This may be the first GOTM I actually have a shot to complete & turn in, in years! Took a break for a while, but picked up playing a couple months ago. Was doing OK in the Ice-elation game last month, was roughly in the pack around in the early-to-mid AD for that, but started too late & ran out of time. Made sure to start early this time, last Tuesday
I'm way past 1ad, but unfortunately I already can't remember exactly what happened when so I may have to be a little vague, or leave something out that probably did happen by 1ad.
I also beelined for GLH, only diverted early for mining-BW so I could chop/whip, got it 2000bc exactly. Was so single-minded that the benefit was lost for a while, I had only two cities lol. 2nd one was just founded shortly before GLH, up next to pig/cow/spices, and also I don't think I even had AH yet. I also got oracle later, pre-1000 for sure, but not exactly sure when. I rushed it so much that I could not take CS or even CoL (no writing), but upon reflection given the contacts I made at that point I decided I wasn't sure I wanted a different religion, so I'm not sure I would have taken CoL anyway. I took MC instead, to really leverage Industrious & get forges forges up fast, both for production and to amplify usefulness of gold & silver for happiness, and the early access to a trireme was a godsend, given all my worked seafood tiles & how barb galleys kept pouring in from the east (i may have killed 4-5 of them?). So if I could do it over, even if I could have grabbed CoL and Confucianism, knowing what I know now, I don't think I would have done it differently. Unfortunately, given all the foreign trade routes I had early (on account of what I did below), religion spread surprisingly slow in my cities. I think at 1ad I only had a religion in one city! Completely baffled by that. And it wasn't Toku's religion, Judaism (toku was the Big Dog in my game early on, and of course the one of most worrisome temperament, I couldn't even get him to offer open borders) that was probably the biggest frustration I had, not having any religion to speak of. I reason though, if that is your biggest problem 1ad in a deity game, you can't complain too much
I expanded rapidly after GLH, filled up most of the main island (and leveraged GLH, all are coastal cities). I had seen WBs from toku & cyrus & napolean all coming from the west while cranking on the GLH, so even when I still only had one city, I was already anxious about losing the western end of my island (reading others' accounts, sounds like with good reason, although maybe I overreacted if others didn't see foreign settlement until 850bc? oh well) So I diverted big time from my original plans, and founded my third city all the way over on the western desert tip of Long Island. This replaced my intent to build next to the silver & get immediate happiness relief. I was very nervous not only about losing the copper, but even moreso the gold (and the stone I suppose, though it was not in at cross, I think it effectively secured it for my later city next to the iron). Took a little planning ... the whip I did to generate overflow hammers just before masonry & starting GLH was to build a galley in Cuzco. It was a bit painful to prioritize over another quecha or settler or worker or WB or whatever, but I did it. Then while working on GLH, it was making the long journey around the NE part of the island. by the time it arrived, I got a settler overland to pick up, and I'm guessing I settled it around 2000bc? I got copper hooked up pretty quickly, but it was only much much later I got gold and the other cows hooked up. But I did save them for myself quite effectively. Toku eventually did settle on island to SW, but I kind of let that happen, I was planning to plop a city on the southwest tip tile of the island (would have called it "Land's End?") to block him, and because GLH made building extra cities more palatable, but it just didn't look that great of a site to me so I didn't prioritize it sufficiently to beat him to it. thank go he settle offshore & not on mainland, that was my biggest fear, what later headaches that might create.
There was one completely unexpected result of my rush to settle on Long Island to grab copper/gold/cows, maybe also unique to me so far? After dropping off the settler, and with toku not offering open borders, the only thing to do with the galley (while waiting to pick up the worker mining the copper) was to head north along the island chain, discovering the france mainland. Along the way I cam across the 3 tile island just off their coast, with potential for two seafood + wooded plains & second plains in fat cross. My early MC + grabbing the copper with third city was making me think very very seriously about the Colossus, so this really caught my eye. I sailed back south again, and at the same time I returned the worker that built the mine back to the mainland, I decided to take a chance and divert the settler I'd prepared for the mid-island iron+stone+fish city to try to grab the island off France. I'd been watching very closely the announcements every turn since leaving to make sure I didn't see "Napolean has founded XXXX in a faraway land," if I'd seen that I'm not sure I would have done it. Anyway, the gambit paid off, and my national borders not only extend all the way to the NW of my island, but quite a bit north from there, making me France's
western neighbor, as well as
southern! As I alluded to in my first paragraph, this let me REALLY maximize the GLH with a lot of international trade routes early, even with just sailing ... otherwise I don't think I would have had any, Toku would have probably grabbed the entirety of the west end & continued to not give me open borders, effectively cutting me off from all Intl trade? Instead, I actually cut Toku off from France I think ... there is one of his WBs that appears stuck just south of Paris anyway
Saw (and fought) a surprising amount of barbarians. Guessing a dozen warriors and archers, perhaps more? One quecha got up to around 7-8 experience, and a coupel others got a few too, as I had to keep rotating quechas out of the mid island mountain position as each one successively took combat damage. Plus the handful of galleys which did pillage my fishing at least a couple times, even with triremes. Even though I established fairly comprehensive fogbusting very early (my first three builds were quecha, WB, quecha; knew I'd need good fogbusting since I was beelining GLH and forgoing early expansion). Mostly from the west, I never realy fogbusted all the way over until I started improving the gold. But there were at least two nailbiting "invasions" of warriors from the northern two tiles, above the mountain, where the cows were, the only ones I couldn't see in that area for most of the time, and for which I was less prepared for. For these I just had to sit in Cuzco & let them pillage the mine and/or attack the fortified quecha in Cuzco, while I gathered a reaction force. But in the west I established my FB quechas all on good defensive terrain & when barbs did show I stayed put, hoping they would attack me (they did about 90% of the time).
Well those are highlights, based on memory. I got to 1ad already on Thurs or Friday. I really wasn't thinking about this writeup so I don't know exactly my status as of 1ad, but I think it was probably 5-6 cities, & last place in score still, but feeling very good about my position, for a deity game & not having played much the last couple years. Two of my first five cities were on islands; not at all what I'd originally envisioned, but on the other hand I was not as intently planning my settling order, etc, as some people seemed to be in the announcement thread! No wars, but I also gave tribute a couple times to encourage that.
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Only 3 cities in 1ad... I made a crazy decision in going for Hagia Sophia in #2 city Tiwanaku, with heaps of chopping but might have to hold it because I'm really behind on expansion... Also I was aiming for middle religions with GPs but the AI beat me up in confi, tao and christianism... Still getting the ropes on cultural game...
Not unexpected though..
. I whip like mad, but the Quechua is no match for an axe or a spear, I'm rather lucky (23.3%) that my 4th Quechua kills the spear in the 2nd wave of attack and reinforcement arrives the next turn. 
Would have gotten it 1920. But I did get the Oracle (1680, took Monarchy), ToA (1320), and Great Lib (375). Lost the Parthenon (150) and will have Nat'l Epic in Cuzco in 6 turns. I did a fair amount of pre-game testing but things went... different. Only have 3 cities, but at least they're pop 9,7,8. City#2 went NE of silver, #3 E of pigs. I'll have a settler in 3 turns for 2W1N of silver (to be Moai city) and another settler in 5 turns for W of the copper on the island. Nappy has already settled a city 2E of the copper.
pt
