Ciceronian
Latin Scholar
I was inspired to have a go at this thanks to Mark1031, who managed to pull off exactly that win himself. Thread is here. Now I thought to myself, that didnt sound too hard, I bet you could to that yourself. So here I am, having never ever played the always war or one city challenge variants, never gone for a 20k cultural victory and never having played above Emperor. Mind you, Im not a bad player, I managed to launch the spaceship in 1475 in the last COTM (Monarch), but Im not particularly great either.
I go ahead with almost the same settings as Mark, that is small archipelago world, 80% water, dry, cold, no barbs, young (mountainous) world. Call this plagiarism, but I figured they would pretty much be the best settings for this game. I set the civs to Mongols, Celts, Americans, Zulus and Arabs. This is because the expansionist trait is worthless on a no barb archipelago, and militaristic is fairly unimportant as they wont be getting off their islands anyway. Ill also let them be religious, they dont get any anarchies on Sid anyway and they dont need temples in this game either. I of course choose the Byzantines as my civ, they are just too perfect for this game. Scientific trait to let me research quicker, since I wont be able to trade techs. I have turned SGLs on since I am scientific and thus have greater chances of getting one. Seafaring of course, perfect for an archipelago world, with one extra move on my ships and an extra commerce in my coastal city, and cheap harbours. Also good chances for suicide curraghs. And the most important factor, the Byzantine UU, the dromon. With the dromon I can bombard the coastlines of the AI and cripple them completely, and I can dominate the seas and sink their puny galleys.
Now for finding a suitable start. I figured I will need to be alone on my island, I need fresh water next to the capital, I will need some bonus resources in my capital radius, and I will need a few luxs on my island, especially ivory, which I need to build the Statue of Zeus, to get some free military just in case and some extra culture. I spend ages searching, but I have to discard all the starts because one or more of the above is always missing. Im about to use Marks start (who had cows and fresh water near the capital and ivory on the island) when I finally get a decent start. Im alone, have two cows, two wheat and two BG in my capital radius and only grassland and forest otherwise. There are 5 luxuries on the island (furs, incense, dyes, gems and hurray, ivory!). The only problem is no fresh water near the capital. Oh well, I guess the rest makes up for it, Ill have to live with it and build an aqueduct sometime.
Heres a picture of the start. Ive already moved the worker east onto the hill to have a look about. I settled on that hill then for a very nicely placed town.
I go ahead with almost the same settings as Mark, that is small archipelago world, 80% water, dry, cold, no barbs, young (mountainous) world. Call this plagiarism, but I figured they would pretty much be the best settings for this game. I set the civs to Mongols, Celts, Americans, Zulus and Arabs. This is because the expansionist trait is worthless on a no barb archipelago, and militaristic is fairly unimportant as they wont be getting off their islands anyway. Ill also let them be religious, they dont get any anarchies on Sid anyway and they dont need temples in this game either. I of course choose the Byzantines as my civ, they are just too perfect for this game. Scientific trait to let me research quicker, since I wont be able to trade techs. I have turned SGLs on since I am scientific and thus have greater chances of getting one. Seafaring of course, perfect for an archipelago world, with one extra move on my ships and an extra commerce in my coastal city, and cheap harbours. Also good chances for suicide curraghs. And the most important factor, the Byzantine UU, the dromon. With the dromon I can bombard the coastlines of the AI and cripple them completely, and I can dominate the seas and sink their puny galleys.
Now for finding a suitable start. I figured I will need to be alone on my island, I need fresh water next to the capital, I will need some bonus resources in my capital radius, and I will need a few luxs on my island, especially ivory, which I need to build the Statue of Zeus, to get some free military just in case and some extra culture. I spend ages searching, but I have to discard all the starts because one or more of the above is always missing. Im about to use Marks start (who had cows and fresh water near the capital and ivory on the island) when I finally get a decent start. Im alone, have two cows, two wheat and two BG in my capital radius and only grassland and forest otherwise. There are 5 luxuries on the island (furs, incense, dyes, gems and hurray, ivory!). The only problem is no fresh water near the capital. Oh well, I guess the rest makes up for it, Ill have to live with it and build an aqueduct sometime.
Heres a picture of the start. Ive already moved the worker east onto the hill to have a look about. I settled on that hill then for a very nicely placed town.