Pre-flight:
I find Sugarville is building barracks while FW is making walls. Neither of these things will be useful to us immediately. We already have two barracks, and that's two too many, given that we are not allowed to build any units. I would prefer to be building wealth than walls.
This points out one of the problems with the variant: a difficulty in finding things to build. This problem has been compounded by the food-poor start. In passing, I thought we had a grass game from the beginning -- it turns out to be plains
In the meantime, FW is overdeveloped while both of the other cities have hardly been improved at all. The latter is not critical yet as the fourth shield should be corrupted in both cities. I switch SV to a granary and FW to a worker. These things will at least, be useful, to us.
Far West, it appears, will have to be a four-time worker pump for a while (two turns on the game and two on a mined BG). GL should go settler-granary and SV should be the reverse. In the meantime, our explorer workers can try and find us horses. Given the serious lack of food at our start, two explorers will have to be enough for the moment.
ibt:
As predicted, the Arabs beat us to the GH
learn horseback riding, enter Big Picture, and trade to Cathy for
Alpha + BW + 22g
Both civs know iron working
Far West builds worker, starts worker.
1. 2110
rename first worker to Jake and start irrigation. Southeast explorer becomes LoneRanger and moves south. South west worker is Strider and moves south. New worker gets dubbed Slim and moves three squares to the northwest. Start writing @100%, due in 20 turns.
2. 2070
LoneRanger south, Slim mine, Strider south
3. 2030
Strider south
LR east, meet Indians.
MM FW to mined BG
Trade Masonry & TW & 5g for IW & CB; HB then goes for Mysticism and my gold back. Science guy says we're advanced! OTOH LoneRanger has also found a Kassite Conscript
BTW, we have iron
ibt
LoneRanger is viciously murdered by the savages
4. 1990
Jake moves south
Strider moved east
ibt
FW builds SonOfLoneRanger, starts worker,
5. 1950
SoLR move nw-nw-n, spot a cow;
Jake starts a forest chop
Strider south
I think the Injuns are at war. They only have one city and have had a worker for sale for a while. Unfortunately, I am too poor to buy it.
5. 1910
Slim west;
SoLR road
Strider south.
6. 1870
Strider east
7. 1830
Slim mine
Jake r;
Strider south
switch GL to a settler
ibt
FW builds Hoss, starts settler; MM to game
GL builds settler, starts granary
8. 1790
Hoss moves south-south
Strider south, spot Russian borders
settler east
9. 1750
Jake moves southwest-south
Hoss builds road
SoLR north
settler northeast-north
Strider east
Indians know writing and will accept a trade. I decide that it's better to come closer to finishing the tech or hoping someone else will find it, bringing down the price.
10. 1725
Strider east
Jake mine
SoL road
settler northeast
Post-game
The Indians are still willing to trade at a price of 9gpt. Too much. Self-search is only about 74g. Warning: we are about to go bankrupt. I really wish we hadn't built those two barracks. The settler should found a city on the spot.
The save