Round 5: 1050 BC to 370 AD, Part 1
A much longer round this time, but I wanted to get several things accomplished. Not everything you all set out for me to do at the end of the last round is done yet, but I believe I'm well no my way.
Early in the round, I loaded my Scout onto my lone Galley and set it off exploring to the west, seeking the founder of Hinduism and anyone else it could find. First off, I discovered that there is indeed seafood near that iron source:
Very tempting, but as you'll see, there are other far more tempting offshore sites.
Meanwhile, back home, the barbs started showing up. God, but these things are stupid. I mean, check this out. What I set up was, essentially, the Civ equivalent to a slaughterhouse chute. The barbs were intent on heading to Moscow from the vast fog to the southeast. I put one Axeman in each of the forests to either side of the corn farm, which I new would attract them like flies to honey. This meant that the barbs were sitting ducks (is that too many metaphors to mix?) for my Axes. They avoided attacking the difficult target of an Axe on a forest tile and instead chose to go after a (supposedly) easy pillaging target, not to mention a capital protected by a lone warrior:
Morons. Oh well, stupid barbs = free and easy XPs, we always say. Both Axes earned their Shock promotions very quickly, though I haven't seen any barb Axemen and, at this point, I think they're unlikely. The map doesn't always cooperate, but this is a trick I'm going to try to remember in future games.
I dropped the Scout off on the Western continent to do some exploring and soon ran into the first neighbour:
I got an OB agreement with him right off the bat. He founded Hinduism and will likely stick to it for most of the game, and I think it would be good to stay on good terms with Gandhi. Especially considering who the other neighbour is (same continent, further south):
Good ol' Toku, as useless as ever. I should point out that in my 2nd off-line BTS game, I manged to get Toku up to Pleased status
without sharing a religion with him--just by selling him old, obsolete techs. But that's unlikely in this game. Tokugawa is likely to be my worst enemy, as you'll see.
Back home, I got started on the expansion we discussed.
Novgorod would, of course, assist with the Colossus once its copper mine is on-line. Once Metal Casting finished, now that I had contact with Gandhi and new he had contact with one other civ, I decided to pursue Alphabet. I figured I might as well see what techs on the path to Literature and the Great Lighthouse I could get out of him.
I also got news about various wonders being built. Some of you were suggesting the Great Lighthouse, but that was completed very early in the round:
However, as you'll see much later on, I have another somewhat similar wonder in mind that may help out quite a bit.
I founded another city, which will likely, at a later date, become the capital:
I'm cottaging this city. I left the cottages in place around Rome--sorry, Ruska--for now, though I didn't add any others. Ruska is indeed destined to become the GP farm, so watch for those cottages to eventually be plowed over in favour of farms. For now, I need the cash.
Once the Forge was finished in St. Petersburg, I got the Colossus under way:
Notice I started running an engineer. This actually added a turn to the build (since I took him off a 4 hammer mined plains hill), but the idea was to generate a Great Engineer whom I would use to complete the Pyramids. The downside was that this meant throttling back my research by putting the scientists in Moscow and Ruska back out in the fields and fishing boats to guarantee that I got the GE as my first great person. Yes, the scientists grumbled, but what do they think this is, a democracy? Not until after Nationalism and Constitution, you lazy pencil-necked geeks!
My intrepid Galley was unable to continue its exploration of the western continent's southern reaches because, surprise surprise, Tokugawa refused to sign an Open Borders agreement. So the ship swung around to the east, found another continent due south of my large island, and met another civ:
Interesting--I've met 4 of the other civs so far and all of them were around in vanilla! Not even a Warlords leader in the bunch yet, let alone one of the new BtS leaders. Oh well, there's 2 more to go, and I'm guessing that they'll be more recent additions. Of course, I would have preferred just about anybody to Toku.
In 260 BC I finished researching Alphabet:
I haven't built a Spy yet, but I'm looking forward to it so I can map out the truculent Tokugawa's terrain. After Alphabet, I went after Aesthetics, heading towards Literature and the Great Library. I was hoping to get Polytheism from Gandhi. He wasn't willing to trade it right away, which is why no tech trades occurred immediately. Toku, of course, wouldn't trade techs if his life depended on it (and, ironically, it often does). Mao, meanwhile, apparently had contact with no one but me, so he wouldn't trade techs either! I don't know if it's just this game, but I'd heard Alphabet and tech trading were not as high on the priority list as they used to be.
Then another random even occurred, and not a good one:
This is why I now ensure I have a little gold in the treasury. The first option would have resulted in unhappiness--the pop-up was unclear as to how long it would last--and the last option meant the revolt could continue. Having your capital off-line this early in the game is crippling, so I didn't want to let that be a possibility. The -1 pop is easy enough to recover.
I then founded the marble city, again planning on pursuing the GL:
As you can see, my Swordsmen were out fog-busting with a vengeance. I even decided to fog-bust the horse area--too many hills, it just seemed too likely that the barbs would found a hard-to-take city down there. They did found a city to my east, out near the yellow city site on Validator's dot map. Notice I said "near". It's on the hill 2S of the crabs, a far from optimal site. It'll have to go. At least it should give me a chance to earn a Level 4 unit so I can build the Heroic Epic.
I still hadn't completed the first quest, for 7 libraries--I didn't even have 7 cities at this point--when
another quest appeared!
Like the previous quest, this one seems right up my alley. With this map, I'm going to need a strong navy, so the reward from this quest should be helpful. Heck, 7 Triremes won't even be enough to protect every seafood tile I have, and St. Petersburg was perfectly capable of churning out boats like there's no tomorrow. Unfortunately, having missed the Great Lighthouse, I won't have that reward option available.
Well, enough waiting with the tech trading. Gandhi still wouldn't budge on Polytheism, but he finally had a few other worthwhile techs to trade:
It was a tough choice, choosing between those two or Mathematics. In the end, with the marble sitting there and a drive for the Great Library imminent, I decided that I needed Masonry more. Archery just made it worth my while. I'm not big on Archers, but once I get Feudalism, Longbowmen are great for raising your power rating and intimidating an opponent.
On the next turn, I completed my first wonder:
Yay! I'm not working too many of the seafood tiles, since my happiness caps are still quite low, but the ones that I am helped out. And I might get a Great Merchant in the mid-game from this. The only fly in the ointment would be getting a GM
now. Oh, they're great to have, as we saw in the Kublai Khan game, it's just that I'd really like that Great Engineer for the Pyramids, only now the GE points were being polluted by GM points... so I was nervous.
So what happened? Did I get a GE for the Pyramids? And what about the Great Lighthouse? Looks like Gandhi could have a head start on me there. Stay tuned!
they are worth regreting only you didnt get to pillage at least one of them as a village!
cap is low but GP ponints are more worth it this early and the 
reducing his growth. For us however the 
from represantation in the BCs still are godsend.
rate induced 
, plus so will a capital deployed probably in the gold/FP site.
.
So the update will have to wait. 
