Nobody made any protests to my above message
so I went ahead and played 15 turns. It's too late to complain now
.
Reign of Viking 1
Viking 1 takes control of things following a long and chaotic period in which someone else also attempted this but failed. It is rumored that this was because Viking's sword was bigger.
Viking's chief scientist, known as Alfred Zweistein, is milleniums ahead of his time and introduces Viking 1 to the concept of
parallel universes. According to this something (in this case several civilizations) may start at the same time and point in space under identical conditions and then branch off and develop seperately and of course without any knowledge of this and each other. Apparently one of the civs got a better start because of quantum fluctuations. This made Viking 1 very happy because now he can blame everything on this fact if something goes wrong ("Your civilization is bigger than mine because of quantum fluctuations and not because you are running it better than we are running ours" is his favourite phrase).
In addition, Zweistein's secret high-tech devices allow him to take a peek at the other civs and steal from them various information, in particular geography, revealing the fact that the Greeks live on a few small islands in a very big ocean far away from other lands (and there really are other, bigger lands, contrary to popular belief). And there is a very small island not far to the east. This also reveals to Zweistein that apparently the Greek empire has fallen behind and sucks compared to the English and Carthaginians because of the long time it took to select a leader and before that, problems and delays in appointing Viking's predecessor (Kitavastapolatovos) because of a wrong email address (whatever that is). Needless to say, Zweistein doesn't tell Viking 1 a word of this ("the Greeks suck" stuff) because he would be shot... ooops, killed (no gunpowder). So instead Viking hears of the worthless English that are run by a pachyderm and the puny Carthaginians run among others by a someone attempting to lift stars into the sky to make the gods happy
.
Oedo Governmentoulos, Viking's political advisor, tells him that 1700 BC is a good year to fire the government but that first Zweistein must finish researching something called monarchy so Viking orders him to stop thinking of this parallel universes crap for the time being. To accomplish this science must be at maximum for a turn or two, thus slowing down construction of the lighthouse.
A look at the world's top 5 cities reveals that we share the planet with the Russians, Zulus, Indians, French and Aztecs. There is one more civ somewhere out there. Overall the high council is rather unhappy. We are number 7 in population...
2100 BC (0): Settler boards a trireme for quick transport to the wine hill to mine and settler it. Otherwise no changes.
2050 BC (1): Horsemen unit boards the trireme in order to explore the small island discovered in maps Zweistein stole from the other civs using his secret high-tech devices.
2000 BC (2): YESSSSSS !!!!!! Horseman discovers an advanced tribe on a one square island in the east and there's a whale there too and fish !! This new city of Corinth becomes the horsemen's home city. Production in Athens adjusted to speed up the construction of the lighthouse at the expense of science, monarchy will be discovered before 1700 BC despite this. We are now number 6 in population.
1950 BC (3): Exploring the ocean near the small island. We are again number 7 in population.
1900 BC (4): More exploration. A look at the top five cities reveals the previously unknown Chinese civilization somewhere out there.
1850 BC (5): Trireme returns to the main islands.
1800 BC (6): Thermopylae has reached size 2 and we are number 5 in population.
1750 BC (7): Monarchy discovered, research currency next. Aiming for trade and Marco Polo seems important because we are isolated and need it to exhange techs etc. Population exceeds 100,000. Rush buy settlers in Thermopylae for 31 gold (out of 41). Sparta reaches size 2.
1700 BC (8): Thermopylae's settler boards the trireme. Revolution !!!!
1650 BC (9): Viking 1's dream is fullfilled; he is a king now. Corruption less of a problem and science rate better. Settler reaches an uninhabited island which has been known to us for a long time; nothing new here.
1600 BC (10): City of Delphi founded.
1550 BC (11): Mining of wine square completed. Create an Elvis in Athens because it will riot on the next turn without this since it's about to reach size 3.
1500 BC (12): Athens reaches size 3 and suddenly we are number 2 in population !! Adjust production there to maximize shields (for speeding up lighthouse construction). The high council meets and is very unhappy so they all end up in jail.
1450 BC (13): Currency discovered, research trade next for Marco Polo and caravans. City of Pharsalos founded. This city has access to the mined wine square, thus getting lots of trade and shields at the same time. Trireme reaches the small island which will build a settler in a few turns and does some additional ocean exploration.
1400 BC (14): Delphi builds an anti-riot unit (a warrior) and starts building settlers. Temporarily increase trade production at the expense of excess shields because a settler will be built there on the next turn anyway. This increase the number of bulbs by one
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1350 BC (15): Sparta build settlers, production adjusted again.
And following this Viking 1 disappeared following attempts at practicing long distance swimming. However he left some notes and suggestions to his successors:
During Viking 1's reign 3 cities were founded, a better government became reality, monarchy and currency were discovered, the population increased from 50,000 to 150,000 and we are number 2 in population instead of 7. A major strategic decision was made:
Building lots of cities with lots of overlap because of the limited land area. If we want big cities without much overlap they should be built elsewhere when we have discovered bigger islands or better yet, continents. This means no super science city, at least not in the near future. I think this will make TSG-1 more interesting since by this we are following a strategy very different from what the other teams seem to be doing (SSC by early indications).
I think we should continue this strategy by building two or three additional cities, one on the northwest edge of the largest island, one on the western tip of the Thermopylae island and probably one on the Athena island. These many cities speed everything up.
I didn't build a city in the wine square as Kitten suggested because I've found that doing so does not enable cities to utilize mining in the square, even though it is mined before founding the city. So I mined it first and then built a city next to it. This gives us lots of trade and lots of shields at the same time; IMO mined wine squares are some of the best squares available in the game (except maybe for coal early on).
It is possible to speed the construction of the lighthouse in Athens by setting luxuries to 40%, thus sending Athen's Elvis into the forest to do useful work but this slows down science and the accumulation of $$. Still this may make sense, especilly if other civs start building wonders. I got no announcements of AI civs building wonders and it seems Az and Kitten didn't get them either (
IMPORTANT: If you get such announcements mention them prominently in the logs !).
Corinth will soon build a settler which should board the trireme and head for the biggest island to build roads, irrigation and to mine hills (and by all means don't attempt to use the trireme to find new islands, it is 100% certain to fail until we have the lighthouse!!).
It may make sense to change Pharsalos' production from warrior to something else.
We probably do not need many units early on. I'd be surprised if the AI shows up soon so the only danger is barbarians. Corinth should be absolutely save for a long time since it's on a one square island that can't be invaded and I've yet to see the AI bribe cities directly from ships.
Game emailed to MrLeN who is next in line to play follwing me, and to Az for coordinating things. It is also attached here.
. First of all, I have said repeatedly that I cannot play on weekends, and I did not recieve the game until Friday, as I recall. Second, and none of you could have known this, I lost the ability to log onto the web on Monday and only restored it yesterday. Third, the version of the file I had earlier downloaded was not readable on my machine, so I had to download all over again. Does this mean I lose my turn for the round, or do Viking and I exchange turns or what?