I see what is likely coast one to the NW so I settle there and start on a worker. Turn 3 I pop Mysticism from a hut. Not super useful at the moment as I'm Creative, but I won't turn it down...
I scout around and see some food; I also meet Bismarck, who I think came from the west. I plop down some signs for likely settling spots for my second, third and fourth cities. I'm going for Animal Husbandry first to improve the grass cow once my worker comes out. I get it and pop horses to the near east, well in range of either of those two city spots. I select Bronze Working for choppage and will mine the grass hills in the meantime while my capital spits out warriors and grows to size 3.
I go check out what I marked as a potential spot in the NW and find rice. Next turn I send my first warrior to hang out on the hill at the NE mark where I think I'll put my second city.
Rice, a grassland hill and rivered grasslands makes for a decent spot on its own I think, so I make note of it.
I realize I have floodplains and dyes over in the SW and decide to somewhat aggressively make that my third city spot; I send my second warrior there accordingly. I think I should farm one and cottage the other two?
At turn thirty my third warrior finishes one turn after growing to size 3 and I send him to the SE spot while I park my scout over on the rice/rivers spot. I finish Bronze Working and queue up Wheel>Fishing>Pottery.
In my capital I queue up three settlers and two workers in alternation with plans to grow to happy cap afterward before getting more out.
I notice copper near the SE spot and think about settling that desert tile SW of the clam to grab it in a timely fashion.
My first settler comes out and heads to the NE spot; I take this time to revolt to Slavery because everybody says that's when you're supposed to do it
Bismarck settles his second city a small knight's move away from where I was gonna settle next, making that spot invalid. What a jerk! I make tentative plans to grab the two remaining floodplains anyway and bathe Hamburg in my glorious Creative culture. Given how food-poor that spot is relatively speaking, however, I'm not sure if it should be my next priority anymore. Will think on this.
St. Petersburg is settled on turn 40. No Pottery yet so I tell it to do a warrior. Meanwhile in another 2 turns my worker at Moscow finishes, who I send on his merry way to improve the rice. But whoops! I don't have Agriculture. Fortunately the grass cows over there will be in my borders by the time I get my new worker over to them so I can improve those for now instead. I think it might be a better tile anyway? I also decide to go straight for Pottery after Fishing, delaying Agriculture further due to also having a horse to improve and hook up, and also I'd like to start throwing down cottages ASAP. The riverless land I currently have isn't fantastic for them but I am financial so I think it's worth doing? Especially for the capital.
I send the warrior standing around uselessly in St. Petersburg further east to check out what's there. I pop a barb hut unfortunately, but I do find another nice coastal spot. My first worker is dutifully chopping out the capital's build queue.
Novgorod is founded on turn 49. I too set it to build a warrior and send the current one south to see if there's anything cool. My barb hut-popping warrior won his fight and is perched on the hill to the east of St. Petersburg. Two turns later my next worker comes out and I send him to Novgorod to cottage a floodplain since I can't farm yet. It's here I sense maybe I'm being less than efficient in my tech choices. Or maybe city placement choices. Actually now that I think about it, Agriculture is optionally a prerequisite to Pottery isn't it? I probably should've picked that instead of Fishing. Anyways, also two turns later...
This guy! Unbelievable! He is seriously asking for it. He's 2 for 2 knowing exactly where I'm about to go found my next city, which would seem to suggest we're both kind of crammed together. I perhaps should be eyeing that copper spot next then.
Another warrior comes out of St. Petersburg so I send it over to Moscow currently building its last settler before I start letting it grow onto some cottages. One turn til Pottery so I throw a turn into a Barracks for no particular reason before I switch to a Granary. Or at least that was the plan; I let a couple turns go by before I realized I forgot to switch, whoops. I also suddenly realized that 3 workers for 4 cities is maybe a tad insufficient so I hastly add one on to the end of Moscow's build queue and continue chopping away. I'll have St. Petersburg get another one out after it builds its Granary.
I belatedly start on Agriculture as Hamburg gets owned by Novgorod's border pop. I guess I was just gonna get those floodplains anyway, huh. My recently rudely displaced scout heads slightly west to see Germany's capital's borders, but nothing much else of interest there. South of Novgorod my warrior finds jungled rice, jungled gems, and stone. Maybe nice if I can get it eventually but not a high priority at the moment. He also finds a barb archer, yikes. St. Petersburg is working its grass cow and newly improved plains horse and is about to grow again so I start on a cottage on one of its grassland tiles.
The settler comes out and I send it to the spot adjacent to the copper-grabbing spot. I'm not in immediate need of it (I think) and it'll be blocked off from Germany in a few turns when the borders pop, so "soon" is adequate I think. Agriculture comes just in time for my worker at Novgorod to finish his cottage, so he gets to work on farming one of the other floodplains. Here it occurs to me I really should've doubled up on this; 7 turns to improve a floodplains, sheesh. St. Petersburg grows to 3 and slow builds its Granary while I get another grassland there cottaged. (Rereading what I've written here, I probably should've improved the rice first since I just got Agriculture)
Rostov was founded on turn 62; the last worker comes out of Moscow and I send him to pasture the cows there. In lieu of a river tile I start cottaging one of my spices in Moscow since I have extra; I also tell it to work the lake tiles instead of the hills and set it to start putting some meager hammers into a Granary while it grows. Going for Sailing to get trade routes started, after which I'll probably hit up Archery. Speaking of which, that barb archer dispatched of my warrior hanging around Novgorod, who is now in dire need of the defender I absentmindedly let slow build.
Made note of a decent looking spot on the southern coast, maybe I can get it. With St. Petersburg at size 4 I make sure it's working the rice (not yet improved) and start on another worker. I then of course start farming the rice. I panic-whipped Novgorod for 1 pop to get a second warrior in there, which turned out to be a good idea otherwise that archer would've taken the city on the next turn.
With Rostov's borders popping, Bismarck and I have de-fogged most of the area up here. St. Petersburg's worker finishes improving the rice and starts roading to non-coastal Rostov, which will hook up the horses in the process.
Moscow doesn't actually have that much food, huh. I wanna get a Lighthouse for those lake tiles but I think for now I'm going to hook up the cows and rice I have to shore up that deforestation unhealthiness.
Why?
Got Writing and went Math, everybody's all hooked up now. I've been bad about handling barbs so I need to get a chariot escort for my settler there so I can get to that southern spot before Bismarck cockblocks me again. At 79 Moscow hits its happy cap at 5 and I queue up another settler. At 81 I cold whip a chariot at Rostov since it's only working food to go deal with a jerk barb warrior pillaging my stuff at Moscow.
city square), green river tiles are actually more valuable than dyes for a cottage.
with calendar.
, not a bad tile improved..but not fantastic either.
