Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 1: 4000 BC to 2850 BC (46 turns)
Most of you called for moving the Scout NE, and I agreed. We can see that there's coast to the west, but since we pretty much all agreed to settle in place, exploring it could wait.
The Scout revealed an additional resource, a rice tile--very nice. That confirmed our decision to settle in place, which I promptly did.
The first build, as recommended, was a Worker; I also chose Animal Husbandry as my first research target. Why not mining? My reasoning was that the capital needed to grow its population in order to work the mine tile, and putting a pasture on the cows would help with that goal considerably. I've learned in Civ IV, after many long, hard lessons, that when given a choice of priorities, food almost always wins.
With 9 civs on the map and medium sea levels, it didn't take long for the neighbours to start showing up.
Normally I'd cozy up to Mansa, since he's such a great tech trading partner, but if he's my closest neighbour, he'll be the first to fall to the Gallic Warriors. If I'm in luck, he'll found a religion and even build a wonder or two before I kill him.
By the way, Mansa showed up from the southeast, as did all the other civs that followed--once the map is revealed further (read on), you'll see why.
On turn 19, AH was done:
Unfortunately, there are no ponies in the vicinity:
My Worker was complete a few turns later, and I got to work on a Scout to further aid exploration. Gotta leverage starting with hunting somehow, especially as there are no camp resources nearby.
On a side note, it's actually kind of liberating to not play with tribal villages. My Scouts were able to focus solely on exploring without any tangential diversions to goody huts. I was also able to take a little more time and avoid some risky situations I'd normally tolerate in the quest for free stuff.
Someone founded Islam. Guess who?
Now I just need him to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine. Although I have noticed in some off-line games lately, the AI making the
move of settling a Great Prophet when they have a holy city with a widespread religion desperately in need of a shrine. 
And we thought settling one tile from the coast was bad! Maybe it's a way of thwarting the ambitions of warmongering human players?
On the diplomatic front, the floodgates opened:
As I mentioned, all are to my southeast. Mansa is more east than south, with Wang Kon further to his east, while Lincoln is more south than east, with Zara further away (thank heavens, I HATE starting next door to a Creative leader) in that same direction.
The next tech was done on turn 30:
I had the Worker start digging a mine on the gold right away, to speed up research of the next tech, the ever-popular Bronze Working.
To that end, I began building a Settler in the capital in anticipation of having copper nearby. Even if it isn't, I wanted to start expanding.
The gold mine was ready quickly and sped up research of BW considerably. meanwhile, I kept exploring and discovering rival territory while dodging barb animals.
Oh, sure, Lincoln has horses. Not me though!
And on turn 46, where I ended the round...
And yes, you can see at lower left that I have copper very close by, so close that if we had moved the Settler one tile in that direction it would be in the capital's fat cross. As things stand, I'll have to found a city down there.
Here's a look at the map as I've explored it thus far.
So the good news is I have a lot of land available to my north for settling. The bad news, as you can see, is that a lot of it is desert. Not all of it though, and there are plenty of resources to compensate. You can see where Mansa is--see the colour-coded rice tile to the SE? Lincoln's territory, meanwhile, is south of those gold and silk tiles.
So the first priority is getting that copper going. I've already seen my first barb military unit, so I need to be ready. The Settler is almost done, but as you might have noticed in the BW screen shot, there's a panther wandering around the city site. Looks like I may have to insert a Warrior (maybe two) into the build queue and send him out to fight or die.
I was thinking that the copper city should go 1S of the copper itself, on the wooded peninsula. It will have the copper in the initial 9-tile cross; in addition, the BFC will claim two spice and two fish tiles. It will have a lot of ocean, too, granted--making it a natural for the Moai Statues. It might just make a good GP farm too. (By the way, I always liked having having off-shore fish, but now I just love 'em. The most recent patch makes the game generate more barb galleys, but those tiles are out of their reach.)
I think a 3rd city will need to be a priority, specifically to close off access to my northern back country. The tile 1N of the rice would do the trick, and would claim the gems and silk as well (though it would miss out on the dye, but you can't have everything).
As for the north, well, the desert makes thinks a little awkward. A food-poor city may be needed 1SE of the stone to claim it and the wine, though it will have an oasis and a couple of irrigated tiles post-bureaucracy. The other two cities I was thinking of up there would probably be (1) right on top of the copper--unfortunate, but the only way to claim both the crabs and fish; and (2) 1W of the pigs, to claim the silk as well and the whales with a later border expansion. However, I look forward to your alternative suggestions; it occurs to me that moving the stone and copper cities might provide for a better configuration.
Anyway, talk about settling the north is getting ahead of ourselves. The AI expands like crazy compared to a human, so if I want any land to my SE (acquired peacefully or through conquest) I'd better get moving.
So what's next, besides settling copper city?
Most of you called for moving the Scout NE, and I agreed. We can see that there's coast to the west, but since we pretty much all agreed to settle in place, exploring it could wait.
The Scout revealed an additional resource, a rice tile--very nice. That confirmed our decision to settle in place, which I promptly did.
The first build, as recommended, was a Worker; I also chose Animal Husbandry as my first research target. Why not mining? My reasoning was that the capital needed to grow its population in order to work the mine tile, and putting a pasture on the cows would help with that goal considerably. I've learned in Civ IV, after many long, hard lessons, that when given a choice of priorities, food almost always wins.
With 9 civs on the map and medium sea levels, it didn't take long for the neighbours to start showing up.
Normally I'd cozy up to Mansa, since he's such a great tech trading partner, but if he's my closest neighbour, he'll be the first to fall to the Gallic Warriors. If I'm in luck, he'll found a religion and even build a wonder or two before I kill him.
By the way, Mansa showed up from the southeast, as did all the other civs that followed--once the map is revealed further (read on), you'll see why.
On turn 19, AH was done:
Unfortunately, there are no ponies in the vicinity:
My Worker was complete a few turns later, and I got to work on a Scout to further aid exploration. Gotta leverage starting with hunting somehow, especially as there are no camp resources nearby.
On a side note, it's actually kind of liberating to not play with tribal villages. My Scouts were able to focus solely on exploring without any tangential diversions to goody huts. I was also able to take a little more time and avoid some risky situations I'd normally tolerate in the quest for free stuff.
Someone founded Islam. Guess who?
Now I just need him to generate a Great Prophet for the shrine. Although I have noticed in some off-line games lately, the AI making the
move of settling a Great Prophet when they have a holy city with a widespread religion desperately in need of a shrine. And we thought settling one tile from the coast was bad! Maybe it's a way of thwarting the ambitions of warmongering human players?On the diplomatic front, the floodgates opened:
As I mentioned, all are to my southeast. Mansa is more east than south, with Wang Kon further to his east, while Lincoln is more south than east, with Zara further away (thank heavens, I HATE starting next door to a Creative leader) in that same direction.
The next tech was done on turn 30:
I had the Worker start digging a mine on the gold right away, to speed up research of the next tech, the ever-popular Bronze Working.
To that end, I began building a Settler in the capital in anticipation of having copper nearby. Even if it isn't, I wanted to start expanding.
The gold mine was ready quickly and sped up research of BW considerably. meanwhile, I kept exploring and discovering rival territory while dodging barb animals.
Oh, sure, Lincoln has horses. Not me though!
And on turn 46, where I ended the round...
And yes, you can see at lower left that I have copper very close by, so close that if we had moved the Settler one tile in that direction it would be in the capital's fat cross. As things stand, I'll have to found a city down there.
Here's a look at the map as I've explored it thus far.
So the good news is I have a lot of land available to my north for settling. The bad news, as you can see, is that a lot of it is desert. Not all of it though, and there are plenty of resources to compensate. You can see where Mansa is--see the colour-coded rice tile to the SE? Lincoln's territory, meanwhile, is south of those gold and silk tiles.
So the first priority is getting that copper going. I've already seen my first barb military unit, so I need to be ready. The Settler is almost done, but as you might have noticed in the BW screen shot, there's a panther wandering around the city site. Looks like I may have to insert a Warrior (maybe two) into the build queue and send him out to fight or die.
I was thinking that the copper city should go 1S of the copper itself, on the wooded peninsula. It will have the copper in the initial 9-tile cross; in addition, the BFC will claim two spice and two fish tiles. It will have a lot of ocean, too, granted--making it a natural for the Moai Statues. It might just make a good GP farm too. (By the way, I always liked having having off-shore fish, but now I just love 'em. The most recent patch makes the game generate more barb galleys, but those tiles are out of their reach.)
I think a 3rd city will need to be a priority, specifically to close off access to my northern back country. The tile 1N of the rice would do the trick, and would claim the gems and silk as well (though it would miss out on the dye, but you can't have everything).
As for the north, well, the desert makes thinks a little awkward. A food-poor city may be needed 1SE of the stone to claim it and the wine, though it will have an oasis and a couple of irrigated tiles post-bureaucracy. The other two cities I was thinking of up there would probably be (1) right on top of the copper--unfortunate, but the only way to claim both the crabs and fish; and (2) 1W of the pigs, to claim the silk as well and the whales with a later border expansion. However, I look forward to your alternative suggestions; it occurs to me that moving the stone and copper cities might provide for a better configuration.
Anyway, talk about settling the north is getting ahead of ourselves. The AI expands like crazy compared to a human, so if I want any land to my SE (acquired peacefully or through conquest) I'd better get moving.
So what's next, besides settling copper city?
- Builds: Like I said, I was thinking of inserting a Warrior or two in the queue before the Settler pops out to provide escort services. After that, I think another Worker would be in order, followed by a chopped/whipped barracks and Axemen. I anticipate the forests going toward units rather than wonders in this game, BTW.
- Techs: I was thinking of going after Agriculture so I can farm the rice. That would help the city grow and provide fuel for whipping. Fishing will then be needed for the coastal copper city. After that, also to help support whipping, I was thinking of pursuing Pottery for Granaries, and to start on cottages; the economy is one of Boudica's biggest weak points, after all. The gold will help, as will the gems, but only for so long.
You have lots of useless tiles for the northern three cities, simply working water tiles could be the way to go. Not to mention that you could build some forges for two more happiness. Boudica the wonder-spammer, heh.
). But it's a moot point anyway since there really aren't any better sites to settle. 
