My goal from the start was a Space victory. I thought for a while about where to settle and finally decided on settling on the plains hill. True, I won't be able to build a levee in ~1200 AD. I felt that a faster start was more important than some future promise of more hammers 200 turns in the future...
My pre-game thinking was: 13 AI = massive tech trading options. Currency = massive options for selling techs. So I was planning to beeline Alphabet and Oracle Currency. I was also planning to REX to about 6 cities and then to beat up on the AI depending on how easy they were to reach. But plans changed...
My early tech path went AH -> Mining -> BW -> Writing. My build order was worker #1 -> warrior -> settler at 2 pops -> worker #2 -> granary -> library.
My settling pattern was:
#1 in 3960 BC on the PH
#2 in 2720 BC to the north with the corn and crabs
#3 in 1960 BC in the south with horses and ivory
#4 in 1160 BC in the far south on the coast with gems, cows and marble
#5 in 1160 BC in the NE on the plains hill to give me access to the eastern AIs
I almost broke my hand on the desk when my warrior and worker were on the same tile around T20 and I accidentally moved my worker when I thought I was moving my warrior. This delayed the completion of my mine by a turn and pretty much screwed up my well-planned MM for the first 25 turns or so. It caused a ripple affect that delayed the copper mine and a much needed farm on the dye tile SE of the capital. It wasnt a HUGE deal, but it sucks to have things planned out and to have them screwed up by a mis-click.
The biggest challenge for me was deciding which units to use in my first war, which way to go: NE, NW, SE or SW, and how to get my units there. It seemed that axes (i.e. vultures) would actually come too soon since I wouldn't have an easy way to rush an AI without Sailing. After seeing ivory around T25, my initial thought was to use elepults. So, I was contemplating using the Oracle on Construction to make that happen sooner. But a few things happened that changed this:
- The religions went very early. Both Buddhism and Hinduism went on T9. I was expecting Hinduism to go quite a bit later. So I was watching closely to see when the early wonders went.
- After learning Writing, I start to research Alphabet. Once my EPs kicked in on Gandhi, I saw that he was researching Alphabet, so I switched to Math which would allow either a Construction or Currency sling.
- The Oracle was built in 1840 BC!! I was still working on Math at that time. This seems like a very early Oracle at Monarch.
OK, so I won't have early war elephants, so I switch my initial attack unit to horse archers and set research to HBR after Math (HBR is needed for war elephants anyway). So I'll start warring with HAs and switch to elepults once Construction is learned. Once Gandhi learns Alphabet, I pick up Alpha, Fishing, Masonry, Mysticism, IW, Hunting, Sailing and Archery.
1000 BC Stats:
5 cities (plus one settler), 13 pops, 4 workers, 7 units (no HAs yet), 2 strategic resources, 1 happy resource, 2 health resources, 1 GS in 1160 BC for an earlyish academy in the capital, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, F/P/C is 42/27/89, 56
at 100%, 40
at 70% break even, 24 gold, 3 granaries, 2 libraries, 0 religions, 3/3 cottages used, 16 techs including Alphabet, Math, IW and HBR.
I settled another city with the settler I had at 1000 BC:
#6 in 925 BC in the west with stone and spice
From here, I pretty much spammed horse archers while teching Currency -> Construction -> Metal Casting and moved units 2 at a time on a galley in the NE from our core area toward Germany.
I declared war on Fredrick in 725 BC (I was shooting for a 1000 BC DoW pre game) and captured:
#7 in 725 BC captured Munich with copper and 3 silk resources
#8 in 625 BC captured Berlin with bananas, rice, copper and gems
Fredricks capital was on a hill with about 6 MP units so I wasnt going to be able to take it easily. I found that the AI capitals had quite a few units in them including settlers. My guess is that the AI built settlers along with escorting units and had no where to send them so they just sat around in the capital. This made capturing cities a bit harder than normal. So I was planning to sign a Peace Treaty (not a CF) to extort two techs from him. I kept going back and forth between DoP and CF. When I finally decided on getting the techs instead, I accidentally clicked on the CF button and didnt get my free techs.
Although, only 2 mis-clicks in the first 75 turns isnt bad for me
which makes my S-GOTM teammates very nervous.
After Fred, I set my sites on Pacal and his capital with 2 gold resources.
After a few turns of sending over reinforcements from the core, I declared war on Pacal in 525 BC and captured:
#9 in 475 BC captured Mutal with cows and 2 gold resources.
#10 in 475 BC settled on the coast in the SE with bananas and iron (finally)
#11 in 450 BC captured Lakamha with flood plains cottages and cows
My units were severely wounded and I was in no rush to capture Pacals last tundra city so I signed a peace treaty with Pacal (I got techs in the deal this time) and spent the next few turns healing and sending reinforcements from our core cities.
Around 500 BC, I noticed on the F8 victory screen that the Domination limit is only 51% land. I thought that it was usually 63% or something like that. So my plan to take out the entire east and part of the west no longer makes sense. I cant even afford to own the core area plus the entire east. So I have to re-think my plan for how far to expand in this game.
Poor Washington sealed his fate in 450 BC when he completed the Pyramids. I declared war on him in 300 BC and captured:
#12 in 275 BC captured New York with cows and 2 dye resources
#13 in 225 BC captured Washington with cows, incense, 2 marble resources and the Pyramids!!
Washington is the first AI to completely bite the dust. Both Fred and Pacal are down to one city each. At 1 AD I have a stack of units at the gates of Freds capital ready to take it in the next turn or two. This time, I have cats and war elephants included, so it shouldnt be as bloody as a pure HA war even though the city is on a hill and very well defended. After that, I have to decide whether to go north to take out Gandhi or south to take on Darius -> Hatty.
From 1000 BC to 1 AD, I traded for Calendar (already had researched 345/522
when Mansa offered it in trade
), Poly, PH, Monotheism, Monarchy, Aesthetics, Meditation and Literature. I have to say that no tech brokering is making it very had to tell which techs each AI lacks
not to mention that there are so many AI that I can only see 6 or 7 AIs at a time on the tech screen with my resolution settings. Normally, you can tell which techs each AI needs by seeing what they want. Now, if we acquire a tech in trade, it wont show up in the wants column so you have to stare at the can research column to figure out who has what. Its a pain when planning wars because I want to know what units I can expect to encounter before I DoW.
At 1 AD, my economy is pretty much broken but Im taking measures to fix it. Ive built a few forges and have started building my first courthouse (i.e. our cheaper unique building, the Ziggurat). I always struggle with when to switch from building units to infrastructure. I still have quite a bit of warring that I want to do but I cant just continue to pump out units and totally ignore my economy
or can I?
1 AD Stats:
13 cities, 63 pops, 12 workers, 26 units (10 HAs, 3 WEs, 2 cats), 5 strategic resources, 7 happy resource, 6 health resources, 1 GS in 1160 BC, 2 world wonders (MoM and Mids), 0 national wonders, F/P/C is 168/82/239, 215
at 100%, 46
at 20% break even, 1380 gold, 8 granaries, 3 forges, 2 libraries, 2 religions in 8 cities, 9/9 cottages used, 28 techs including MC, Aesthetics, Literature, Calendar, Currency and Construction, 944 score.
Youll notice that I have 1380
in the bank. I achieved this from 4 sources: city capture gold, 0% slider, selling techs when the AI had more than 100 gold, and massive fail gold from the MoM. Every time I had a lot of overflow hammers in a city, I would put them into the MoM. I then built the MoM myself in city #4 in the far south. When I finally built it, I cashed in on 354
.
I made a mistake in delaying CoL -> Civil Service for so long. Three AIs had CoL and I was waiting to get it in trade. When none of them would offer it, I finally decided just to research it myself, which I should have done in the next turn or two. I also failed to build too many libraries which is probably a mistake since they are so cheap for a Creative AI. I always find it hard to build things like libraries when Im spamming units everywhere.
Great game so far, Deckhand.
Its different enough from a standard game to keep us on our toes.
)
When I saw the corn, I had settler going toward gems 
