Turn 0: All forest in the BFC so far. outside, expecting to find myself with almost all land tiles and maybe 1-2 food resources. Move Warrior 1SE onto the hill, reveals more plains and hills, no resources.
Haven't seen anything worth risking a move for, so decide to settle in place. Here is a shot of my capital:
Unfortunately, Gold is spotted just outside the NW border of the capitals BFC, as well as grasslands. A second city up there may be able to keep early research competitive.
Given the number of forests and 2 food resources, decide to tech AH -> Mining -> BW. Plan to improve the cow tile first. Also want to find Horses or Copper within reach of the gold.
I don't like sending my first scouting unit back through my own territory, so I will build another Warrior shortly. Use the Warrior to explore my own lands south/south west for a bit.
Turn 6: Meet Ragnar's scout. He must be close. In my experience, getting along with him is possible, but difficult. Perhaps a 2-3 city axe rush might be necessary.
Turn 10: Scouting warrior kills a lion. Find jungle to the south and coast to the south west. Decide not to explore further into the jungle. Looks like there is another source of gold, as well as food. Here is a snapshot of the area:
Rice/gold may be a good city to quickly claim the gold and get research up and running. However, I am leaning towards founding a production city next in case we need to fight Ragnar. Wait and see.
Turn 14: Meet Alexander. Great, just great. Always end up fighting him. That production city is looking better and better.
Turn 21: AH done. Find Horse just outside Ragnars borders. Almost lose warrior to a lion, but he survives and is promoted to Woodsman 1. Plan to rest him up and explore as much of the southeastern portion of the landmass as soon as I can.
Turn 22: Buddhism FIADL.
Turn 23: Worker done, send him to improve cow tile. Start Warrior in capital. Reassign 3F tile to 2F1H cow tile (want N/NW scouting out earlier)
Turn 28: Find Horse deep in the jungle. Decide it is going to be too time consuming to clear the jungle to make early use of it.
Turn 31: Warrior done in capital. Start on another Warrior.
Turn 32: Original warrior defeats a bear while in jungle. Rests until healed.
Turn 33: Mining done. Start BW.
Turn 34: 2nd warrior survives a lion encounter while on a hill. Alex adopts Slavery. (uh oh!
)
Turn 35: Meet Gilgamesh. Every game I have had him as an AI he has done very well, usually is on a different landmass and is the strongest AI by the Industrial/Modern Age. Should be interesting to see him in the early game.
Turn 37: Hinduism founded, by Ragnar. 3rd warrior done, start production of second worker.
I am not aware where Alexander or Gilgamesh are, but I met their scouts south of my city. I believe I may have some land behind me to the north to REX into as well as a few good city spots to the south. I may be able to build my next two cities towards the AI and backfill peacefully after that. We shall see, however. I intend to adopt Hinduism if it spreads to me and no other religions are present.
Turn 40: Warrior 2 kills a wolf. Gets Woodsman 1 promotion. I am obviously not used to the tech pace of Immortal, looks like my Worker will be idle for several turns before BW is in. Not a single non-forest hills tile in the BFC and I don't have roads. Decide to farm the one grassland river tile and work it for the extra commerce. Shaves 2 turns from BW. Also switch production to a barracks to allow Washington to grow a bit. Plan to have worker pop the same turn BW is done.
Turn 42: Meet Wang Kon to the south/southeast. Quite far away. Not a Buddhist.
Turn 44: Meet Mansa Musa's scout. He is the Buddhist founder, and has three worst enemies.
Turn 50: Original warrior dies to a lion while on flat ground. Managed to reveal a bit more of the south. Still only found Wang Kon and Ragnar at this stage. 2nd/3rd warriors finish scouting north, looks like we have a small area behind us with access to lots of resources. Will discuss city placement once copper is revealed.
Turn 55: Worker done in capital, BW reveals one source of copper, but it is in a poor-food area. Here is a picture of the known world with resources on.
Turn 56: Pressed end turn to clear Anarchy, switched to Slavery. RL interrupted me for quite a few hours at this critical point (of course).
There is a possible spot to build a 2nd city to claim sheep/stone, allowing us to try for the Pyramids, but I am worried about the fact I do not have either Hunting nor Archery for defense against barbarians.
I expect the Immortal AI to spawn more barbs than I am used to (although I do play AggAI on Monarch) and the AI to settle very quickly in my direction. Therefore I think I should found city 2 and 3 in the direction of the AI and city 2 should claim the copper.
By my calculations I can found four cities behind me, however, these will mostly be backfill type cities.
I think I have several choices for city 2 site, see the diagram below:
Its 56 turns in and I only have two warriors. I chose site 2 as it will get me copper without a border pop. My dotmap for the backfill cities north of the capital will still use the clams, so those are not lost.
I planned to found city 3 on the coast to claim gold/fish as I should have Fishing and Mysticism available by then, however without a forest to chop early I think it will take too long to produce the monument/workboat. Think I will have to take the rice/gold site behind my capital to get it up and running sooner, although it will also need a border pop to claim the gold.
Tech path is Mysticism → Wheel → Writing.
I don't think I can afford to settle any cities in the jungle, despite the good assortment of resources available there. Plan after that is to let the AI clear out the jungles and prepare for a war against the closest AI (probably Ragnar) with cats/swords.
Add a settler to the build queue, sink a turn in and start applying chops. Alternate between this and Barracks production.
Turn 60: 3rd warrior defeats a barb archer while on a hill. Damn, that is fast. I think this vindicates my decisions on city 2. 2nd warrior fogbusts the proposed 2nd city site.
Turn 69: Barracks in Washington done. Add another Warrior.
Turn 71: Warrior completes due to chop. Sufficient hammers to finish Settler next turn.
Turn 72: Settler completes. Start a Worker.
Turn 74: 2 pop whip Worker. Put overflow into Stonehenge to provide some gold to keep research going.
Turn 75: New York founded. Start a Barracks. Figure city is not in desperate need of a border pop at this stage. Lose 4th warrior to a second archer spawned.
Turn 80: Kill another barb warrior with 2nd warrior. Ragnar has another city close to his capital, claiming dyes.
Turn 82: two more barb archers spawn north of Washington (is this normal on immortal?
) Luckily, this is the exact same turn copper is hooked up to Washington. Prepare an axeman for a 1 pop whip.
Turn 84: Kill one barb archer at 94% odds, though, he does pillage the grassland farm first. Axeman is promoted to Woodsman 2.
Turn 86: Kill second barb archer at 77% odds but lose the corn farm to pillaging. Still think I am dead right now if I didn't hook up Copper that quickly. Decided to leave Stonehenge to build, only four turns left and I already have three workers. Two of my planned science cities need border pops anyway. Plan to chop out another settler after it is complete.
Turn 88: Complete Stonehenge. I think this will work out better than I originally planned: I can now found rice/gold city on the coast and reduce overlap with capital, and I can pick up gold/fish city a bit faster. Lastly, Ragnar has the Hindu holy city, which means a Great Prophet will be very useful in keeping my empire afloat should I capture it. Start building another Axeman and chopping a second Settler.
Turn 90: Check diplo screen of Ragnar. He is the worst enemy of both Wang Kon and Mansa Musa. I want OB to explore Ragnar's lands/religion spread however I decide against it for now, I have a feeling that Mansa Musa will do a better job of spreading Buddishm. I shall try to find out who else is close at hand.
Turn 92: Great Wall built in a faraway land.
Turn 96: Barracks finished in New York. Start on Axeman.
Turn 98: Axeman done in Washington. Settler due to finish in one turn due to two chops.
Turn 99: I stopped here, Writing is to finish this turn, also have an Axeman to move, a Settler to move, and a Worker team to move. Key decision is whether to settle Rice/Gold city or Fish/Gold city. I am now leaning towards settling the Fish/Gold city to deny the site to the AI.
Screenshots of my empire:
South of my empire:
Southeast:
Southwest:
Power:
Proposed city locations:
Plan for next few turns is to get 3rd and 4th cities mining gold for research and crank out more axes, add a fourth Worker and tech Fishing, then beeline to Construction. May try to backfill lands as time allows.
I think my start is actually a lot better than I thought it would turn out, I survived, grabbed an early Wonder and am beginning to develop a military. I think the two barb archers from the north delayed my capital's growth due to the additional whip required (still 20 turns of angry to go) and the two tiles pillaged, but if we build more Settlers it won't grow past the happy cap.
that the leader is one I used two games ago (I always select random) but I will deal with it.
). My third city will take sugar, pigs, copper after first border pop.
