Ultimate Strat.. For ports?

[pcups]

This strat, is an ultimate strat, although, its probably a fluke on ES's part, or maybe not. Anywho its quite amazing, i havent used it online yet. Just against comps. But hey it works well so far. Tee Hee

[punkybruster]

Some dude told me not to agent rush the other day... even though its been nerfed. Dumb?

[pcups]

You can still do it in the same amount of force it just cost something.

[d]

Has anyone tried using the land grab card. Build mills and plantations 4 times faster and 40% cheaper? If you get it for your 4th shipment, you'll get it when you need to start building the mills. By building these buildings, you'll get xp for more shipments.

[pcups]

not just that its more effective to give the port guy the wood and have him build plantations and farms, but that might get messy. So yea...

[boorules60]

I could see some use for that card in a 3v3 or 4v4 for someone to make all the farms and plantations early on to save on some wood. In smaller games though, it seems like wood trickle or sawmills might be the better bet. Has anyone done the math?

[d]

Wood trickle wins after 36 mins. not counting the saved construction time.

The problem is that you get 13 shipments before the treaty breaks - what are you willing to give up? Better walls - weaker dragoons - fewer resources?

With 2 or 3 civs, it might be worth it.

[pcups]

plus wood trickle keeps going. Which means less peasants on wood and more on plantations or food.

[mrniceguy]

not to mention when the trees run out you don't want to have factories on it.

[pcups]

AMEN!

[d]

The Ports don't have a lot of mill upgrades (refridgeration and sustrainable agriculture.) They do have a way of getting 8-9 no pop settlers. Yep, llamas. I would suggest it for a late game strat when running low on food. It's better than a 15% mill increase from sustainable agriculture. 2 live stock pens (20 llama) will keep 8-9 settlers busy - equal to an extra mill. That's about a 25% increase verses a 15% increase with a mill upgrade.

[boorules60]

The other thing to consider is that unique church thing... I know it lowers all other gathering by 5, but 20% is quite good especially since at the end of the game you aren't gathering wood by hand, and that just leaves the 5% plantation which isn't so bad.

[pcups]

If you run out of resources as the ports youre in big trouble anyway, so i wouldnt worry about resources. Ports gain so many resources because their units DONT die.

[d]

Llamas are out and sheep are in. You get 20 llamas or 30 sheep. Llams train in 1 minute and sheep in 10 secs. Both fatten in 5 mins. Llamas need a shipment and sheep don't. 30 sheep with 3 livestock pens will keep 8 settlers busy. A herder gathers 50% more food net than a fully researched mill. That is to say 8 herders produce like 12 settlers on farms. If you are willing to micro a little, you can have 4 nopop settlers.

[pcups]

i already do it as the sioux. too bad sheeps dont give gold