Turns 1-25
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A culture ruin meant I hadn't got a clue whether Tradition or Liberty would be better from what I could see. Decided to play safe and go Tradition since you can switch easily to Liberty if it looks wrong. I will clearly want the left side of Rationalism but not sure what else. Went for 3 scouts as it is clearly a big continent. I really dislike early ruins as I have to take a bit of a gamble on what to go for policy wise before fully scouting, and in the end decided to go for a full tradition game where I'll try and fill out Tradition and then go Rationalism as my main trees. Will have to see if I can fit anything else in. The idea is to get to the +2 food capital and then make a settler, maybe with a couple more after National College. There is a great spot in the north right next to a mountain on a hill in range of 3 ivory and on Washingtons doorstep. I guess we'll be waging war against America.
Turns 26-50
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I kept a scout up in the north just to block Washington from expanding onto that ivory spot.
Found out something interesting. I wanted my capital to produce my worker and expand on the same turn but couldn't manage it. I put the growth to next turn and worker to 2 turns but they both appeared next turn. Does that mean the population growth specialist was put to work straight away on a production tile and allowed the worker to be built the same turn?
At any rate was able to build my first settler. Now should I try and use Great Library to tech into Civil Service or instead hold on to Classical Era for cheap research agreements towards education? I think I'll do the latter since I might want to build immortals and upgrade to pikes.
I have 3 stone so Calendar looks like a good priority research wise to get stoneworks before Great Library and National College.
Washington built New York by one of the Ivory I wanted but I was still able to get a city in range of 2.
Turns 51-75
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My timing for the National College is terrible, I haven't lined it up with my first city library at all well. I have to start saving gold for a mass RA spam to come in before I get into Medieval.
Turns 76-100
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I've been holding back on Medieval because I want to get RA's going at such a time that I can get Porcelain Tower, bulb Astronomy, and get Rationalism Opener all before they start to go off. The danger is that it costs me 250 gold because nations enter Medieval ahead of me.
I lost Hanging Gardens to Elizabeth - annoying! I had to spend a lot more gold buying tiles than I'd have liked to, in order to stop America settling on Iron, but at least I can sell the iron when i mine it.
Decided to declare war America when I started the RA's. Had only a couple at 250.
Turns 101-125
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I think I may be overestimating pikeman, they seem to die pretty easily (I don't use them often). In fact my whole American attack is pretty useless. Thankfully lots more iron is coming online.
Research agreement spam was beautiful. now I just have to work out where to get the second wave to hit.
Washington beefed up too much and I was left about to lose 2 units to a counterattack after surrounding it. Decided to collect New York in a peace agreement in order to keep my army intact (plus it has ivory and furs so not too bad).
Turns 126-150
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Into peaceful mode
Turns 151-175
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Used 3 GS to get the median up for my 2 later RA's. I did wonder if it would be worth using Scientific Revolution to get Research Labs but it was going to take me ages to simply build Public Schools so I figured it wouldn't be worth it. Also where is the coal? I might have to build a city in the south just to access some.
Now that I have all RA's in hand, I'll spend extra gold on Marine states as I can really do with some growth.
Greece took the southern coal spot so unless someone enters industrial era no factories!
Turns 176-200
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Mainly peaceful but with a short war initiated by Greece for no reason. Thanks for that!
Turns 201-208
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Lack of coal is costing me so much. No power plant for me even though I have uranium!!