Round 2: 2240BC - 675BC
After much thinking, I finally wrenched my mind away from the idea of the Pyramids gambit. I was convinced that, with all the techs we needed to research, we would not be able to get the Oracle. This Immortal, after all. And I didn't want to waste such a good start, where the Great Library is practically served to us on a silver platter, on a risky endeavour that might end the game.
A successful rush on Isabella, on the other hand, might win the game. So, I decided to hook the copper up asap. I sent the settler to the coast up north to check if there was any seafood that would make a coastal copper city worth settling:
Nope. So I guess we'd have to settle towards the flood plains so that we could get the city up and running as quickly as possible (no need for border expansion to get food). The exact location was on the river 1NE of the copper.
Anyway, since we're no longer going for the Pyramids gambit, we went for totally different techs. First, we researched Writing so that we could get a library up asap and start running scientists. We're doing an SE here, remember? That would also take care of the food surplus in the capital. After that, we might research Alphabet if it would not take too long.
Speaking of food surplus, I decided to start whipping to make use of it, so I made a civics switch:
We let Berlin grow into unhappiness and whipped our second worker out:
Meanwhile, we used a few warriors to fogbust. One of them found a barb city close to the originally planned site C:
It seems like a weird location to found a city. And it makes things more inconvenient, especially since it's on a hill. Damn those barbs!
After we discovered Writing, it occurred to me that we had not researched Masonry, so that was next.
We'd built another scout, so we signed open borders with Isabella and immediately sent it exploring - or, rather, propsecting
It brought bad news, though. Check Madrid out:
It's a holy city on a hill! That means by the time we get to it, it would have 60% cultural defense and easily 4 archers (at least some of them promoted) with bonuses for city and hill defense guarding it. Doesn't sound like a pure axe rush could crush it without at least 4:1 numerical superiority and ridiculous losses.
And so, unfortunately, it would have to be peace until we get catapults, which means getting Construction asap is in order. Well, I'd still get Alphabet, since we can probably trade it for Mathematics and a bunch of other techs. After that, though, we'd have to make the difficult choice of going for Literature (for the GL) or Construction first.
After Masonry was discovered, Alphabet would still take too long to research (25 turns), since we did not have much commerce to speak of yet, so I decided to research Fishing and Pottery first. The former would be useful to build a workboat for Berlin's clams, while the latter enables the handy granary.
A little later, the Spanish claimed site B:
Well, I wanted to settle a gold city on the plain forest SW of it. But, then again, it's unrealistic to expect it to work all three gold mines, so settling 1E of that was just as well:
And we can capture Toledo later on. It's quite a decent city that can work a gold mine, the wheat and horses.
After Pottery, Alphabet became more reasonable to research (15 turns), so we went for that. We chopped libraries in our first two cities and were soon running scientists to help:
The gold mine also came up and boosted our research. Alphabet was quickly discovered. I wanted to end the round here, but I realised that we could not trade for Polytheism (required for Literature) because we did not have Mysticism. And since it would only take 2 turns, I decided to get it before stopping.
And guess who came by before the end of the round:
Our fairest priestess. Oh, well. Since we want peace for now, why not? The extra happiness would also be handy.
Here's the tech screen after Mysticism was discovered:
Looks like they are going for the Polytheism wonders. We'd have to wait. We can trade for Mathematics right away and start on Construction, though. Or should we get Polytheism on our own (4 turns) and proceed with Literature so as not to lose the GL? Remember, Capac is Industrious.
Here's the GNP graph, just to show an estimate on how we stand in terms of research power:
Not bad, evidently, thanks to the gold mine.
And, in case you're curious, the Oracle has been built:
Yup, I don't think we could have gotten it. Ah, well. The gambit is a nice idea, but not for this game, I suppose.
Here are maps of the known world:
I'm tempted to go straight for Madrid when we invade Spain and bypass Toledo first. If we research Construction next, we should be able to chop and whip a catapult, axeman and (maybe) swordsman army and attack by the turn of the millenium. Hopefully, the Spanish don't get longbows too quickly.
Any thoughts?
.
