Phase 1: Start & Exploration
Wow.
Coastal, one and two half food resources (Spices &
Lake), and Gems - which are un-Jungled and thus
can be mined immediately!
Wait a sec; I can see two Warriors … I hope that second dot is a Settler … whew, not that much of a variant then! I wonder if that means all the Civs are starting with two Warriors – even the AIs. That would be one way to even-out the starting advantage somewhat and not leave the AI open to early Human aggression … Oh, but there’s that 1000BC rule too, Hmmm.
Oh well, let’s use these guys to get a better look around:
Well the lack of Seafood is disappointing, but Oooo Dyes as well! The only way to get at them (and the
second Gems) would be to found off the coast, so we’d probably want to go 2W to
avoid wasted sea tiles, so that probably puts us in the forest E of the
Warrior, or 1S of that with no idea of what’s beyond. I start thinking about
the possibilities of moving the Settler to scout further, but then realise that
the AI is going to be founding in place and that it’s a better comparison if I
do the same …
With 2 Warriors and open gems, the first build is definitely a Worker. Research to Agriculture for the Rice, and I’ll set the citizen to work the lake tile – this somewhat delays the Worker, as it’s only a 2 “production” tile, but with no river in site, it’s the only way to increase the commerce in the starting ring. First border expansion in a couple of turns opens up the 3“prod” 1commerce Spices tile, which is switched to immediately.
Our explorers head out North and SW and start meeting our fellows; first Hatshepsut, who feels fairly close to the West, Mansa Musa appears from somewhere to the North, and Saladin is also pretty close to the South … crowded map, Euch! I also note two interesting things around this time; based on the AI’s scores – usually at this stage a chunk above mine – I’m guessing Sirian stripped them back to the appropriate Civ’s starting Techs taking away their bonus Archery as well as Archer. Also, I suspect that he has ensured that each Civ starts with at least one precious “metal” resource (as a Geologist I can’t in good conscience refer to Gems as a metal without the quote marks). This begins to germinate with Saladin’s pair (!?) of Gold tiles, but solidifies as I not only explore further, but note the jumps on the GNP graph as the resources are mined.
The initial tech line runs from
Agriculture to Wheel (connect resources & enable Pottery), a pit-stop at Mysticism
(with enough Worker techs for a while, enables Stonehenge as per plan), before
Pottery and then to Bronze Working to clear some space around
The standard message for Buddhism, but a worrying
notification that
Whew! (I actually got a second growth near
Hatty founds Hinduism in 2650BC, and that year I make some preliminary dotmaps….
That was my first-round dotmap, but I really wasn’t happy with my use of tiles (editor’s note; I’ve seen where this game goes, and all I have to say is … Ha!) so came up with this revised version:
I was much happier with my second attempt across the Southern border with Saladin, but got the feeling that Blue Dot was venturing a leedle bit too close to Hatty’s capital.
This one may be better, though Gray Dot is 1tile off the coast. First priority is definitely Cyan Dot to the SW.
By this time I’ve explored far enough West to have met Mao
and Toku, who seem squashed in together in the South, and JC to the North. That just leaves … <quickly
consults game thread> …