News: BOTM 37 First Spoiler - Up to 500AD
WOTM 33 First Spoiler 1AD
Okay, I felt really dumb there for a few seconds until I realised that I had indeed opened the correct thread but that the first message's title simply had a copy-and-paste error in it.
Attempted Victory Condition: As yet undecided but I am leaning towards a Cultural Victory
The Early Game
I had high aspirations for the early game:
"Moving 1S with the Settler revealed an additional Fish that I wasn't counting on, as well as a nice Oasis square! Maybe I should try to found a ton of early Religions!?"
and a bit later...
"Wow, there is Marble nearby! I must build The Oracle," I thought.
and still later...
"There are a lot of Resources and Flood Plains squares, I must expand a lot and build a ton of Cities!"
So, what happened?
Well, actually, I picked up Hunting and Bronze Working instead of going after Religions.
I had a reasonable tech pace and got to Priesthood at a point that I thought was relatively early. However, before I could even get my Marble connected, The Oracle had been built!
The Barbs
As for expanding... well... the Barbs played a role in ruining those plans.
I lost my initial Warrior to a Bear early on and from then on, I was on the defensive. I lost out on a citizen being able to work a square in my capital early on due to Unhappiness from having whipped too many Work Boats plus not having a Military Police unit. That extra Warrior really would have come in handy.
Then, when I got my first Settler out, I decided to play safely and waited for a few turns until I had a Warrior to escort it--it turns out that the Bear was still nearby as was a Wolf... the Settler may or may not have survived going out alone, but I decided that I'd rather lose a few turns of settling my 2nd City compared to losing my Settler altogether. Still, it was yet another delay thanks to the Barbs.
Then, although I whipped some Warriors, I really didn't have sufficient production to build units, so the Barbs kept coming up to my Cities. Three times a crucial Road connection was pillaged, separating my capital from other Cities. I really feel like the Barbs knew what they were doing, as I'd lose a connection of Fur to my capital and any of my early Resource trades would also get cancelled, since my capital was isolated from the AI that I was trading with, whenever I lost my Road connection. Talk about instant 3 Unhappiness just from losing a single Road square (and that same thing happened 3 times--you'd think that I would have learned!!!) I lost a lot of headway overall thanks to the Barbs.
The Oracle Failure
I actually researched Code of Laws relatively early on, in the hopes of trying for a Civil Service slingshot. Okay, okay, I didn't end up standing a chance in retrospect, but at the time my tech pace was probably good enough to stand a chance of pulling it off--I just didn't have the production to make it work.
As a result, though, I did found Confucianism. Perhaps it was a mistake in once sense, since, as of 505 AD, I have yet to get another Religion on my mainland.
On the plus side, I was able to get Temples and Monastaries, and even a Cathedral completed thanks to having a relatively early Religion.
On the down side, I think that I will have to go to war if I want to get more Religions, since AIs are notoriously poor at spreading inter-continental Missionaries.
Almost Defeated
Several times, I had to whip Warriors in my capital and other Cities, thanks to the Barbs. Okay, fine, I might not have needed to do so, but when you only have a Combat 0 Warrior (a unit with no promotions) defending your capital against a Barb unit (even if it was just a Barb Warrior each time), you'd rather have a second Warrior whipped to help defend, in case of an unlucky dice roll, than to lose your capital, have your Palace move, and possibly be unable to easily retake the City (good luck capturing a City owned by a Combat II Barb Warrior when all you have to attack back with are other Warriors).
After many rounds of whipping to fend off the Barbs, I'd almost finally gotten enough spawn-busters for my island when my outward-pushing Warrior met up with a Barb Axeman. Sigh, the Axeman chased me into my borders. No Horse, no Copper, no Archery--yikes!
Fortunately, I managed to get Iron Working in trade when the Barb Axeman was just coming up to my Cultural Borders. Seeing that Iron was already connected, I prepared to build an Axeman in case the Barb Axeman came into my borders. The Barb Axeman did indeed enter my borders so I whipped 1 Axeman and prepared to whip another one in a different nearby City on the following turn, if required. Fortuately, my Axeman won on defence and my empire was safe, although extremely unhappy.
Events
Oh yes, the beloved "+2 Health everywhere Event." It sounds great:
-2 Whipping Unhappiness in every City in exchange for a good chance at getting +2 Health for the rest of the game, with a 50-50 chance of also losing some population points.
Well, I went for it, but nothing happened except for the -2 Whipping Unhappiness. So, I guess the lack of a message means that the Event hit that 10% chance of failing?!?! You'd think that the designers would have planned in a message that tells you how your experiment failed.
Unfortunately, additional Whipping Unhappiness was the last thing that I needed in this game.
505 AD Stats
10 Cities, 42 Population, 9 Workers (NOT ENOUGH OF THEM!), 6 Land-based Military Units, 3 Water-based Military Units
3 Strategic Resources, 8 Happiness Resources, 7 Healthiness Resources (traded-for Resources are included, but only 1 source of each Resource is counted)
3 Great People, 6 World Wonders, 2 National Wonders
1 Religion, 1 Cottage being worked across all of my 3 planned Legendary-to-be Cities
Tech level:
Top of the tech tree: Drama, Literature, Music, and Philosophy
Middle of the tech tree: Construction, Education, and Monarchy
Bottom of the tech tree: Metal Casting and Compass
Temples, Monasteries, and Cathedrals in my Legendary-to-be Cities: 3, 3, 1
What's Next?
I really don't know if it is worth pursuing a Cultural Victory when you only have access to one Religion and all of the Religions in the game have been founded. I've focused too much on building Wonders to have a shot at building a Military anytime soon.
I also have 243 Whipping Unhappiness in my capital (thanks to those lovely Barbs, that Event which didn't pan out, and no other solid way of getting production). I have no idea what I am going to do soon... the capital won't be able to really grow all that much--maybe just build a ton of Workers there?
I am also tempted to go for Sid's Sushi, seeing all of those Seafood Resources. Normally, I would much prefer to have my Monasteries, which will become obsolete if I pursue Sid's, but with only 1 Religion really available to me, I am wondering if maybe +2 Culture per Seafood is just as good as +2 Culture per Monastery. Of course, the biggest tradeoff will be the large number of turns spent teching instead of switching to 100% Cultural output, so I am still not decided either way.
Then there is the whole upcoming Golden Age... should I run a Golden Age just to switch to Free Speech? Should I wait until my Cities grow a bit more and just take the turn of Anarchy for now, so that I'll get more value out of the Golden Age later?
Should I forget about Free Speech and go for Nationhood (assuming that I'll take Nationalism with Liberalism) and keep teching to Cuirassiers and Musketmen?
Should I instead try for a one-Religion Cultural game by shutting down research really early and just relying on the Hermitage and Free Speech to carry me over the Cultural thresholds?
Oh yeah, to top it all of, I had settled a City on a different landmass, hoping to get a Religion. Well, I scored Judaism but the "owner" of that landmass decided that they didn't like my City and captured it before I could get a Missionary out. I'm still at war with said Civ.
Maybe I should just forget this whole Cultural business, stop building the Wonders, and prepare for a not-too-late Domination game.

It is just so HARD to stop building Wonders when you are Industrious!