HalfLotus and El_Capitan get into a great argument discussion over at Apolyton (a RON backwater if there ever was one). (Thanks to Rohag for the link.) The gist is that EC says it's okay to attack the third city and assimilate while HL argues for attacking a more high-value target such as the second city and pressing the attack rather than waiting around to assimilate.

No offense to EC, but I'm gonna have to go with HL on this one. Yes, even though there are "many ways to win," I think it's much more important to continue pressing the attack before the opponent can respond by building up a counter force. I've come back to win many games where my opponent didn't continue to press an attack, failed to capture an important target, or both. The most notable recent example was this game.

Against a competent opponent who is booming, losing an unimportant city will hardly slow them at all. You need to continue hitting them before they have an opportunity to bring their economic advantage to bear in military terms.

I'm sure EC has many examples where he won by taking an unimportant city and sitting on it, I'm sure he could have won even faster being more aggressive.
posted by Tim at 2:12 PM