From the department of remarkable coincidences that no one else will care about: in my last two solo games, the "final boss" rival civ was the Hittites, and the eighth luxury was spices. In both games I started WW3 on general principle rather than pay 200 GPT or raise my luxury slider. Will *my* Hittites be able to defend our precious spices from interlopers? We shall see! (in a later spoiler)
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Started by sending my scout up a mountain. Ooh, a cow! Love cows. Settled north of it. Studying Writing. Didn't keep a turn log so archaeology has to be done from save files. Each dated entry in this post refers to stuff that happened since the last one. Terminus ante quem.
3450 BC - Met Henry the Portuguese. He was a real idiot who didn't even know his ABCs, so I taught him for 35 gold.
3100 BC - We still have only one city but a settler on the way.
2900 BC - Tarsus has been founded. Got an unskilled warrior, whom I later murdered along with the scouts to make a granary one turn faster in our capital. We seem to be on an island, so we are building a curragh. Still trying to learn to write. Decide the Portuguese will have to go. I'm not a warmonger, but my number one rule is never share a land mass with another civ. (Even Pangaea maps usually have little islands which are perfect for AIs).
1375 BC - Finally learned Writing and had a choice to trade Henry for Wheel or Ironworking. Chose The Wheel because I wanted to see if we had horses for our idiotic UU. Great, we don't but he has *two*, and, like the lazy inconsiderate jerk that he is, hasn't hooked the second ones up to trade with us. We have five cities. They have four.
The little curragh sailed south and met two other civs and their leaders. "Smoke," a braggart with hideous distended earlobes, and Julius, a cautious, well-mannered chap whom I took a liking to immediately. He taught us Ironworking, and we do have some of that stuff, so it looks like the Portuguese will be put to the sword rather than being arched to death.
First to Philosophy, took CoL, and working Republic. Not going to do the Great Library because everyone else is stupid and backwards.
1075 BC - Iron is hooked. Ten seems like a nice round number so I set out to build or upgrade ten swordsmen for my attack force. Built Tyrana 2 tiles away from Oporto, the Portuguese horse city, but left my troops loitering on a nearby mountain in case it flipped. Henry suspects nothing
975 BC - A beauty named Theodora builds the Colossus. I would like to meet her. We have seven cities and the Portuguese have five, so hopefully she'll be impressed by my twelve cities. Or my ten swordsmen, who are actually seven swordsmen, 2 archers, and a spearman. Instead, I meet the Incans and their shady leader, "Rico". He's not bad looking and he's got a higher score than me. Need to keep him away from Theodora.
875 BC - Guess ten was overkill. Henry only had a spearman and a warrior defending and we suffered no casualties. Built Ankuwa directly on top of the horses. On to Guimares. Curragh chugs along. No Theodora, it's just Incans all the way down..
710 BC - We've built the Heroic City of Kadesh where Guimares once stood. We've conquered Lisbon. Lagos is their new capital, stupidly placed because Henry is frightened by whales. Portugal is down to three cities. Probably will try to make a peace treaty for at least one of them so I don't have to walk so far, and then violate it as soon as I have 3 man chariots and am finally a Republic. Won't affect my reputation if I kill all the Portuguese before anyone else meets them. "Wow, what an amazing island," people will say. "Yeah, I can't believe I spawned here all by myself!" We met "Ozzie" the Ottoman, a fat derelict with a matted beard. He's Polite enough, but it's easy to tell he's a creep and a deviant. Will warn Theodora about him. We're allowed to build the Forbidden Palace. Gonna do it in Lisbon. Will stash Henry's body in the mine that replaces his nasty irrigated grassland.