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What is this pioneer spam people keep on whining about?

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What is this pioneer spam people keep on whining about?

from Elemental Forums

What is this pioneer spam people whine about? (v0.95 to 0.952)

1. The land is in shambles and 99% of it is ineligible for colonization. The limit on my city building is that I can't find a valid spot to build not the time it takes to spam pioneers.

2. Population only gives gold, production and research comes from buildings. Spamming pioneers means I don't have buildings means I am hopelessly behind. (building a careful balance of a few pioneers and many buildings though...)

3. Building up 1 or a few cities makes you better positioned to conquer the AI's cities (the AI spam pioneers so he is WAY behind on the tech tree and lacks the resources to mount a proper defense of their juicy under-defended cities)

... pioneers must first be used to build outposts which expand zone of control which expands (slowly over many turns) the "restored" lands in which a city can be built.

23,376 views 30 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 24
First, how are you getting lush, colonizing, empires???? Every game I've started in 0.98 has given me 0-2 city locations with 0-2 essence at only the first location. It's badlands stretched as far as the eye can see from then on out. Toss in the increased early game build queue times, and the game is now BORING.
End of GFireflyE's quote

I was on "balanced" and apparently balanced means "random" because some games I get what you get...

This SPECIFIC game though I had a lush colonizable world

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

My guess is "Balanced" seems to mean that a map is a MIX of different terrain types so some starting areas are better than others.  Maybe they should rename that map type to "Mix" because "Balanced" implies "Equal".

I mostly play on temperate or swamp now and there are consistently more opportunities to settle.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

So far this game has moved exactly the direction that I was expecting and have been happy with each itteration that they do. I have gotten pleasent surprises on good features.

The starting locations I look for are a total of at least 6, whether it be a 2 4 0 or a 3 3 0. This is a happy start for me, if I get a 4 2 0, it's okay and would prefer at least a 4 2 1, just to give a hand (and this is what I usually get). Essence is way overrated and I consider a bonus. Do you play with sparse resources, because this can effect the fertility of the land as well. Bonuses are given to land tiles near crystal (essence bonus) and material bonuses by iron and clay. Grain bonuses from wheat, which usually produces fertile land nearby.

I consider anything higher than a bonus of 6 to be a bonus and a helping hand for you during the game (in fact I think that is what the xml code is set to for starting locations).

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting stein220, reply 27
My guess is "Balanced" seems to mean that a map is a MIX of different terrain types so some starting areas are better than others.  Maybe they should rename that map type to "Mix" because "Balanced" implies "Equal".
End of stein220's quote

It is true there are zones of desert and zones of lushness. but the "balanced" map seem to have a random variance of each zone. One game can have 20% desert while the other 80%... its a "mix" but its a very uneven mix.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting stein220, reply 27
My guess is "Balanced" seems to mean that a map is a MIX of different terrain types so some starting areas are better than others.  Maybe they should rename that map type to "Mix" because "Balanced" implies "Equal".

I mostly play on temperate or swamp now and there are consistently more opportunities to settle.
End of stein220's quote

I play on random :)
At some point I have seen all the map types, rather interesting that it changes each time too.

That said if you saw my games I go with every start with any start location, and sometimes this comes back to bite me when I start on a 4/2 on expert level difficulty only using trained units... >_< (Recent game)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej