Emperor Attempt

[Anysense]

Started a game. Found masonry in a hut. Was stunned with confucionism having been founded in 3600 BC. Wacky settings are... just wacky.
I chose AH-writing-alpha route. Since I am going to beeline alpha the wheel for commerce makes no sense, it simply won't pay back that quickly.
Met a lot of animals, so I got woodsman II warrior. Probably will send him to steal workers.

Spoiler :

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, I'm going to reload an earlier auto and split the fish and cow I suppose. I'm a little confused because I thought you guys were saying the fish-cow spot would be a good one, but anyway...
EDIT: I guess that's when we all thought there might be other good locations nearby, now the land has been revealed to be pretty barren making the most use of what we have close to Rome is better.


sampsa, I started building the granary because I didn't feel like I needed another worker and I didn't see that there was much to do with a Settler.

cseanny, I didn't see your post directly above the played turns. It might be an interesting approach. I've taken your advice in the post just after my update.

Anysense, you may have noticed choose religions is on so it just means someone discovered meditation/polytheism.

So, I founded Antium 1W of the cows, capital started working an another Settler who'll be out in 2 turns and will settle on the FP 1SE of the fish.
Researching BW after AH instead of writing, to reveal copper.
Turn 56 we get another stroke of commerce-related luck:

Spoiler :

At turn 60 we finish BW and switch to slavery, also finishing the Pasture on the cow.

At turn 61, our warrior is killed by a Lion on a hill

But, we get YET ANOTHER yield-boosting random event, 2 extra hammers on the other grassland hill in Rome The RNG is taking pity on me this game.

BW reveals copper here:

Spoiler :

I'm thinking maybe a city between the copper and the oasis is in order. Problem is copper's on a desert tile, making it a 4 yield which just isn't very good considering it costs 2 food to work.

Anyway, the next settler will be out in 3 turns and I'll place the next city on the fish spot (1E of where Antium was originally). After that, not really sure what to do next.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, I've been playing some turns ahead with the intent of restarting at the turn 61 save if I screwed up, and I'm pretty happy with how things are going so far. I built about 8 or 9 praets and attacked Saladin in ~450 BC and captured Mecca by 350 BC. It has the GLH so that's a pretty good boost.

I have more praets coming so will probably finish Saladin off and then see what happens next.

This is Mecca

Spoiler :

 

[Lexicus]

Won Domination in 1824.

 

[pigswill]

That's a pretty big jump! What happened in between?

 

[Lexicus]

LOL, I'll see what I can remember. I took out Sally, then spent a while filling in all the nearby land with new cities, teching up to Curs and cannons while I did so. Couldn't maintain a tech lead on the AIs but was able to get to military techs first while they got trash like Democracy, so smashed up Napoleon, then Ragnar, they both capitulated. By then I was able to attack Lincoln with rifles/cav while he still just had longbows and muskets.

Next I swung around to take Mansa out, he capitulated after one city, then I took out the rest of the AIs one by one. Hatty was capitulated in 1824 for the win, Frederick was the only free AI left at that point.