while the failures of Russian agricultural collectivisation caused mass starvation. So if possible both govs should be balanced by other advantages rather than giving them rapture, for thematic reasons; suggestions are welcome. (I could perhaps reduce foodbox sizes, so that growth is quicker when you
do have a surplus, or otherwise reduce the value of rapture e.g. by increasing Rapture_Grow to require more rapturing turns per growth.)
Attacks only become reasonable with bombers and transports+gliders/paras, yet paras are weak so securing a conquered city takes a long time (or you have to plan your attack well in advance and hope that there's no scout).
I'm considering moving gliders and paras earlier, to Twenties tech, as currently it takes rather too long to get to the 'viable war' phase of the game. Paras are intentionally weak at securing conquered territory (this is thematic); gliderborne troops are a little stronger (especially as they can bring light artillery in the form of the Assault Gun), but it's supposed to take a somewhat heroic effort to hold onto gains (consider such historical examples as Operation Market Garden, where the airborne "Market" force captured the bridge at Arnhem but were unable to hold out long enough for the delayed "Garden" ground force to relieve them).
What you get from the early tech tree is pretty much useless so better focus on growth.
Well, it's not
completely useless (recon hath its privileges), but I agree that (say) the difference between 1915 and 1917 aircraft isn't going to make much difference in a ground war. On the other hand, you do have to research your way through that
eventually in order to get to the airborne assault techs, and if your opponent has got them, you'd better hope you've got good enough fighters to prevent him gaining air supremacy or his bombers and airborne assault brigades will chew you up. So there's a kind of chicken strategy in terms of how long you wait before starting to tech up.
Caedo wrote:Something I noticed was that, with default settings, the research rate in the beginning far exceeds any possible production rate. That is to say, unless you're going for lots of gold to buy stuff and less research, most of the earlier parts of the tech tree are completely irrelevant. Maybe changing the ruleset's base tech cost (or the default sciencebox setting) could be sensible.
Yep, I'd been considering that, but haven't come to a decision yet. I think part of the problem is the
narrowness of the early tech tree.
I was trying to time things so that techs would tend to be reached in about the correct game year, but that's probably a fool's errand and I should focus on gameplay consequences instead.
(Granted, my strategy of "go for as much science as possible, as quickly as possible" is probably not the best strategy anyways.)
Yeah, as louis94 said, the early techs aren't greatly useful. (Fwiw, my instincts in civ-like games are towards the same strategy as yours.)