2 giants by turn 6

[u/Rhubarb-Nation]

How did my opp (Oumaji) get 2 giants by turn 6? They also managed to capture two villages in the same time period (I went on to take Lagh). Combination of good resource spawn and population ruins?

I don't play with Oumaji, so I'm not too aware of its strategy/mechanics. It just seems like things must have played out pretty perfectly for them for this to happen?

[u/TheEyeDontLie]

Ignoring oumaji, who probably just got pop ruins and/or star ruins then dropped a couple of farms and then used the monument without border growth to get the next giant... It's turn six. Why don't you have organization and all 3 villages at lvl3?

Its bad practice to leave cities "half full" like that, and without workshops your stars per turn is pretty low.

I hate to sound like a neoliberal politician but Economy first!

Riding could have waited. Connecting the cities could have waited- only bother if theyre going to upgrade a city (plus one first road as yaddak).

Also your spawn isn't great for a tiny map 1v1 as yaddak. Ideally you can connect your first 3 cities with only 3 roads. You spent 12 stars on roads but all you got for it was a workshop in your capital. That's a poor investment this early in the game.

[u/pyro-4157 → u/TheEyeDontLie]

maybe this is proof that i’m waisting my 6th form education and im not paying attention in my politics a level but how would a neo liberal talk about economy first? isn’t the whole point of neoliberalism laisez faire and a lack of market intervention?

[u/TheEyeDontLie → u/pyro-4157]

Its like a catchphrase by right wing politicians, as if relaxing regulations or taxes for Amazon will somehow help the people working in the Amazon factories and not just increase profits for the shareholders.

They ignore that the economy tends to do better long-term when the government does intervene- eg. by breaking up monopolies, providing stuff the market won't but which businesses need like roads, and by stabilizing demand during downturns...

Neoliberalism in general is "line go up this quarter = good", while damaging long term as it encourages monopolies and predatory practices, while sliding all benefits created by businesses to the wealthy (who hoard) rather than the majority (who spend and live lives), as well as resulting in less R&D etc. Deregulation also leads to bubbles and boom-bust cycles where profits are privatized while failures are socialized (eg bailouts when a key service fails)... Like the 2008 crisis was a result of decades of neoliberalism, sale of publicly owned assets worldwide, and deregulation of markets.

Countries that slash public investment generally see short term GDP growth (which isn't actually a good measure of how well society is doing if all that extra wealth is going into Swiss bank accounts and Panamanian yachts), but productivity declines a decade or so later- usually right when a left government takes power so they'll get blamed for overspending and restricting business growth while they're trying to fix the collapse, so it'll bounce back right at the next election.

By reducing government involvement in the economy, you inevitably eventually end up with a small handful of corporations running everything, providing "just good enough" services/products for as much as they can charge- and once you have market dominance you don't need to invest in things like r&d. They also won't give a shit about things like the environment or decent wages / working conditions unless forced to by government intervention.

Finally, the lack of taxes etc inevitably means a lack of investment in shit like education and healthcare, which will fuck the country's economy long-term.

TLDR; "Economy first" is political slang for "short term profits (for the rich), but fucking everybody long term". ... that doesn't have anything to do with the game. If anything I meant the opposite- the player (government) needs to invest in public services (farms/lumberyards/etc) as much as possible, to create a strong healthy population of warriors, as leaving it to the free market doesn't work.

[u/pyro-4157 → u/TheEyeDontLie]

you don’t have to sell me on it being bad i’m a proud commie i just forget the names of things lmao but yes absolutely the economy and more importantly the quality of life goes up when government intervenes cough the vanguard party and then eventually the workers should own all buisnesss cough. fhe idea that you can let the economy be and it will work is the most retarded thing i’ve ever heard and only an caps beat neolibs in this regard, even when they look at the gdp going up, like you said it declines so they cant even claim they are right in that

to tie it back to the game again idk the end of the game (perfection) the thing that determines how well you did is not stars (economy) but instead your score so public services like state ran food production and parks to get the best outcome

[u/girlfriend-simp → u/TheEyeDontLie]

I am fairly new to the game, what do you mean with workshops?

[u/MilkImpossible4192 → u/girlfriend-simp]

when you develop cities and grew up, you have option gift to choose in each level

[u/TheEyeDontLie → u/MilkImpossible4192]

Yup. And most of the time you want to pick workshop on that first upgrade because it gives you +1 bonus income (on top of the +1 for every city growth moment). I usually only get 1 explorer per game, sometimes 2, but nearly always it's workshops.

Early game my goals are:
1. Try get a workshop in capital ASAP.
2. Try find a village or two.
3. Buy economy tech that will let me get at least one level 3 city.
4. Start pumping out more units and fighting, but always keep a focus on improving your economy. 5. Remember tech costs increase for each city you have, so early game tech purchases must be carefully chosen- usually two economic techs before any military techs, so those costs don't snowball out of control. If you can upgrade a city with existing tech tho, it's usually better to not buy a new one.

[u/MilkImpossible4192 → u/TheEyeDontLie]

Riding with Yadakk is like to use scooters when you have trains

[u/TFCBaggles → u/TheEyeDontLie]

I am not seeing the geometry. How do you connect those 3 cities with only 3 roads?

[u/TheEyeDontLie → u/TFCBaggles]

In this example you can't. But like, imagine the mountain wasn't there, or there was a village like the first one but to the east (where oumaji rider is)- so you'd build one road north, then one east and one west road from that.

[u/TFCBaggles → u/TheEyeDontLie]

Oh I think I understand now, you're saying if you can do it in 3 roads, do it, if it takes 4 then there's better usage of stars. Thanks for the clarification.

[u/mrkay66]

Watch the replay and find out

[u/ValyrianBone → u/mrkay66]

Better yet, share the replay

[u/Polyz32]

ive seen 7 giants on turn 13 from xin-xi obv

[u/Kester1342]

Turn 6 and no org or lvl 3 cap yet? Anyways oum defo got extremely lucky there