Rivals:
India to our north (pink), America to our north east (blue).
I am completely fine in Opening Borders with everyone at this stage. A positive diplomatic modifier and the opportunity 'in time' to do some reconnaissance for any war plans that we may want to progress seems all good to me.
Settling:
I agree with FiveRings re. proposed four tiles north of the Horses as a land grab in light of America. (See more ramblings below).
Chopping:
I tend to go for the eight tiles around the city first for protection (that is, enemy stacks can't hide in forests just outside of our city) and then 'good' tiles such as Hills and Riverside Grassland on the outer ring of the BFC. Plains under Forest on the outer / 2nd ring should possibly be left to last if at all. Please note that Manchu's Snarl is at its health cap and we have three Forests left (one can go before worsening our provided no re-growths of Forests).
Strategy:
I'm actually just as inclined to REX 'what we can' in light of encroachment from the north and east. Shame about that food-rich northern area, but there's still a few possible good sites left. Unlike the 'Sword of Osman' game, I was mindful not to put any constraining time limits on our progress in light of variants, so we can take as long as we want in terms of expansion by warfare (and indeed, we're also on a Terra map which extends another option). If we can settle a couple of sites around the Floodplains and then three or four to the west, we should be good for a while. We have generally good potential trading partners, and the Financial + Floodplains predicament should be sufficient for us to engineer ourselves to a 'break out' point at some stage or other. The fact that we're not sitting next door to Mao or Stalin (for now at any rate) is further encouraging of the success of taking a more developmental approach.
Still, once again, a Horse Archer founded attack strategy could work very well, and neither Gandhi nor Roosevelt have early-game UU's of concern or warrior traits to deter us, and as already noted, Korea's Archers will enjoy some bonus from City Garrison I but their Drill I won't help them against Horse Archers. As obvious as it is, I suppose it's worth noting that getting Archery along the way also allows us to build 'Protective' Archers.
I will leave this call up to the roster (whether we bee-line the tech's for Horseback Riding or not, and whether it's worth our effort to also pursue the religious tech's for The Oracle or not).
India to our north (pink), America to our north east (blue).
I am completely fine in Opening Borders with everyone at this stage. A positive diplomatic modifier and the opportunity 'in time' to do some reconnaissance for any war plans that we may want to progress seems all good to me.
Settling:
I agree with FiveRings re. proposed four tiles north of the Horses as a land grab in light of America. (See more ramblings below).
Chopping:
I tend to go for the eight tiles around the city first for protection (that is, enemy stacks can't hide in forests just outside of our city) and then 'good' tiles such as Hills and Riverside Grassland on the outer ring of the BFC. Plains under Forest on the outer / 2nd ring should possibly be left to last if at all. Please note that Manchu's Snarl is at its health cap and we have three Forests left (one can go before worsening our provided no re-growths of Forests).
Strategy:
I'm actually just as inclined to REX 'what we can' in light of encroachment from the north and east. Shame about that food-rich northern area, but there's still a few possible good sites left. Unlike the 'Sword of Osman' game, I was mindful not to put any constraining time limits on our progress in light of variants, so we can take as long as we want in terms of expansion by warfare (and indeed, we're also on a Terra map which extends another option). If we can settle a couple of sites around the Floodplains and then three or four to the west, we should be good for a while. We have generally good potential trading partners, and the Financial + Floodplains predicament should be sufficient for us to engineer ourselves to a 'break out' point at some stage or other. The fact that we're not sitting next door to Mao or Stalin (for now at any rate) is further encouraging of the success of taking a more developmental approach.
Still, once again, a Horse Archer founded attack strategy could work very well, and neither Gandhi nor Roosevelt have early-game UU's of concern or warrior traits to deter us, and as already noted, Korea's Archers will enjoy some bonus from City Garrison I but their Drill I won't help them against Horse Archers. As obvious as it is, I suppose it's worth noting that getting Archery along the way also allows us to build 'Protective' Archers.
I will leave this call up to the roster (whether we bee-line the tech's for Horseback Riding or not, and whether it's worth our effort to also pursue the religious tech's for The Oracle or not).