Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[Berks]

Round 5 – 725BC

I like Lain's idea to get CoL. Other option would be a straight Optics beeline? I don't see a need for a converter tech, Monarchy or Lit.

T75: Research on, AH in 6. Steal the farm back for Bibracte, need to grow back quick. Switch to Granary in Tolosa.
T78: Bibracte is back to size 4. Tolosa is roaded. Extra commerce shaves 1T off AH, yay.
T80: AH in. Research turned back off, queue up Polytheism (skip Med to avoid Philo bulb)
2 Horse locations. I had planned a city to use the Fish 2N of the eastern Horse, so this is a good location for me. Start improving Pigs in Tolosa.
T83: Pig improved. I need to road it, at the health cap already. Been slowbuilding Libraries while working cottages and mines. Only had 2 more archers spawn, slowly exploring a little further north.
Debating getting Fishing for a Fish/Horse city to get another health.
T84: Forest grows near Tolosa.
T86: Another forest grows near Tolosa! Decide to stop here, Libraries almost done, need to make the next set of decisions. Have expanded the fogbusting network a little bit.

Round 6 Plan:

Tech – Once both Libraries done, will turn on research back to CoL. Detour Fishing first, to get a Fish city up. Still have room in the happy cap!

Builds
Settler in capital, work Corn + Mines + Scientists.
2nd city can work Cottages + Stone + Scientists. Make a Workboat for the 4th city.
3rd city can finish Granary then start on a Monument, so I can move my Archers further north. Chop a Settler next.

 

[Lain]

I played a shadow to ~1000 BC. Barbs were a big pain. Killed more than 10 archers. Also, that barb city hurts my feelings. Especially since I know about the pigs since I looked at your save earlier.

Generally speaking the island is pretty rich though.

@Tolosa: I can see where you are coming from and in a normal game, that settle can be totally justifiable. Grabs copper and adds production quickly. 6F tile ensures a quick start. Isolation shifts some of the priorities though. For example, copper is of no importance here. The pigs are great, but the city starts off with poor commerce. Add in the delay from AH and no road connection... and it becomes a pretty expensive investment. Sure, it will pay off eventually. But I would look for an alternative here.

@ Tech: Sounds good, but I would have suggested AH before going Writing. Knowing AH gives a bonus to Writing. Improving Pigs ~10 turns earlier means a gain of 30 food. Libraries are good, but you probably want to grow your cities to their happy caps on cottages first. Example: Your 2nd city could work 2x Floodplain and 2x Scientists at size 4. But it could also work 2x Floodplain, 3x Grassland cottages and 2x Scientists at size 7. The latter is preferable, unless you need the quick burst of research to reach a key tech. Which doesn't apply here.

@GPP: Yeah, you can definitely pop scientists from different cities here. That's not the main concern. However, in isolation you are kind of limited in terms of how many cities you can get (before Optics). Usually you don't want to push beyond 6 cities total. It is a soft cap. Exceptional land could justify more, but with average land quality, probably not. So that means each of your 6 cities should make it count. Together they should also grab everything there is to grab, resource-wise. Again, I am just talking generally.

Pigs+Fish more than qualifies for a city slot. It will net you more than 50 beakers/turn by 1 AD if cards are played right (5 rep-scientists without starving!). Pigs+Desert copper, I am not so sure. It adds production. However, you are already at your limit unit-wise. It can build a few workers I guess. But you probably want more than that.

Here is a save from my attempt.

Edit: I take back what I said, the barb city is not as bad as I thought. Pigs are still attainable quite easily. Happy days. In this case forget about my marker for the Fish/Silver city. Will probably ignore it for a long time.

Edit 2: Also note that my cities 4 and 5 will only be settled upon reaching CoL. So I can run an artist for the fish W of capital. City #5 will be Pigs+Fur. And that's it until Optics is in sight. Probably.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

I don't have any real experience with Isolation - I did try a few of the early saves on your Isolation thread, but this was when I was not as comfortable on Deity in general. BTW, that thread is a great resource, I've read through it a few times.
My idea was to settle 6 cities which each had 1 food source (Fish + 2nd Pigs + western Fish once I could run Artists with CoL) and maybe settle on any food North once i get close to Optics.

AH before Writing was definitely the play here. I did originally plan to stall research until Libraries were built, but it leaves my Tolosa as useless for too long. I did take some of your advice and tried to grow in the next set and repair some of the damage done in whipping the capital so hard.

I looked at your save, and your Tolosa is a super spot. I did think about a settle there, but I didnt want to 'waste' the grasslands East of the capital and I wanted to feed the hills near the Copper. Now that i think about it more, those were not really useable until at we leave our island and I should have prioritised an excellent site over 2 average ones.

I loved to over-expand and use lots of small overlapping cities on Immortal, so I can whip more Cannons, this 1 super site over 2 so-so ones idea has always been suboptimal in my mind. Just another blind spot I need to overcome.

Funny we got a barb city in the same stupid spot!

You got Pyramids a bit earlier than I did. I think your save is a little bit ahead of mine, but I haven't lost hope yet. (though once your Tolosa is running those 5 scientists...... )

 

[Fippy]

Something i like doing when building Pyras, 1 or 2 failgold chops in another city before completing them
Best would be if you have 1 worker spare, and when his chop arrives at failgold city your Cap switches to a different build than Pyras for 1t.

With charismatic, happy cap would not be great but still okay if you lose them, and if that really happens you get enuf gold for 100% slider until Optics? Maybe a bit drastic, but almost ~~
~50g help a lot with researching important techs like writing, without waiting for an annoyingly long time at 0%.

 

[Berks]

Hi Fippy,

Thanks for the feedback!

I could have chopped at least 1 forest into failgold, I agree this can be a good idea. I chose not to because I really felt I needed the extra happy cap and wanted to maximise my chance of getting them. In hindsight, I did have CHA and some luxury resources north (which I didn't know about at time I started Pyras) and if things got bad I could always get Monarchy.

I only had 2 workers though, and did not want to make a third so early.

General questions, thinking out loud here - Oracle went really late in my save (875BC IIRC). Maybe instead of Masonry for Pyra's, Oracling CoL was a good idea? Can build cheap temples? Although at the time, I guess I am risking losing the reli and missing the Oracle as I don't really know when it is going to go. If I failed, I could always put some failgold hammers into Pyras as well and tech Monarchy before beelining Optics.

 

[Berks]

got home late from work, too tired to play a proper set. next round tomorrow....
Edit:

Round 6 - 1AD

Not much happened this set, so I played to 1AD.

T89: 2 Libraries finished. Rework tiles to run 2 scientists in each city, while working all cottages. Turn research on, Fishing in 1. Part built monument in capital, Settler will take too long if I work mines instead of cottages.
T90: Fishing in. Start Monument in Tolosa. Polytheism in 2.
T92: Poly in. GG and GP BIDL
T93: Priesthood in. Start CoL (7). Confu still not founded. Monument in Tolosa, start Settler (8)
T94: Monument in Vienne. Start Workboat (6).
T98: Pop a GE in Bibracte. Plan to use him to bulb Machinery.
T99: Settler in Tolosa done. Start another Settler. Decide to settle Pig/Fur spot first, as workboat wont be ready in time.

T100: CoL done, found Confu in Vienne. Autospread to Bibracte. Start Metal Casting at 0%.
Revolt to Caste. Start Chichen Itza in Vienne.

T101: Gergovia founded. Run an Artist to get the first border pop. Start a Granary.
T105: Found Camulodunum near eastern fish, which are hooked up straight away. Start Granary. Land is now fogbusted, only a few tiles which can spawn barb galleys.
T109: Metal Casting in, bulb Machinery, 3 turns left. Have 3 scientists running in Vienne and Tolosa now, 60BPT at 0%.
T112: Machinery in. Start Iron Working.
T113: Chichen Itza BIDL, get 134 failgold. 4th GG of the game BIDL, and another GS.
T114: IW in, Start Sailing. 5th GG BIDL.
T115: Sailing in, start Alpha at 0% - 6 turns. GS in 3. I need Math, Alpha and Compass to bulb Optics. 72 BPT @ 0%.

Round 7 plan:

Plan to tech Alpha -> Math -> Compass, then bulb Optics. Will chop a Trireme in Vienne and build one in Camulodunum, upgrade them once Optics is in. Think I should put a Scout in each one also.

Overall, I think I have done a reasonable job. I made a few mistakes along the way, but the big picture plan was fairly solid. I have only needed 2 workers to get everything online in time and happy really hasn't been a problem.

Looking for input on the city sites I chose. I wanted the 2nd Pig city up, so I can run 3 scientists at size 4. I chose the Eastern Fish city as it would be up and running faster, and has mines and Horses to work until Optics. Do not see the need for a 6th city yet. Will get more cities once I get closer to Optics. I want Currency and Astro to make them profitable.

Too far away to plan army build up yet. I think Cannons are the most reliable, but I have Horse and Iron, and my tech rate cant be that bad. Has been a lot of war already, I remember at least 5 GG being born.

 

[Berks]

Editing my post didn't bump the thread. Hope this post isn't considered poor form....

 

[Lain]

Yeah I agree, your situation looks very reasonable. I wouldn't advise teching Maths/Alpha here though. You are only two techs away from building caravels. Just go for it yourself. Math+Alpha can be traded for easily and you might just end up delaying your astro time. And even if you don't, I'd rather use the extra GP for a golden age than blow him on Optics.

Here is my position at 1 AD... looking pretty similar.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

Thanks for continuing the shadow. I actually think your position is quite far ahead of mine now. You have more developed cities and a larger gold bank. The only advantage I would have is more GPP spread out across secondary cities, but this is not as useful as you have a better GP farm than I do. Not to say my position is unwinnable with good play though.

Round 7 – 400 AD

Change gears and start Compass as suggested by Lain. Math + Alpha is almost as many beakers as Optics, and saves a bulb as pointed out. I originally wanted Alpha so I could build Research, but my production is crap at present, as I am running as many scientists as possible.

T118: GS born in Vienne. Leave him asleep.
T123: Compass in. Start Optics. Will take around 8 turns. I've started chopping out 2 triremes in preparation to explore.
T130: Optics in 1. I have 2 Triremes due to complete in the next turn, and exactly 100 gold in the bank. I decided not to build Explorers, used spare hammers to start another Settler for the Western fish site.
T131: Optics in, move triremes out 1 space and then upgrade to Caravels. Still have 78BPT at 0%.

Round 8 Plan:

I still need Calendar for Astro, so I will slow tech Math.

There are 2 more fish sites I want to settle, 1 Settler is almost built.

I have my next GS in 5 turns. I should be able to double bulb Astro once I get Calendar. For GPP, I think I should switch cities off running scientists once they pop their next GP?

 

[Lain]

Still looking decent . I would have built more cottages in your case. Especially instead of plains mines, which are almost never worth it. Maybe in the capital to build a wonder or when there is nothing better to do early on. But even grassland mines I'm not so sure about. With Rep available they might be inferior tiles on the surface, but the main advantage of Pyramids is not the specialists, but the increased happy cap. Health situation on this island is a shambles, but otherwise we could let all the cities grow to size 10+ and that'd be worth it. I still think your population could be bigger here and there. Or at least grow back now. Maths/Alpha can be traded for. I would collect money now and wait for contact.

Cities that don't need to generate a Great Scientist are better off running merchants instead.

Your fogbusters in the north can be shuffled around. No need to fogbust water tiles to the west. Your seafood there is all in the ocean and not reachable for barb galleys. The east, on the other hand... could become more annoying with coast fish.

Upgrading Triremes can be nice, but whipping something with 29H overflow the turn before and then chopping one forest to finish a caravel instantly should be more efficient. I would do the upgrading thing if there is one side of the island without any coastal cities. Hence it would take 3-4 turns to finish and move a fresh caravel there in the first place.

Here is my Optics shadow. A bit messy with the micro, but should be sufficient. Two more settlers are (almost) in place. Also a benefit of larger population. I slow-built two settlers while running scientists and after I was done, I could whip them immediately.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

Thanks for posting another save. It is clear to see I stopped developing my cities too early, especially the capital!
I think I should have added a third worker much earlier and cottaged more of the green lands for the southern cities. I could have just used 2 cities to run scientists instead of 4. I stopped growing where I did as I was worried about the health cap and wasting food.

I didn't want to change back into Slavery as I wanted to keep up the tech rate, but a quick switch would have been good in this case. I could have whipped out some Settlers and Workers too, and regrown on some nice green cottages.

Encouraging to see how much my play can be improved

Round 8 – 700 AD

T132: Meet Toku right to the south. He wont trade anything.
T133: Meet JC to the south east. He is at war with Toku. Both are Hindu. JC has Currency, but not Alpha!
Settler done, start another Settler.
T135: Math in, start Calendar at 0% (7)
T136: Bibracte pops a GS. Sleep him in capital. Turn off scientists, start adding mines and cottages to grow more pop.
T137: Found Verlamion. Run artist for border pop.
T140: Taoism founded! Seems a very slow global tech pace. Lots of wars. I'm going to add a few more workers so I can improve more tiles.
T142: Calendar in. Still cant trade for Alpha but I found another border. Start Civil Service at 0%.
T143: Meet Ghenghis. Open borders and make my first trade of the game. Double bulb Astro, still need 2 turns to finish it.
T144: I want Currency to start benefitting from Astro, so I make a trade with JC. Getting HBR would have cost 55 gold, Monarchy 90 gold. I dont care much about trade limit at this stage.
T145: Astro finished. No-one I have met has Civil Service yet, decide to finish this tech.

Trade Horse to JC for Wheat + Cow + Gems. No one will give me anything good for Stone. I now have extra room in healthy and happy caps though. Got my seventh city up late in the set, have a workboat heading to improve the fish.

Getting tired now so stop here.

Round 9 Plan:

Need to meet the rest of the globe. Planning to hold onto Optics as long as possible, I don't think I need any of the techs on offer.

Want to tech Civil Service so I can spread farms and start growing a few cities so I can try to get a few GM's. I think the Lib tech line is best, and then head to Steel?

I don't think adding more cottages is great at this point, except around the capital (??) – I am planning to farm most of the northern grassland so I can whip out my army.

Worst case, Toku should be easy to take out with Cannons, I don't think he is trading with anyone. Maybe after that I can take out JC?

Not sure if OR is worth it at this point, I am still not really working many hammer tiles.

Maybe I could snipe the Barb city right on the edge of JC's land?

 

[Lain]

The angry smilies towards you do stand out. No reason to be in the religion right now, especially since you didn't adopt OR. I just switched out of it altogether upon making contact. The few hammers are just not worth it compared to the risk here. Could make use of spiritual and risk a quick switch to get up the forges, but apart from that... It does sound nice to switch into Theocracy, but I'd probably rather use Vassalage.

Not sure about that exploration. One more caravel could have been good and generally you want to meet everyone as soon as possible. Seems you spent quite some time exploring that Toku/JC island. After confirming they were alone on there, it was time to sail on I think.

I don't think it's ever too late for new cottages. Better than working the coast. At some point you will switch into Slavery for army-buildup and then all those specialists need something to work. I'm not sure how to leverage Pyramids in the best possible way myself. But running specialists does kind of stagnate everything else. No production and no food. I think there needs to be a transition at some point. It's better to reach Steel 1100 AD and have infrastructure and a standing army, than reaching it 900 AD while missing Forges.

I've come to question the Lib-path recently. It's a great choice in regular games, where you bulb through Philosophy/Education/Lib itself and trade those techs for everything else. But in isolation, the GS are used for Astronomy already. And GPP generation is usually not great, especially with Brennus. If you wanted to go down that path, I guess you could tech Philosophy and make use of Pacifism. Bulb Education. But bulbing Lib is not possible anymore since you have Machinery. And what does Philosophy, Education and Lib really give you in return? That's a lot of beakers invested right there. At the end of that you will have neither an army nor a decisive military tech. I think it's just a distraction. I suggest beelining Steel immediately and forgetting about everything else. Next GP could just start a golden age to push you over the line when you need it. Great Merchants sound nice, but it often doesn't really work out in practice.

I think that Lib isn't worth it unless you can get something really expensive (Steel or at least Chemistry) with it to justify the detour. Barely winning Nationalism won't do anything for you.

That puny barb city won't do much good. Agree that taking out Toku/JC would be a good step towards victory. Should get you 25+ cities in total and that's enough for any victory condition.

Biggest threat right now is that you have a bunch of warmongers basically hating you. I tried to gift some gold or smaller tech to get the +4 fair trade immediately and like I said, no religion. Ideally you meet everybody as soon as possible and secure Feudalism/Civil Service/Guilds/Engineering, even if it means giving away Astronomy. And then it's just 3 more techs to go.

Edit: Camuldonum still needs a Lighthouse before that Forge.

Here is my tech tree 820 AD

Spoiler :

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

I continued exploring the Toku/JC island thinking there would be a third civ wedged in the middle - seemed reasonable the broken continent would get the extra civ?

You are right that I can drop religion, I have plenty of happy.

I'll think some more about the improvements on the island. I have few workers so I will be underdeveloped regardless.

I like the idea of skipping Lib. If I had a huge island with 12 good cities, I could tech a bit more and get something like Rifles+Cannons. I'm not a huge fan of cuirs, especially from boats, so I think straight to Steel is the go. I should have a nice window to kill at least Toku.

A problem I tend to have is catching up/keeping up in tech enough to hit the 2nd target after a successful war - but that comes later.

Will finish Civil Service and then head towards Chemistry. I should be able to bulb some or all of this tech and make the final push for Steel.

 

[Berks]

Round 9 – 1110 AD

T148: Meet Qin to the north of Genghis. Gift Priesthood, open borders and trade Fish for Sheep. At home I am adding a few more workers, including in Camuldonum.
T149: Qin offers Monarchy for Compass, I accept. Hindu AP, propose open borders, I vote yes as I have 1 city which picked up Hindu.
T150: Sell Aesthetics to Toku for 55g. He is the only one with Civil Service, naturally. Open borders resolution just passes, I have OB with Toku now I turn research back on now, I need to get Feudalism in trade and head closer to Chemistry.
T151: Power ratings – JC is #1. Might have to pick a softer target!
Meet Shaka, who is at war with Qin. Gift 10 gold, but decide not to trade. Fair trade goes down to +2 to very next turn.
T153: Meet Victoria, who is at war with Ghenghis. Victoria is quite behind, decide to gift Aesthetics and trade CoL+Compass+Calendar for Feudalism
T155: Civil Service in, take Bureau. Tech Guilds at 0% - 3 people have it already, hoping to get part of it in trade.
T156: Pop a GS in Tolosa. Sleep him.
T158: Trade Optics for guilds with Qin. Start Gunpowder. Everyone at peace except Toku who is plotting.
T160: switch into Slavery so I can start whipping infrastructure. Next GS will come from Vienne in 14 turns. I will need about 10 turns to reach Gunpowder. Trade Optics to Victoria for 60g + Construction.
T163: Circumnavigate the globe. I tried putting some research into Engineering to swap for Guilds but Victoria wont bite, she must be researching Engineering herself. Sell Optics to JC for 280g.
Add a GE to Vienne, decide to take the small risk of popping a GE.
Self-teching Gunpowder now.
T165: Had a couple of macemen built. Conquer the barb city at least. Even though its' location sucks, I decide to keep it, have 5 pop and a worked cottage, its a net plus to the economy.
T167: Gunpowder in. Time to break the Astro monopoly. Trade to Victoria for Lit+HBR+Eng+60 gold. Trade to Qin for Philo+Banking. Builb 1/2 of Chem, next GP due in 3 turns.
Cities have been building Harbors, Forges and Barracks. Going to start producing some support troops for the Cannons soon, as well as a few Galleons.
T171: Bulb the rest of Chem with the GS I popped. Steel is 17 turns away, and I dont have enough gold to get there yet.

Decide to stop here, not sure how good my play from Optics onward has been. Is it worth pursuing this game further, or will it just be a painful late game slog? Feel am already about 20 turns behind where I could have been, and that is the difference between winning and losing here.

Also, should I go for Steel ASAP by building Wealth, or start building some Pikes and Maces now. I think the best option is to build them once I get a bit closer to Steel?

Round 10 Plan:

Tech Steel, build up an army, and hit the weakest player, likely Toku.

 

[Lain]

Well it might still be winnable, especially as tech pace seems to be rather slow (Lib probably won't go before 1200 AD?). But your attack won't come before 1300 AD and even the weakest guy here, Toku, will not just fold easily. With careful play something like a diplo win should be possible, but in terms of learning and improvement, I think a new game would be more useful.

There are a few things to point out. For example, plains mines shouldn't be worked when you have rep specialists available. Copper could be traded to Genghis for a decent amount of gold. That last fish spot could have been useful to settle (just stagnating at size 4 with 3x rep merchants is huge value.. also, you could run artists and get access to that silver). Resource placement is so awkward on our continent. But you want to have Silver/Whale etc available when you attack, because Police State will take away the 3x happy faces from Rep. But with some improvement, Optics comes earlier, the exploration goes smoother (extra caravel?) and the other problems pretty much solve themselves.

Some production/research has to be streamlined. For example, Harbors are probably not worth it. Unless you need the health. It's like +4 commerce/turn for 80 hammers, which pays back eventually but by that time you will have won or lost for other reasons. I like adding one or two myself, but after people switch into Mercantilism it's really just a waste. Also keep in mind that you are probably whipping the harbors for 2-3 pop which could be rep specialists instead. A single rep merchant is basically more valuable than the Harbor by itself when you think about it. So looking at it that way, they probably shouldn't be built here at all. Pyramids changes things.

I would make a quick switch into ORG religion to whip Forges/Barracks (Spiritual is nice) and then probably stay at big population, working cottages+rep specialists and even Pacifism if you feel brave. Then, about 10-12 turns from Steel completion I would switch into Slavery, Police State, Vassalage, Theocracy (if you feel safe enough) and go nuts on the whipping. This yielded the best results for me in the past. Usually I'd start the army build-up earlier, but rep specialists are just so good and with the extra hammers from Police State you can get away with it. Initial stack should have at least 25 units or so. With 7-8 cities, each one just has to whip 3 or 4 times. That's really not much.

You would get 7 xp units out of the gate. Could give them one fight (barb city you took) and suddenly you will bring some CR3 cannons and macemen to your first battle.

Another thing is research. One mistake I kept doing myself. Imagine following situation: You have a monopoly on Optics and there are Feudalism + Civil Service up for trade. What do you do? I used to put beakers into both and then trade Optics, as to save beakers and preserve my tech lead or whatever. Today I would trade Optics for Construction and next turn trade Astro for both without blinking. Astro for Guilds/Engineering next turn and start on Gunpowder immediately. You boost some distant AI, but in the grand scheme of things that won't lose you the game. Astro adds like 50 beakers to their empire, big deal. On the other hand, you gain something like 5 turns and also 30-40 beakers immediately from earlier Bureaucracy. With snowball effects etc that is huge. Could mean the difference between fighting Knights or Grenadiers later (maybe don't give Astro to the AI you want to attack, but I usually go after the weakest one anyway. Increasing the gap between the weakest and strongest can work in your favor.. so they won't trade with each other).

Regardless if you continue or not, big props for playing isolation. In terms of empire management, I can't think of a better exercise. I'm sure you will have learned a lot. You are not far away from handling this successfully, and like I said, even this game is not lost or anything. Just yeah, it might become a struggle. Was fun to play along and I'll try to continue myself and post some later saves. My attack will be delayed aswell because nobody has anything for trade. They are too busy killing each other.

 

[Lain]

Here is my 720 AD shadow. Just reached Gunpowder, now waiting for an Engineering trade... really stingy bunch here. Switching into Slavery/Organized Religion in two turns to whip Forges+Barracks. Taking a little break from teching here. Might even get out a few Trebs/Maces and start pounding on that barb city before it flips. Like I said, some CR3 units would be a big deal.

Diplo is pretty safe, though JC is a slight concern. Can't say I'm too worried, I can always switch out of religion and beg, or just bribe one of the dogs on him.

Little trick: Victoria is the worst enemy of everyone, but has some important resources for trade. Solution: Renew the deals every 10 turns (she will trade resources even at annoyed!). By renewing the trades, people can't demand to "stop trading". Since you can't cancel deals before 10 turns passed. So the only turn on which people could demand it is the turn that I renew them anyway. So very little risk. Might even be 100% safe, not sure how the interturns work on that. No diplo hits and I get access to those resources. And everyone is happy.

My next GP will start a golden age. Once you start pumping out 300+ beakers, bulbs kind of lose their value. During the GA, I'll get out another GP or two for a later golden age (recovery after war).

Traded Astro for Feudalism+Civil Service from Qin, about 450 AD. Basically on the turn I got Astro in the first place.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

Appreciate the continual feedback. Playing through this game was a great learning experience. I know I don't have many/any huge holes in my game, but there are so many little things which when added up, mean I can't win anything but the most generous of starts on this level.
Your last few posts alone were worth the price of posting all those rounds!

Before giving up this map entirely, I am going to restart again from my round 2 save, and try one more time.

 

[Berks]

Brennus II - 1040 BC

Minor changes from my first try - I used my worker to mine tiles instead of the farm. Still teched Archery -> Pottery. I then added Masonry -> BW -> AH -> Writing (Changed to Fishing late in the set)

This worked a LOT better. I had Archers out and in place before the Barbs hit and managed push them out earlier, leading to a well fogbusted island. Did not lose any worker turns or improvements. Still have my scout alive too!

Still got Pyramids 1040BC. I made a mistake to not have a unit in the capital, I built a Granary instead. Should have done a Warrior and whipped the Granary in rather than finish Granary before Mids.

Compared to my first save I think this is much better. Maybe not as good as Lain's shadow save - he has the third city up faster, but I have better fogbusting and a granary in the capital already.

 

[Berks]

Brennus II - 1AD

Played another bigger round to 1AD to compare to my original save.

Stockpiled gold while building Libraries. Tolosa got set up early in the round and had a boat whipped from Vienne en route. Will be able to pump more GP's for me this round.

Teched CoL, but missed the religion. Added Math next. I wanted this so I could chop out infrastructure better - Granaries, Forges, Lighthouses, plus I need it to trade for Calendar. Sailing + IW next, to add trade routes quicker, unlock Astro bulb later on and unlock the Iron tile.

I got a GS first this time at 400BC, used to build an academy. I had 350 gold at the time. The academy added 18 BPT when I built it, and I have been researching at 100% since then.
Snagged a bit of failgold for Chichen Itza, enough to get me through MC and part of Compass. I think academy first is best here because I should still have 2 GS in time for Astro. Slightly later Astro date, but faster to Steel IMO.

Next GS' will be fairly late, will sit on 2 GS to bulb Astro. Planning to self-tech Optics and then calendar for the double-bulb.

Had the island fogbusted totally once the 4th city was founded near the fish (I stole the spot from Lain's save, with CoL it is way better than fish in first ring.

I switched briefly into Slavery here to whip out a Settler for the 6th site. Will not build any more until after Optics.

Will stop here and play some more rounds tomorrow. Comments welcome

 

[Berks]

Hi BiC, looks like we crossposted....

1) Optics was 400AD, but my astro date was actually 700 AD hard to tell when I use turn numbers and not dates, sorry.

2) I was working 3 mines while building the mids, my 2 workers were chopping forests the whole time so no time to lay down more cottages to grow to size 6 on. Plus we lose the hammers from working mine tiles.

I could have stolen them from Vienne, but I posted a slower mids date with 2 near perfect whips in my round 1 try, plus an extra farm to grow on. It also gimped the production of my 2nd city severely, meaning slower granary/library etc.

3) Map was really barb heavy, settling a city outwards would have surely meant loss of tiles - I spent a lot of turns defending on top of my own hills.
Also, as others pointed out, it can share cottages with capital, and doesnt need a road for the trade route connection.
I might have been able to settle where Tolosa is, but then I don't have Fishing, AH or worker turns (chopping mids!) to take advantage of the site, so it is actually more useless than my Vienne in the short term? (I think working 3f 1c > 1f3h1c at size 1, plus getting earlier cottage turns is good)

Edit - took another look at Lain's 1AD save. My 2nd save is better than my first try, but his is still ahead. I think the reason would be working more cottages in the capital, and Tolosa being up faster. Also has Machinery and an extra 200 gold stored, vs my Math and an Academy. More GPP in the bank too.

I really dont think the 1040BC save isn't that much worse than yours Lain, so did I just play the last round suboptimal?