Played the first 100 turns quite fast. Screenshot below is from turn 101. Enjoyed it so far, already ruined theodora by stealing her workers, killing her settler escorts with just a scout and warrior and taking her settlers as workers. I got like 4 workers just from bullying her and 2 workers from barbs that stole them from CS. I also found the pot of 500 gold early and bought a settler that settled sri pada. I think I'm doing very good so far, looking at the demographics screen.
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
As proven in previous games that beelining the internet is faster CV I will be trying that.
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
I settled in place and did scout, monument, scout, granary (because we have wheat & deer). Scouted the sri pada early so skipped shrine. 1 Archer and some turns in caravan before starting settler spam.
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I only hard built 3 scouts, but sadly 2 got killed by barbs. I didn't scout my continent fully yet, I should have done a better job at that but it's difficult going with the mountains and civs and cs blocking. I'm wondering if everything is on one continent or not. Maybe to the east of France or south of China, but I have the feeling not much is there and there's a 2nd continent.
- What were your initial priorities?
Because I saw quite a few luxes early I wanted to go for liberty and started spamming settlers. Got 2 early trade routes going with france and netherlands to try to combat the negative penalties I got from spamming cities. Now building infrastructure.
- What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery, AH (for selling horses), mining(from ruin), Masonry (to get stone circles and happiness). BW (for selling iron), sailing for 2nd trade route. Calendar for happiness. Philosopy for oracle. Engineering (3rd trade route and aquaducts after libraries). Work shops, and now teching to universities.
- What Social Policies did you choose?
Liberty + 2 in aesthetics.
- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
Only oracle. I contemplated going for Chichen Itza because China was the only civ with that tech (I saw her having 4 food farms) and then bam she got it. Turns out I didn't see the building sprite going up, even though I had bought an embassy with her. Just didn't look carefully enough. Luckily I didn't waste any hammers on it yet.
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Yea, I saved all faith for prophet, prophet, missionary. I got stone circles, pagoda's, mosques, tithe, iternant preachers. Just built some shrines. I really have to get the faith engine going, because I really need the happiness from the buildings soon. I picked stone circles because it was gonna give 6 faith instead of 4 for the natural wonders one. (I didn't want to fight the CS for the pot of gold wonder)