COTM104 Ottomans - First spoiler - Middle ages

[mad-bax]

COTM104 Ottomans - First spoiler - Middle ages.

This is the first spoiler for COTM104. You may not read past this post, or post anything yourself until you have met the spoiler requirements. For this game, you must have entered the middle ages.

Please keep maps to a maximum of 20 X 20 tiles centered on the starting tile, and do not discuss anything that happened in the middle ages (or later). In particular, please do not discuss the location of strategic resources other than horses and iron.

I had a bit of fun with the geography of this game in an attempt to set one or two speed bumps in the way of this Regent level game. It'll be interesting to see if they came off.

 

[Ditch]

By 'speed bumps' do you mean belching volcanoes, mountain ranges, jungle, and swamps in seemingly never ending amounts? Anyway, I decided from the moment I started, to go for a peaceful victory (I'd had my fill of blood in a recent conquest game), and found the starting valley very comfortable with some nice luxuries and pleasingly hard-working workers. But setting up Edrine for a possible 20k victory (my first ever attempt), I stupidly mis-read its position: it wasn't by a river so I got held back building an aqueduct and generally feeling embarrassed with myself.

I was still just BC when I entered the Middle Ages; I'd met 8 cultures and had the second highest score, second largest area, and largest population. Everyone bar Rome was polite and had exchanged rights of passage with me, even if I sometimes had to pay a little cash for the privilege. I was also just a small step ahead of everyone technologically and happily exchanging an occasional advance to keep the gap small but not closed (I've lost control of the gap when bartering in the past and am wary of being too gung-ho about it, even though it means progress is potentially slower than it could be).