Easter weekend provided a little bit of free time, so I decided I would play a little bit of civ, and I figured I would fire up this game and get my butt quickly kicked by Deity AI and be finished well before the weekend is over.
Well, at 0AD, not only does my butt remain un-kicked, but my position is actually relatively promissing!
I started up the game and looked at the starting position for a while. On Deity, I can usually get exactly one wonder when I really go for it, but find that even attempting a second one tends to lead to disaster. Like most everyone, I concluded that the wonder of choice on this map is GLH, and I decided to go all out for it.
Where to settle? If I want GLH, I need a fast coastal start... I could settle in place, but then I realized something. Settling on corn not only gets the worker our 3 turns faster, but it also makes growth up to size 4 two turns fast, and to size 5 one other turn faster, so it gets us to the happy gap a full 6 turns earlier! That should account for a 7 or so earlier GLH, and it will be a long time before the "wasted" corn is noticed since the capital has too much food, and will need to share some of it anyway.
So, Settle-on-corn, Worker first, then warrior... Mine, BW, (Yeah, Copper!), Fish, Sail, Masonry.... As soon as BW came in, I revolted to slavery and 4->2 whipped a worker to get ready to set up cities 2 and 3, and start choping forrests in preperation for quick-building the wonder. This brought in GLH on turn 55 (1800 BC, I beleive), with only 3 cities total (including Capital), so it is not paying big time yet, but it is secured, and will power the rex.
By that time I had met two civs workboats, but have scouted enought to know we are semi isolated and have the chance to expand, so I go full-rex mode...
At 0AD, I have 15 cities (including one at silver taken from the barbs), and control my island and the 3 (include the single tile one) islands to the south. I was a bit two slow on the Incense site, and Mao settled it about 10 turns before I was going to. Might have to take that out at a later date.
My 15 cities are:
-5 to the west of the mountain: Capital, Gems, Gold, Cow just east of the mountain, and a Helper-city in the NE corner. Together with 1-tile island, these can help the Capital work all 10 of its cottages!
-4 to the east of the mountain: One in each corner, covering all tiles on the land mass, Dye city was settled on the east most dye and contains 4 tiles with 5+ food. It will be the GP-farm.
-1 tile island city (intended to help crow cottages.)
-2 cities on elephant island, one directly on the elephant, since I wanted the happy without sending an early worker over there.
-3 on Fur island (including the capture at Silver, one on the eastern fur, and one at the eastern end for the seafood.)
Tech wise, the Deity AI are not as fast as I would have feared. Indeed, their speed is pretty perfect for my needs, as they currently are prooving to be effective trading partners without scaring the living daylight out of me like Deities usually do. They got Alpha on turn 74 (1040 BC) and I have been able to get:
Alpha, Hunting, IW, AH, Math, Calender, Machinery, Construction
Having had to give up:
MC, COL, (Alpha),Philo
Which, at 0AD leaves me with all the "C's" (Calender, Construction, Currency, COL, CS), Machining, Paper an Education.
I have only had one GP so far, an he was used for a bulb (I think on education, but cannot remember with absolute certainty). The second one will come in 13 turns, and will be a GE or GM from the capital (combined 100% odds) which will be saved for a corperation... Hoping for a GE to pair with the GM from Economics, and go Sushi-Mining.
I am pulling in 427 bpt at 100%, and just over 300% bpt at breakeven. I have 670 gc in the bank which is enough to push to Print-Press which is 4 turns away. That is slightly too early actually, since only 4 cottages are matured enough to benifit from it, but there was nothing else more urgent to tech.
Oxford looks like it about 30 turns away without stone, and having already chopped all my forrests into settlers earlier. My and the AI's tech pace means that not only is liberalism pretty much a sure thing, but I am even dreaming of libing at least astronomy, and dare I consider a Deity liberation of Sci-Meth?? With GLH as powerful as it is, I am thinking that I should get the unlocking tech for the corperations (Medicine and RR) before shutting off the LH with corperations.
Who knows, I might even have time to finish this game. I certainly do not have time to play a war game at Deity, but 15 cities might just be enough to get a pretty standard peaceful 1800 space ship launch. With the current pace of the Deity AI, if I can keep all of them from attacking me (which seems plausible in this set-up, especially since I have avoided religion, and plan to go directly to Free-religion withou ever taking one, while they are already unhappy with each others choice of beleif system) and as long as none of them roles all their neighbours and turns into a Monster, 1800 might beat all these AI to space.
Sure it'll go down the drain somewhere though. Not sure whether to go for cuirs/cavs, or cannons and rifles. Or maybe go Sushi with all the sea food around. Lots of options here. 
At least the good news is that I'm alive and even looking to be kicking a bit later. 
). As I have completely NO experience on deity, I am a little aware of space race
Thank you, DS!
). 
