Epic5 – The Covenant of the Sea

Pregame Analysis:

This is certainly an intriguing concept and I’ve not played a tech-limited variant before, so I’m eager to get started, but there are quite a few things to consider here. Firstly – and even before burning the sacred waters became an issue – this was most likely to be a game about conquest; with a limited tech progression and an aggressive leader it is also skewed in that direction. Space was always out as a victory condition, and while Diplomacy would have been possible (if difficult) without the “Always War” clause, that addition has rendered long-term diplomacy moot. I will have unreserved admiration for anyone who manages to pull off a Cultural victory, but I think that route is beyond me.

So, what are the implications of not researching Fishing? Well, the obvious one is that all water tiles can be considered equivalent to Peaks for our cities, as they will never produce anything and thus normal founding patterns are completely out the window: sick of watching AI’s place cities one-tile away from the coast!? Have fun with this one! However, I think there is a much bigger implication here (for the early game, at least):

No Calendar drastically limits the Happiness resources available, and that limits the ability to grow and ultimately manage War Weariness. For this reason I will be going for an early Religion to get my people worked up and ready to fight, and I may go for a second to set up multiple Temple goodness. My other tentative plans are to get a Settler out quickly to secure a prime second city site (speed will be important as 4civs on a Tiny world is getting crowded), and possibly try to secure the Pyramids for Monty’s favourite Civic. Of course all this will depend will depend greatly on which other Leaders are out there, and the shape of the land around – the start image implies that we’re on a peninsula with only access from the South – so we’ll see what happens in the first few turns.

The first few turns…

Since we start with Mysticism, we can go straight for a religion, and so I queue up Polytheism as the slightly safer option. I leave the build as a Warrior, but set the city to maximum growth. The Scout reveals that we are indeed on a Penninsula, and heads SW to meet the rest of the World; Liz and Gandhi met in the same turn – neither aggressive personalities, but Liz will be a long-term (Financial) threat, and Gandhi could scupper my religion and Pyramid plans in the short term.

The growth of Tenochtitlan coincides with it’s first Warrior in 3580BC, and I start building a Settler. Yep, grabbing that second city site is going to be important, I have no Worker techs, since I’m pursuing Religions, and with peaceful AIs out there I figure I can probably defend the Aztec Penninsula with a single Warrior….

3520BC and the first part of the plan falls into place as we get Hinduism! We convert, and set research to Mining – my next target is Masonry; to enable the Stone resource at the neck of the peninsula (and maybe pursue Judaism also), but I will also be heading for BW soon, so decide to get the extra pre-req for Masonry and reduce it’s cost. We also meet Alex, and what was I saying about Calendar:

Exploration continues, and I spot a prime location to the West:

Ivory would not only give us an additional non-Calendar Happy, but Elephants would give us a decided tactical advantage in early warfare; it would definitely be a reach for an initial settlement, but I think the benefits would be huge. Of course, that plan relies on Liz not sending her first Settler to that spot … Drat. Meanwhile, she does found Buddhism in 3070BC.

Tenoch. completes the Settler and move on to a Warrior, and Teotihuacan is founded in 2590BC, one tile SE of the Stone:

There’s a lot of coast included here, but it has the maximum production potential of the nearby options (with 4xForests, Stone & Grass-Hill), and limited happiness will prevent it growing too big anyway. A Worker is queued up.

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