An interesting start

[jdstacey]

I did the obvious, and it got a whole lot better.

 

[diegovelasco45]

Oracle?

 

[BarbarianArcher]

Yuck, it looks like the only possible food is a plainscow or a wheat. :/
I'll check out the save...

EDIT: I don't know how to open saves... Oh well. Should be interesting to see.

 

[jdstacey]

After 1 turn.

Spoiler :

If anybody decides to play it out, there's a couple really lousy surprises ...

 

[lymond]

I don't think I've ever seen 3 marbles like that (by the way, please put resources bubbles on). What difficulty is this game?

Too bad you could not settle on the marble PH for an additional hammer. Having the wet wheat though supercedes it.

 

[michmbk]

Hee hee hee - that was kind of fun - an unorthodox start seemed to be ideal for this rare situation - this is emperor, and I did settle on the marble plains hill:

Spoiler :

Scout reveals pigs next to marble, so we spend a turn to settle on plains hill marble, find out in turn 4 we're boxed in by everybody's favorite rathead expander Joao.

So, I did the unobvious - we start by building henge in 20 turns with the 3 hammer capital and a 3 hammer hill while researching worker techs, and we find horse. You know what that means....





9 cities at 200 BC with 3 more easy to settle spots...economy crashed. I won't finish, but this is how I'd finish: Limp to alphabet, build research and cottage up to limp to currency/COL, use sheer amount of land claimed to kill everyone else. While doing that, use all the remaining HAs and axes to go claim the couple of barb cities I see to the north, and also it looks like I'd get even more land north, to easily end up with 15-20 cities.

 

[jdstacey]

@michmbk

Spoiler :

I did something similar with axes instead. My economy totally crashed, so when I took over Lisbon with its stone, I started building the Pyramids for failure gold. Strangely, I got the mids instead of the gold.

In the meantime, I did pretty much what you suggested. I think it's salvageable - I'm not _that_ far behind in tech now.

The real bummer is the TOTAL lack of happiness resources in the area.

 

[michmbk]

jdstacey:

Spoiler :

I was lucky enough to get mids too - Joao was kind enough to build mids, great wall and oracle in Lisbon. How he managed to do that AND get 5 cities out is beyond me, but it worked out.

I played about 50-75 more turns - deleted units, scrounged my way to alphabet, then built research to get to currency, COL and calendar. To combat the happiness, I used rep and the all important sacrificial altar. Unfortunately I had a lot of cottages built to rescue the economy.

I still kept settling north to claim the sugar, silk and gems for more happiness. Built a city on a hill near Alex to plan for the impending war and stopped. At that point, I had 16 cities, starting to get the tech rate up, so the game is over. Simply defend from Alex while teching up to the usual horse units, and I'd have my whole continent. Doesn't matter what the other continent is doing (although they seem slow in my game - was still getting wonders easily even after the crash).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Spoiler :

Settling on marble or in place + chariot rush is the most efficient approach to wiping out Joao on this map IMO; it's not like you'll need the extra power of HAs for anything else and chariots can hit very fast/hard allowing you time to take wonders of choice afterward.

 

[michmbk]

TMIT:

Spoiler :

I totally agree - look at my numbers with the HAs - I took FIVE cities and lost 2 HAs and 3 axes. Chariots would have done it much faster, and I actually had to delete some of the HAs to make it to alphabet (was bleeding cash at 0%).

It did end up working out ok, as Joao built Mids, GW and Oracle, so that was a side benefit of waiting for HAs, but yes, it would have been much easier to tech up to alphabet while massing chariots than waiting for HAs.

I thought about taking my forces up to harass Alex, but he was kind of far away, and I figured he'd have enough metal to chew through the HAs. Probably should have, because it's not like I'd ever get good diplo with him & me as the only two left.