Stalin; Pangea; want to share

I think first move scout have 2 options - hill east or north. I moved east, and revealed second corn (riverside) and oasis. So I moved to settle on that hill.Scout went further east, but didn't reveal anything worth moving for again, so I founded Moscow there.Looking good, 12 turn worker from extra hammer and 8 turn Agriculture from working oasis. Next turn scout revealed probably coast north side and someone's borders right next to me.Great, turn 3 and I already met someone.Turn 5 I met another AI!It feels crowded already! Turn 9 one more AI showed up.Finished Agri and started on BW. When the borders expanded I saw I moved away from cows, so I'll skip AH for now. Brennus founded and converted to Buddhism. On turn 11 I met 2 more AI's.Sally founded and converted to Hinduism. Turn 13 worker finished and sent to farm riverside corn; started on warrior. I didn't alt*warrior, is that BULL doing on it's own?Farm finished, going for other corn. Turn 19 I met last AI.I guess that's Emperor, AI starts with 2 scouts. So that's all of them.Turn 23 BW finished, started on TWheel. Scout did a good job, and he's still alive. So this is area around.East Brennus, west Huayna Capac, south Mao Zedong. Between us thin jungled area. Scout almost died, but managed to reveal coastline, unfortunately without any seafood. He'll get inside borders to heal now and auto explore. He did his job well.Am I crazy if I want this city? LOLNow that I revealed copper near, I think second city should be here, with all that in 1st ring.Who of this crew should I put my EP's on? I put'em on Brennus only 2-3 turns ago - forgot to put'em sooner - cause he's closest to me. And I like his capital I should settle marked city next, I shouldn't go for one I like so much next to Brennus, right? Should I try to axe rush him? His UU needs metal, so worst case I could be against chariots. If I'm fast enough. Fast enough on Emperor means rush with only 2 cities? Chop&whip ~7 axes to start with capital and keep them coming till he's dead. Or should I go for HC? I finished 1 warrior, put few turn in 2nd and as soon as Moscow grew to size 4 started on settler. Second corn improved, worker in position to chop settler.

I do like the start! Lots of options here indeed.

Don't put EP on the tarhget you intend to kill. You'll only lose it once he is destroyed.

Overall I thinky uo have it right. Build 2nd city. Your number 2 site looks fine. Or you could settle on the copper up north near the flood plains. 1 road connects both cities to the copper. I think your site blocks off land better.

Celts or Incans? Probably Celts it will leave a mainly hindu pangea map that could cause some AP religious issues later.

_ The start is very very strong, but you are gonna have to make the best out of your surrounding area, because there is sea to the north, a ZEALOT WARMONGER immediately to the east, a ZEALOT to your west, and a protective guy and jungle to the south. On emperor and up, this will hopefully force you to think heavily about early diplo and expansion. As good as the start is, bad choices will not be very forgiving.

_ one of the long term options will be 'less attractive' than anticipated, but I won't spoil that yet

_Saladin, Huyana or Darius are all pretty good techers if I'm not mistaken.
_ Gumbolt is probably right about copper, but I don't feel you are forced to take it on emperor. Your warriors have combatI out of the door, lots of forest to fogbust. You could probably afford to strike further out to block land if you felt like it. Or you could stay small and go for an oracle>metalcasting slingshot? You are industrious

By settling on copper you mean literally ON copper? I thought 1S or even better 1SW (screw the coast, it's pangaea). It can be great 6 pop city (cow, 2 hills, copper, 2 farmed FP's). But it needs border pop to get FP's - actually one FP could be in with capital's border pop. It needs AH. My marked site is intended to get copper & ivory. But yeah I think HC won't try to fit his city between his capital and that one. Hopefully. Do I have time to get 3 cities before attack? Probably not..maybe if I build settler with chops & OF's from axes?
So I guess after TWheel something like Pottery - Writing - AH...granaries & barracks, library in capital and axes.

Thanks for info on techers & warmongers! I thought it's something like that, and Mao is too far for early war so I guess Brennus is first on the list as he's closest. And from what I watched ppl play so far, he can get big & strong if not under control. I should build more fogbusters right? I thought with copper near, I'll wait for axes...as soon as I saw AI so close I didn't even think about Oracle Industrious & marble Doh! Well, there's long list of marble wonders, that'll help with future wonders if not for Oracle.

Personally I think both options; copper or striking out to block off more land, are viable. As I said before It depends what you wanna do in the mid term.
You wanna make early war? Stay small, claim copper, and break out. On emperor you can pull AXE/Catapult to take Brennus out easily You won't need more than four five cities for this. On Immortal I'd wait for phants I struggle on Immortal though so maybe ive got that wrong
If you think you can keep everyone nice and friendly, the oracle slingshot and blocking of land looks very nice to me too. You could probably lib something insane with this start.

Diplo, AI relations & behavior is what I lack the most. With few warmongers on the map it might be hard to get & maintain good relations, at least for me. Mid-term goals...dunno, I don't even know what to do with my capital yet. I don't want to go into jungle yet (I want that banana&corn&dye or gems city for comm soon tho, maybe even switch capital to it) and Bibracte is looking good cause of that gold, so I'd say mid-term goal would be to get rid of one AI (Brennus), take his & that good land around him and me and get bigger then the rest of crew

If I can pull that off and not get while recovering economy and setting things up after early rush, I should be in good position. But then again, my earliest plans seems to change a lot. Adapt and survive, right?

I'm so intrigued what you meant by "one of the long term options will be 'less attractive' than anticipated, but I won't spoil that yet" cause I can't see that. But I'm not gonna ask. Maybe I figure it out. If I don't, will you tell me? Later?

For me an axe rush is getting 2 cities set up asap.
Maybe 1-2 barracks. Promotions do help but numbers win the day.
Granary?? I might not wait for this if it delays the attack.
Library ??? Why build a library when you are preparing for war?? Half your war production gone!

Overall I would want my 7-9 axes built pretty much soon as I have connected the copper and got the food resources and roads connected.

Oops Yeah, I see what you mean. But whipping with granary might be worth it, as I have good food tiles?

Yeah that is not a bad idea but consider the time frame. 2000bc start for the war? Early rushes should be completed early. If you are getting into 1500-1000bc something has gone wrong.

2 city axerush ? no cats gumbolt? I dunno but isnt that a little bit specific for people that are still learning? I mean I m sure you can pull that off on deity and everything, but stuff like that , when you are already playing a level above what you normally do seems to be asking alot from people
1500BC catapult+axes on 4 cities seems so much... easier? Dunno I'll have to take the map for a spin again.

Thanks to advice, I put my EP's on Sally. Worker chopped 2 turns off of settler and I didn't want to waste 1 turn waiting for TWheel, so I went to chop some more.Turn 29 started researching Pottery. Settler finished on turn worker finished 2nd chop, so I put that into 2nd worker. Warrior is still in queue.I send settler to marked position, worker to build road and switched to slavery. Next turn, anarchy is over and St. Petersburg is founded.Game auto-switched corn tile to St. P. just like I wanted. Started on barracks. I like this addition in BULL (showing when I'll start loosing hammers), but I'm still undecided on alt*units thing.Scout healed and I sent him to scout around Brennus. Instantly he spotted his settler. I hope he settles good spot Worker finished road on corn, so he went to built road on copper, while new worker build road on marble. I think I got that right, if I would wait turn for TWheel before, I'd finish connecting cities 1 turn sooner, but now I got 2nd worker 3 turns sooner.Sally already finished Writing, so I OB with him. I think putting EP's on him was also good idea! Brennus founded Vienne. Yeah I think that'd be good. But probably production center now, not comm like I planed Turn 37 Finished Pottery and started on Writing. Finished warrior in Moscow and....I want one more worker. Those 2 connected cities, one is mining copper, 2nd joined him to finish it next turn.Next turn, mine is done, copper in both cities, so I whipped both. One worker started farming 3rd corn.St. P. was 1 pop whip, but I wanted to start on axes. Now is a good thing that BULL auto alt-ed units Maybe I should've waited to grow 1 more before 1st whip? New worker went chopping grassland hill N of Moscow, and 2nd camping ivory.Scout went around Vienne and saw copper...luckily outside Brennus's borders. I hope he doesn't have 2nd nearby like I have! Unlikely, right?Turn 42 all 3 workers finished their jobs. One went chopping on spices, second connected ivory, and 3rd stayed to mine grasshill. Well, from here on they were mostly chopping and I was whipping. Well, one had time to build a road on 2 tiles toward Brennus. On turn 49 Writing is finished, so I started on Aest and lowered slider to 0. OB with everyone except Darius. He was worst enemy of Brennus ad Ragnar. Well for Brennus doesn't matter (hopefully) but I don't want bad relations with Ragnar. I decided to leave 4 forests in both BFC's for health. For now. So one worker went to road toward HC, one to mine, and one to build some roads.Cause scout revealed only 2 archers in his capital. And I had 8 axes ready, 1 on his way and 2 more out next turn. Time to close in.OK, I think that should be enough whipping.
That's 11 with 2 more coming next turn. I hope that's enough!So turn 54:I hope he don't get much more, he had 2 archers last turn. He kicked out my scout, so I can't see now.I had to build settler in Moscow on size 2 and worker in St. P. on size 1 cause I couldn't grow. Newest 3 xp axe went to deal with archer. I hope he doesn't pillage my mine.My stack is in place. He still have only 2 archers in!2 axes went between his cities and 2 toward 2nd city via shortest line.Man I'm using a lot of screenshots

Turn 56 decision time. He got 3rd archer in. I attacked with 0 xp guy first at 23%. Lost. Second at the same odds won! 3rd at 30% lost. OK, one more left and it's wounded. So I use 3xp guy, promote him to CR. 85% lost. Now I use 3 xp guy without promo. Won at 100% but got only 1 xp.City is empty, but land is decent. Attacked his archer on my mine with Cover guy and lost at 86%.I just barely scratched him.Are these odds backwards?? At least he didn't pillage. No time to heal, leaved the most wounded guy in Bibracte, and went toward Vienne, only 1 archer is there!Well, when I got to it, there were 3. And 2 workers. I have 8 axes. This should work!OK; let's do it! Again, first no promo guy at 17% to soften him. Win. Second at 20% lost. 3rd I use 3 xp with CR at 26%. Win! And last 4 xp guy at 100% won!Captured! Another empty city LOL But land even better then his capital.But main thing, 1 AI less to worry about! I roaded all the way into incas land for traderoute.I like his capital as well LOL And there's a lot of ivory all around!

My relations suffered -1 for friend thing with Mao, HC and Ragnar.Just now when traderoute completed, I traded cow for corn with HC. Still no one have Alpha. I have 9 axes left, 7xp highest My tech tree is empty, I guess I'll go with Aest and trade it around. I have to start on GS somewhere. And plan specialization. I'd like to start cottaging as well. Any thoughts on specialization?
I think if Moscow comm, then St. P. GPF, Bibracte comm, Vienne prod. Or comm? Or some hybrid. And few more around for help with developing cottages. Or Moscow GPF?

Settled SE onto plains hill for the extra food resource and higher initial . Teched agriculture, bronze, wheel/pottery/writing and chopped axes, settling the copper to the west.

I built a few workers, each city had a rax, then chopped axes. First target was Boudica, who died easily. While killing her with about 10 axes, I built more axes and attacked HC. While fighting HC, I chopped out more axes in Celt land and used them to attack Ragnar.

At 1 AD, Celts and Inca were dead, and Ragnar had one city off in the northeast. I left him that one city, because it let me get techs from peace. Specifically, it let me get alphabet, mathematics, iron working, sailing, and animal husbandry from peace. Using that + banked gold (was losing about 40/turn at 100% gold so major danger of strike, but was banking during all this war) I built research to currency + brokered tech a bit (nobody offered more than 2 gold/turn, so no resource subsidy abuse). So, at 1 AD we have an empire that stretches coast to coast east to west, more than double anybody else's land, and aren't even in danger of strike. Game over.

I did play it out a bit though. Sal liked me, and Ragnar PAvassaled to China who disliked me due to "DoW on turn 0 friend". Eventually China declared on me, which was scary briefly because he had cho ko nu and maces late in that war and I still had axes. I sneak-attacked a city of his with a leftover axe stack then offered it up for peace .

Because China and Arabia were in different religions, there wasn't much trading to be had in this game. I had most of the land but was in recovery mode, making the global tech pace glacial. I stopped playing around 1500 AD, having captured all of China's mainland cities. Sal was going culture but his #3 wasn't even at 8000 yet. I was using medieval forces (trebs, lots of knights, longbows and some muskets), and so was china! Sal was about to get rifles, but I was about to get steel + could just build wealth into grenadiers and spank him dead with triple his land + gren/cannon. I didn't feel like playing that out though...this was truly over by 1 AD.

2 city axerush ? no cats gumbolt? I dunno but isnt that a little bit specific for people that are still learning?

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No, he needs to learn that 2 city rush is the way to go in this situation:

1. You have readily available copper and the good tech path shows it early
2. You have at least one dangerous civ nearby as well as a soft target
3. You are aggressive, and thus get less expensive barracks AND stronger axes

These factors combine such that you'd want to take advantage of your trait situation immediately. The start is OK for but great for . A catapult war would probably work (esp with noobiphants) but drilling the AI with cover or CR axes ASAP is even better IMO.

On deity only, the axe rush would be hard to pull off, but people with good micro and understanding of abusing the AI limitations of war could probably still do it and come out well ahead. You wouldn't be able to effectively triple axe rush like on emperor though .