Finished this game and GOTM178 long ago. Didn't do superhot since I missed LH AND Colossus. Unfortunate AT's can slow down SSC development quite a lot sometimes. Anyway, here's with my pre-game notes.
GOTM 177! This one’s a little bit special. Large map, but only allowed to build a maximum of 20 cities at a time. Can also choose the best of 2 outcomes for the first 2 huts.
The big question for this GOTM is going to be the following, With limited resources, where are you going to send your foreign settlers for optimal trade routes? Will you build 20 coastal cities to support 20 boats in Republic? Is trade going to be that important compared to SSC development?
The other big thing is that you really have to focus on snagging WoW’s earlygame, since you can’t simply conquer the AI’s to snag the points back. 7 civs makes it really hard. Earlygame and midgame as well… I really wonder if we will have any trading partners at all that will be worth it, honestly. Limited resources + large map debuff for payouts… But how the heck and I am going to pay for lategame invasions w/o a steady stream of van revenue. Maybe focus solely on grabbing all WoWs available? Let a few of them go if they’re close by?
DEITY difficulty. HG first, as usual (need it to celebrate!), but will skip Pyramids (conquer that one) and go for Colossus > Marco > Lighthouse. Sucky thing is that we will have all red hats but no black hats on Republic, so it’s going to be difficult to get celebrations running. Some Courthouses/markets will probably be needed. Shakes/SoL might be core to get 0-turn Anarchy Falls going when lategame hits, but that’s really fancy and might not be needed. (Make sure to get the triggering city at a later spot than your SSC…
The question is: how am I going to prioritize settlers vs. vans… probably will build less quick settlers very early game. (Postgame edit: Dummy. Should have stuck to the plan.)
NOTE: Will swap to my non-Find-City-bugged .exe to find out where enemy WoW cities are, so I can get to them quicker. Might not always want to wait for Marco’s.
Also, might need to send settlers in boats near cities that will need to be conquered later on (a.k.a. the cities that have wonders) They need to be there early enough so they can celebrate, grow and support an army. Also early enough so they can be fully grown by the time Radio/Automobile is researched (otherwise delay Flight as much as possible) Might even need to forgo popping huts if it might give me a suboptimal 20th city location!
Anyway, that’s it for my pre-game thoughts. On with the show. This is it.
The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show!
…
Waitwhat?
4000 BC: Zulus, Germans, Spanish, Americans and Greeks in this game. We already have pop a hut… since this map is not premade I suspect we will get the classical 60-20-20 distribution for units-tech-gold instead of a random AT on the first turn. Although the latter would be sweet!! 1. NONE Archer, 2, 50g. Black clicking reveals a lot of landmass 5 on the eastern shores (SW, then NE) so I choose the exploring unit. And I forgot to save! Thankfully it only takes 5 tries to get the completely irrelevant result on record. Karakorum built.
3950 BC:
> Alphabet. Will not attempt a size-1.
3900 BC: Build road SW of Karakorum for that sweet money.
3650 BC: Hut time! 1. Archer, 2. Pottery. That one’s a lot bigger dilemma… Oh wow, the path to the eastern Karakorum shores is actually north of the city and not south! Ok, this basically confirms I have to take option no 2. Cannot afford to mess up my Martial Unit order w/o endangering my exploration speed. SE seems to be a dead end, one unit is plenty enough and a second one would merely drain my shield production in the capital. Samarkand built. Remember, well spaced out! (2/20)
3350 BC: SE seems to be a dead end as seen. NE has lots of rough terrain (marshes)
3150 BC:
Alphabet > Burial. Techrate 20 turns.
3050 BC: Hut: AT of Bokhara. Kinda had a feeling this would happen. Always does when there are really sweet trade specials nearby and you never manage to get a 4-shot. Might need to move it if the square at (37, 57) is a trade special. Gems is of the Whale variety, right? Hang on, lemme check something on the MapEditor real quick.
Waitwhat? WHALE GIVES IRON? That’s really surprising. Also gives wine, so there’s a potential special missed out on when we reach Explosives. That means that the 37, 57 square is of the fish variety. Still, two trade specials… but according to sethos.gmxhome.de, it takes 60 turns to transform an iron special into a wine one! Takes 11 turns for 3 engineers, that’s not too bad. Technically, there’s a way to get in in 8 turns, but ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
Interturn: AMERICAN CIV DESTROYED BY BARBS. Ohhhhhh snap! Celtics in the game. No refunds!
3000 BC: Making that spaced out cities feels extremely innatural. There actually isn’t any special on 37, 57? That’s surprising. Anyhow, not gonna bother making a recap until 2000 BC.
2800 BC: Nishapur built. (4/20) Hut: Settlers! That’s nice.
2650 BC: Samarkand settlers.
2600 BC:
Burial > CoL. Wait, why is Bokhara producing a settler? That’s suboptimal…
2500 BC: Civil disorder in Bokhara. Hut: Warrior Code.
2450 BC: Kashgar built. Tabriz built. (6/20)
2250 BC: Karakorum settlers, HG started.
2000 BC: Aleppo built. Now, Karakorum can actually start gaining shields for HG.
STATUS AT 2000 BC: (Beginning of 41th turn)
Population: 110.000 Cities: 7 Governmt: Despotism Total advances: 7 (researching CoL)
Gold: 19 T4L0S6 Income/Cost per turn: 2 income, 0 cost. Production: 16MT 0 polluted tiles
Wonders: None
Foreign relations: Nobody has been met. Americans killed by Barbs.
Things get worse. Dang you, Warrior Code hut...