[Newbie] Stuck in Micromanagement...

[LordGek]

Hey Gang,

I see myself already playing this game as I tend to play, and lose, most of my strategic games.  I tend to get stuck in micromanagement.  I have a tendency to want to make the greatest self sufficient little city-states possible.  I think this tendency in me is even worse with this game as once I start making multiple cities all producing units, it is that much easier to let the fine balance slip and fall into a not easily countered tailspin.  At the same time, I see the only way to make real points in this game is to knock some heads together and wreck the place.  I love how this goes against what I'd normally see as some balanced ecosystem since, to make points, I must make something stable enough to withstand me consistently tearing it apart from within.

So, when playing initially Easy to Normal games:
1) Do you immediately start with multiple cites, or can you, in the initial setup?
2) Beyond clearly needing a little wiggle room to adjust to random events, do you have specialized themes for each of your cities?
3) Is there a point to even having some cities that are JUST focused on producing raw resources (as I gather these resources are pooled for any same faction city to draw from)?
4) Should I always spend a good portion of my actions creating new land to expand to as soon as possible?
5) Is creating a lot of little satellite cities more useful than a few fully developed one?

No need to follow the formatted questions I asked here, just some general hints on any aspect of this would be appreciated! 

[Misery]

Ok, lessee if I can answer some of these...

1.  You CAN start with multiple cities if you really want to, but I think it's rather a waste to do so, as you'll end up with just a bunch of really scattered buildings if you do that, and for your first city, you want to get it up and fully running ASAP for best results, so using all 9 action points on the initial city is usually going to be the best idea.  And if done right you'll have some extra rock/wood and stuff fast anyway, so you can set up another town center within just a couple of turns if you really want to.

2.  Yep.  It's more important on Hard and above, in the current beta version with the specialization, but even on Normal or Easy (in any version) it's still a good idea.  Particularly after the recent changes to military unit costs, it's now a bit more difficult to have multiple types of military buildings in one city because they then each require a bunch of seperate buildings to keep their production going.  I often find that designating one city as "barracks only"  or "siege only" can be very helpful for this, and can make it easy to increase the number of military buildings of that type in the city by keeping some free space open.  But even for resources it can be a good idea at times.    Try a city that's mostly just clay and incense production, and add an Artist's Studio onto it for a huge boost.

3.  Yeah, this is a useful thing.  Particularly when you're dealing with the more difficult to get resources, it can be a good idea to have specialized "resources only" cities behind the front lines, preferrably near other cities that are pumping out military units so that they're protected. Again, this is even more important when resource specialization comes into play.

4.  No.  There's no point in spraying land tiles all over the place unless you see an immediate strategic need for them.   When you decide it's time to expand and make a new city.... THEN you should start dropping some tiles leading to the spot you want to place the city. Generally done as "land bridges" that simply lead out to the proper spot;  takes just a couple of turns to set up, usually  But doing it all the time?  Nah.  The landmass will grow quite nicely on it's own.

5.  Not really.  Theoretically they're not a terrible idea, but there's not too much benefit to doing that either.


Hope some of that helps.  If you can think up more such questions, I'll try to answer them as best I can to.   

[LordGek]

Ok, lessee if I can answer some of these...

1.  You CAN start with multiple cities if you really want to, but I think it's rather a waste to do so, as you'll end up with just a bunch of really scattered buildings if you do that, and for your first city, you want to get it up and fully running ASAP for best results, so using all 9 action points on the initial city is usually going to be the best idea.  And if done right you'll have some extra rock/wood and stuff fast anyway, so you can set up another town center within just a couple of turns if you really want to.

2.  Yep.  It's more important on Hard and above, in the current beta version with the specialization, but even on Normal or Easy (in any version) it's still a good idea.  Particularly after the recent changes to military unit costs, it's now a bit more difficult to have multiple types of military buildings in one city because they then each require a bunch of seperate buildings to keep their production going.  I often find that designating one city as "barracks only"  or "siege only" can be very helpful for this, and can make it easy to increase the number of military buildings of that type in the city by keeping some free space open.  But even for resources it can be a good idea at times.    Try a city that's mostly just clay and incense production, and add an Artist's Studio onto it for a huge boost.

3.  Yeah, this is a useful thing.  Particularly when you're dealing with the more difficult to get resources, it can be a good idea to have specialized "resources only" cities behind the front lines, preferrably near other cities that are pumping out military units so that they're protected. Again, this is even more important when resource specialization comes into play.

4.  No.  There's no point in spraying land tiles all over the place unless you see an immediate strategic need for them.   When you decide it's time to expand and make a new city.... THEN you should start dropping some tiles leading to the spot you want to place the city. Generally done as "land bridges" that simply lead out to the proper spot;  takes just a couple of turns to set up, usually  But doing it all the time?  Nah.  The landmass will grow quite nicely on it's own.

5.  Not really.  Theoretically they're not a terrible idea, but there's not too much benefit to doing that either.


Hope some of that helps.  If you can think up more such questions, I'll try to answer them as best I can to.

Wow, thanks, I will if I think of anything.

[Billick]

I'm going to disagree with Misery a little bit here.  I think it's important to expand early and often.  Spread out your towns.  You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.  You do want to specialize though, especially now that you get bonuses for having the same resources in a town.  I like to have opposing resource only towns next to each other and opposing troop producing towns away from each other.  This gives you a lot more control over what is getting destroyed.  One tip is when one faction has a big advantage over the other, use that faction's extra turns to build land bridges for the other faction.  This lets the other faction catch up a little bit, and gives them a chance to build a protected expansion.  Use your tokens and myth units to help where needed.  Experiment with the different tokens on the easy difficulties.  Some of them are really powerful, but can hurt you if you aren't careful. 

[Winge]

Misery's strategy is very good for players who are just starting out.  Once you get the feel for the game, and know how to correct imbalances, it can be super useful to expand early--Town Centers are very expensive, and setting them up costs even more.