4000 BC. Wow a long time ago. Settle on the spot, got some cows, good times love the steaks. Korea! Land of great films, from mindbending masterpieces like Oldboy to delightful comedies such as 200 Pounds Beauty and My Sassy Girl. Some centuries pass... Although we've got an abundance of river tiles, my warriors have revealed no Luxuries as of yet! My very cool Koreans are very particular about luxuries and based on their sparseness I'm going to assume that this game isn't going to give me many luxuries nearby. That means smaller cities, or, at the very least, less science due to the necessity of the luxury slider. Conclusion: Korea has decided to forgo its preferred Space Race victory condition in favor of something like a Domination. Keeping this in mind, our brains have queued a Great Lighthouse.
3-2000 BC. Our mighty eastern shores are unsuitable for Wonder production, but on the way we did manage to find really a lot of wheat, in flood plains no less! Based on the very small amount of production value in the prospective food factories, I've decided to settle the first one close enough to the capital to allow access to a few plains tiles that will be mined so that we can produce Settlers. I know that food isn't a concern, so I've decided that two cities should share that space and distribute the wheat. The farther city will have more corruption, and thus become a Worker Factory, all the while the nearer one shall be making Settlers so that more of this world can be Korean.
Sidenote: a Japanese warrior!! On higher difficulties this would definitely make our leader despair. WELL, at least those guys are slow. Cheap temples and barracks aren't going to get them into the Middle Ages in time before my Knights greet them. And, this being Regent, there's a good chance they won't even build Barracks. The odds of a Knight vs a fortified Regular Spearman in a Town are: 64% victory, 18% a shameful retreat, 18% a sacrifice for the motherland. That's pretty good, considering a regent civ won't have a prolific garrison. No worries! I welcome you, Tokugawa.
2-1050 BC. I find a promising location for the great lighthouse and start building it right away. As much as a Colossus would normally be my first choice, I don't need it. This being regent, and my preferred method of Domination being Knights or, at the latest, Cavalry, an emphasis on that much Commerce is quite unecessary. Furthermore, there's no river on the city, and, Korea is already commercial, in a Regent game. Science won't need much help to be fast enough for our purposes. The Great Lighthouse shall commence as soon as my Republic slingshot is complete.
1000 BC. Koreans love reading. We built a library in Seoul, prior to the construction of the Mausoleum. I know what you're thinking: "Mausoleum!? Amigo, you're going for mounted domination, there's no reason to stop mass-producing Horsemen right now." WELL, since the historical neighbors of the Koreans have a great appreciation for GOLD, our generous leader is determined to bring about a golden age for his worthy people. Having done some research, he is very confident that the construction of both the Great lighthouse as well as the ol' Mausoleum, is very likely to bring about such a period of prosperity and kindness. (Note: Our strategy has developed into the following: We are commercial and this is Regent, and we have a short-term Scientific goal. This means we will have a lot of money that can be used to turn Horsemen into Knights. That's what we wanna do.)
Sidenote: OK it looks like I've got a lot of land to myself. However, we Koreans really don't like jungles. It is indeed quite lovely to see Gems there, but at that distance, their financial bonus will be less than significant. The north proves pretty unexciting as well. The Koreans establish two new settlements to the north of Seoul. These 6 cities form the core of our Domination. We put one rather sad little settlement to capture horses, and what's worse, we find out that Iron is in an absolutely horrible spot. Thankfully, we do notice that Japan has a source of Iron... and, well, more on this later.
c. 750 BC. Our brave seamen are enjoying the experience of combating primitive, barbarian sailors. However, in all of their travelling, they are NOT very confident about entering the vast ocean. Koreans are very adept at mathematics. Based on the most commonly observed deviations of world shapes on Continent Maps, we assume that the 1-2 continents holding the remainder of the Civilizations are shaped in one of 3 ways. All of these ways would therefore most likely be more accessible from 3 points: One is in the East, one in Southwest and one in the Northwest. There is often a jump-link at either the north or south extremes of a map that allows for a connection to "The Other Side". We have lost some boats, but, with a bit of determination, and faith in probability, we are able to find a passage spanning only 3 Ocean Tiles! (one of the three spots we investigated). Now that our Great Lighthouse is nearly complete, this means that we have a 100% risk-free passage for our eventual Knights, who would be too expensive to risk losing to the RNG. This early pass has led our sages to recommend the shorter of the two approaches. Yes to Knights, No to Cavalry. SINCE Magnetism isn't strictly necessary any longer, we won't further enlighten ourselves into the discoveries of Saltpeter and mounted riflemen.
Behind the scenes: We foresee a rather complicated but time-efficient Domination. Our plan is to simulateusly wage war in the distant continent as well as our own. A series of ACTUAL DAYS of brainstorming, number-crunching and finger-counting take the place of our fun-filled Civilization adventure. (Our Korean mathematicians have fast fingers and too much time, so an explanation of what this entails could fill about five pages of tl;dr. Thank god for restraint!!) We'd like to get this done in the least amount of turns possible, but our calculations tell us that our home continent is severely lacking in ownable territory, and that a rather substantial portion of the faraway continent will need to be enriched with Korean culture before the very gods finally consent that we are victorious. Being an efficient and scientific people, we are always in favor of calculated risks and underwhelming warfare: That is, we decide to go to war with 10-knight, rather than a 50-strong steamroll.
Sidenote: Due to carelessness, we moved a Galley that was supposed to be parked for another turn across the ocean when it only had 2 out of 4 moves left, because it was on the same tile as the 2 galleys that had 4 our of 4 moves. This means that one galley ended its turn on an ocean tile and two Knights were tragically lost. Thus, our 10-Knight tactical force had been reduce to 8... a much less reliable amount force. We say our prayers for our departed men. Because of this careless reduction of our force, we must hope that our target is underdefended, otherwise this small mistake could set us back 7 turns in our overall Domination timetable (though it is as of yet far from complete. There is still a lot of FoW. We've assumed that this continent is, like ours, one large landmass. If it turns out to be otherwise, we're definitely going to have to scrap our entire calculation and begin a new plan.)
Part II to follow soon. Also might add some specific dates for wonder construction, wars, etc.
