First, let's assess our start position. At first our start doesn't look that good, we have one excellent tile, the deer, and a nice BG, but the rest doesn't look too promising. However, we are agricultural, and the end of a river is visible in the fog, two tiles E of our settler. This makes it quite likely, that something is to be gained by moving the settler before founding our capital. So the first move should be:
T000, 4000 BC:
Move worker on the deer. This serves two purposes at the same time:
- the deer is our strongest tile, so by cracker's rule it should be the first tile to get improved.
- it will uncover 3 tiles towards the river and give us a better idea whether a better spot for or first town might be available there.
After moving the worker, we indeed see a nice river bank at the tile E-SE:
I decide to move the settler to that tile, as it will achieve three advantages:
- In despotism, the agricultural trait gives an extra food to the city center, only if the town is adjacent to fresh water. Our capital will be our strongest city for most of the early phase, so having that food there is of utmost importance. Especially as the deer tile will bring us to 4fpt, which is not optimal: with a granary we need 10f for growth, so with the deer only, we would grow in 3 turns, making 12f, which wastes 2f (until we have a second town that can share the deer tile while the capital doesn't need it). By getting the extra agricultural food, we get to 5fpt and perfect 2-turn growth.
- By settling between the river and the deer, our worker can immediately irrigate that important tile, unlocking the power of the deer very early.
- By moving the capital away from the coast into a more centralized position, we make room for more first ring towns. Having a central capital is very important in order to minimize the early impact of corruption!
One slight disadvantage is, that we can't send an early curragh for exploration. But as we are not seafaring, we don't get any other advantage from keeping our capital on the coast.
So I move the settler 1E.
T001, 3950 BC:
Worker starts chopping the forest. (We need to irrigate that tile asap. I think utilizing a 4f tile early on is much more powerful than utilizing it as a 2f-2s tile.) Settler moves SE.
T002, 3900 BC:
Entremont is founded. The forest will fall in the IBT after two turns. As there is nothing the town can produce in these two turns, I set production to Wealth. I also select the river grassland SE, which makes 2f1c. As we want to earn lots of cash very soon for the planned warrior -> GS upgrade, I set Alphabet as our first research project and set 100% science. Entremont now looks like this:
T003, 3850 BC:
Nada
T004, 3800 BC:
In the interturn, the timber will fall, therefore I now switch production from Wealth to Warrior.
T005, 3750 BC:
Our Warrior completes. I want to send this one out for exploration and making contacts, and build a second one quickly, as on Emperor, we need military police already from town size 2 on.
Judging from the minimap, we are somewhat in the northern half of the map, so more contacts are probably to be expected towards the south. Also the river extends southwards and therefore the better land for further settlements is to be expected there, so we should explore that area. Warrior moves 1S on the hill.
In order to get an extra shield for the next warrior, I now select the BG. Entremont looks like this:
The worker starts irrigating.
T006, 3700 BC:
Warrior moves straight S again in order to get on the mountains.
Again I need to change the tile assignment for Entremont: we have 8 food left before growth, and by switching from the BG to the deer, we can grow in 2 instead of 3 turns.
Now a little trick: I ring up the governor and make sure that the flag "Emphasize Production" is set to yes, while everything else is set to no. This has the following effect: when the town grows in two turns, the governor will select a shield-rich tile for the new-born citizen in-between turns, (in our case a forest) and the two extra shields will already be counted to our production of the previous turn! (If the governor would select a food-rich tile interturn, the food would be wasted anyway, because the town has just grown and starts with an empty food box next turn in any case. Note: this trick with getting free shields during interturn only works, if the town is making 4fpt or more! If it is making 3fpt, then the governor selects the tile with the most food, even if "Emphasize production" is selected...
T007, 3650 BC:
Warrior moves S on the mountain. At the moment we have the following view of the map:
We can already see two excellent sites for future settlements, 2 tiles to the E, where there is a nice location on the river with (at least) two floodplains for fast growth, two BGs for good production and lots of commerce due to the river. And 4 tiles in SW direction there is an excellent spot on the river with a cow and a BG.
Note that the production box currently contains 3 shields, and Entremont is producing 1spt, so it should be 4s next turn, right?
T008, 3600 BC:
Our town has grown, the governor selected a forest tile as expected, and the production box now magically contains 6s!
I switch the forest to the BG, so the warrior will still complete in 2 turns, but we make more food. (It looks like we are making 4fpt at the moment, but if you click on the worker, it says the irrigation will finish "in 1 turn", which actually means it will finish in the interturn, before the next turn's food, production and commerce will be calculated. So we are already making 5fpt and have 4-turn growth!
I also increase the lux slider to 20%, as our second citizen is already unhappy and Entremont would riot next turn, if we don't do anything about this. (In contrast to Regent and Monarch, where the first two citizens are born content, on Emperor we have only one content citizen. I think this is the biggest handicap on Emperor. The 20% production bonus for the AI doesn't matter that much, as the AI wastes most of that bonus anyway, due to non-existent micro-management...)
At 20%, the first citizen becomes happy, which balances the unhappy guy.
Warrior moves 1S on the next mountain. (In general, it is advantageous to move straight along the diagonals, as that way the longest distances can be covered. If there are contacts in the south, we will meet them faster that way. Also it is good in general, to move along mountain/hill ranges or along the coast line as that way the scout can uncover more tiles than on flat land.)
T009, 3550 BC:
As expected, the irrigation finished interturn, and we made already 5 food this turn:
Worker starts a road now, warrior moves south again.
T010, 3500 BC:
The warrior finishes and I fortify it in Entremont. Thanks to the MP, I can ow set science back to 100%. I decide to build a third warrior, as Entremont grows fast and we can soon use another warrior for MP duty (or for scouting up north).
T011, 3450 BC:
Warrior 1S.
T012, 3400 BC:
Entremont has grown to size 3, and something very strange has happened, which I have never seen before: the new citizen is not put to work on a tile, but added as an entertainer!!
But we can see, that 6s are in the box, while in the previous turn we had only 2s. So I think, the following has happened: Entremont has grown to 3, the new citizen was assigned to the forest, and 4s (1 from city center, one from BG and two from forest) were added to the shield box, making it 2+4=6. Then the city borders were expanded due to our first cultural expansion. When doing this, the governor automatically rechecks the new available tiles, if there is something better available than the ones currently worked. It didn't find any, but it noticed, that the town is currently in an "unhappy state", so it took one citizen off the BG and turned it into an entertainer.
Of course I change the tile assignment now to the one that makes most sense: BG and river grassland. After setting luxury back to 20%, we again make 5fpt and the warrior finishes in 2 turns without wasting any shields.
Worker moves to the BG now, as this is the next strong tile to be improved. Warrior moves 1W to get a good view from the mountain top. We see lots of jungle and swamps down there, but also some dyes, which could become our first luxury and trade good with the AI. Especially on Emperor and higher, it is important to hook up luxuries early as to allow our towns to grow without having to sink to much gold into the luxury slider... (Only one content-born citizen, remember?)
T013, 3350 BC:
Warrior goes S (what else...). But now the big question: should the worker first build a road or a mine? On one hand, we want lots of commerce to get the Republic as soon as possible, on the other hand we want more shields so we can finish the granary sooner and get a 4-turn settler factory up and running. A real guru would now take out his spreadsheet and exactly calculate the consequences of both options. But as I am kind of lazy bastard, I let my "gut feeling" decide... The reasoning is basically as follows: in the next 9 turns I make
- 6 extra gold, if building the road and then the mine
- 3 extra shields, if building the mine and then the road
After these 9 turns, everything is equal again. 6 beakers towards Alphabet seem to make more of an impact than 3 shields towards the granary. (If necessary, we can always use a forest or two, if really shields are missing in the last 2-3 turns of completing the granary.) Also building a road has an advantage in case barbarians turn up: if the road is already finished, the worker can abandon building a mine, seek shelter in the town and later move back onto the tile without loosing a turn. But if there is no road on the tile, the worker will always loose a turn coming back to it. Or alternatively, if there is a road on the tile, both warriors from Entremont could move onto it and fortify in the same turn, giving good barb protection to the worker.
So I start the road.
T014, 3300 BC:
The third warrior finishes and is fortified as MP. I can set the lux slider back to 0%, research to 100%.
Next project is the granary. I have been thinking for very long, whether a settler first might be better, especially since we have two very good sites for a possible second town. Another reason for an early settler might be the following: we have only one more 2-food tile (the river grassland at 2SE). So once we hit size 5 (which we will do in 6 turns), we would no longer be able to run 5fpt and consequently our growth would slow down. By spitting out a settler first, our worker would have the time to irrigate one or two of the plains tiles and then we can again sustain 5fpt until we hit size 7.
However, the chance of getting a 4-turn settler factory much sooner intrigues me and so I go for the granary. I'm not completely sure, it's the best option, though, and it will be very interesting to compare to someone who went for a settler first!
Warrior moves 1S on another mountain and spots a red border!
T015, 3250 BC:
A scout appears in the north and we have our first contact: the Americans! The know Bronze Working and Masonry, we know Ceremonial Burial. However, CB is only 36 beakers, while BW and Masonry are 56 and 74 beakers respectively, so they will certainly not trade a tech with us yet. We could sell CB for 10g, but I wait until we have established contact to the red borders to the south, perhaps they have something to trade, that the Americans don't know yet, opening up the opportunity for a "two-fer".
Warrior 1S.
T016, 3200 BC:
Warrior S again and we meet the Romans (who have two workers improving a cow tile!!
- Never seen an AI doing this before...)
The Romans are a bit more advanced than the Americans, knowing Bronze, Masonry, Alphabet and Warrior Code! They must certainly have done some tech trading with someone else already...
But they don't know Pottery and CB, yet, so here there should be some business opportunities...
First of all note, that thanks to hat contact the remaining time for Alphabet now dropped from 8 to 6 turns!
They are willing to make two deals:
- WC + 16 gold for our Pottery + CB. This would be an excellent deal for us, especially as we then probably would be able to get a trade like "WC + CB for Bronze + some gold" from the Americans.
- The remainder of Alphabet (which we have almost finished, so they don't charge the full price for it) + 13 gold for our pottery. This deal might even be better: we save 6 turns on our way to Republic, can sell Alphabet to the Americans for one of their techs + some gold, and may then even be able to come back to the Romans and offer them our gold (which should be close to 35 by then: we currently have 12, will get 13 from the Romans and perhaps 10 from the Americans) + CB for their WC.
For these reasons I take the second deal: Alphabet + 13g for Pottery.
I ring up the Americans and check, what they have to offer for Alphabet: Masonry + 10g, excellent!
Go back to the Romans and check, whether they will sell WC now: no, even CB + 35g are not enough. However, they would give us Bronze for CB. Very strange: CB is only 36 beakers, while Bronze is 56?!
Go back to the Americans, and they also would give us Bronze for CB. I take the deal from the Americans, because that might keep the option of getting WC for CB + 35+x gold from the Romans in the future.
Next research project is now Writing.
Now back to Entremont, which has grown to 4 now. First we need to increase the luxury slider again, but thanks to the extra commerce we are now making, 10% luxury is now enough to get one happy citizen.
Next I was thinking for quite some time, whether to take the final river grassland and growth in 4 at 5fpt, or take the river forest and growth in 5 at 4fpt. In the first case, we would make 12s over the next 5 turns, in the second case we would make 20s and the granary would finish much faster, probably making up for the lost growth easily.
Also I take another unusual decision: the "normal" procedure would now be to let the worker start the mine on the BG, which would finish in 6 turns. However, I decide to try something else: if I move the worker over to the river plains now, I can irrigate it in 4 turns (plus one turn for movement to get there) and then switch from the river grassland to the irrigated river plains, which would also gain an extra shield! So in fact I would get the extra shield one turn earlier (1+4 instead of 6). I can then build a road on the river plain, move back to the BG without loosing a turn and then complete the mine there. So I move the worker on the plains 1NE of Entremont.
T017, 3150 BC:
Worker starts irrigating the plains. Big question now: from the Romans should our scouting warrior turn E or W? As we have the coast on the W of Entremont, it is quite likely that our first curragh will be created on that western coast and then explore the western area going southward. Therefore the warrior goes east now.
T018, 3100 BC:
A Roman settler/archer pair now blocks the warrior's way onto the mountain 1E, and therefore it goes on the hill 1NE.
T019, 3050 BC:
Warrior goes E and reaches the eastern coast.
T020, 3000 BC:
Warrior goes S, as there is still a lot of space before reaching the southern end of the minimap. The further we go from home, the more likely we will meet new contacts. (Especially as we suspect the Romans to have been doing some trading with another party, before we met them, so quite likely there is someone else to their south?!)
Darn, I played one turn too many now... But 3000 BC does look like a more "natural" time to stop than 3050 BC, doesn't it...
Ok, here is a final picture of Entremont:
We have two contacts, 35g on the bank account, know Bronze Working, Masonry, Alphabet, Pottery and Ceremonial Burial, 24b collected for Writing. F11 says we are first in population and production and second in commerce. (All AI capitals seen in F11 are size 1?! What are these duffers doing...)
Looks like we have quite a variety of different ideas and styles, should be very interesting to see how these work out 
I'm glad I played this save, extra fun to see how you guys will play it.
Traded for Bronze, Masonry and Alphabet, and have 10 beakers invested in Writing.
