Ever have one of those starts...

[NukeAJS]

Even without +1 faith from desert tiles, there's still +1 faith and culture from gold.

 

[kaltorak]

I recently posted a start myself. Well, not a start, it was the second city. But it had solomons mines as spain. Easiest game I've ever had. Just rolled over all the AIs on emperor with the first army I built. Upgrading and sending reinforcments all the time ofc, but it was a non-stop advancement till the end.

500 gold on turn 5, buy settler, city with 12 production tile on turn 15, besides the capital.

 

[Stellarnight]

In my 500 hours of playing, i have never gotten a 4 lux start but here we go! Comes with free River and Mountain

Spoiler :

 

[King_Course]

Its a nice start no doubt but I've started to dislike these uber desert starts. Your early strat is very formulaic. Prioritise early religion for DF then rush Petra. If you hit those its game over.

This is my gripe too. Same path every time, and as you say, hit those and game is over. Don't hit them and you start a new game. Too much desert regardless of bias or not, if it's not in capital you should build Petra in second city most often.

how do you rush petra

On Immortal, I usually take the Lux techs, and Animal Handling, then get Writing, then set the skill path straight to Petra. Get Library and granary up early. A caravan to another Civ helps with science. This is easiest if you have mining Lux.

Masonry/marble will lower build time so it is worthwhile. You may be able to squeeze in Plantations, or you may not. Trapping I wait with till I'm building Petra. These techs I wouldn't take before I got a Library up and maybe a caravan too even.

I usually play Trad, and of course make sure I have the wonder bonus by the time Petra is up. Another approach is to aim to finsish Liberty fast and then build Petra with a Great Engineer. I feel this is very strong if you find a cultural hut.

Basically I feel Liberty only works if you kickstart with a cultural hut infact. Else you end up sitting around not building settlers or workers waiting for the culture clock to tick in. With a hut you got momentum, and without a hut it isn't going fast enough.

 

[Sonereal]

...where you feel like you've already won?

Yes, but only because I love trade routes.

Spoiler :

 

[Elz Majesto]

Yes, but only because I love trade routes.

Spoiler :

What setting is this? 15 trade routes sounds too good to be true!

 

[Sonereal]

What setting is this? 15 trade routes sounds too good to be true!

I had an idea early on that the reason the AI is so peacenik like early on is because they don't have enough gold, so a solution was to make granaries, markets, banks, and stock exchanges each give +1 route and see how the AI handles it.

Needless to say, I totally forgot about how hilariously awesome internal routes are and right now, all my cities have a food route (one has a production route) feeding the capital with there being, I think, several extra routes for trade (which for now is limited with one major civ and several city-states).

Edit: Need to dig up a strategic view map of the trade routes. Trade routes in strat view are perty.

And here we go.

Spoiler :

 

[Ekmek]

I had an idea early on that the reason the AI is so peacenik like early on is because they don't have enough gold, so a solution was to make granaries, markets, banks, and stock exchanges each give +1 route and see how the AI handles it.

Needless to say, I totally forgot about how hilariously awesome internal routes are and right now, all my cities have a food route (one has a production route) feeding the capital with there being, I think, several extra routes for trade (which for now is limited with one major civ and several city-states).

Edit: Need to dig up a strategic view map of the trade routes. Trade routes in strat view are perty.

And here we go.

mre trade routs might not be bad if you cut the yield from them.


I really wish city-States did trade routes and that is how you got your maritime food bonus. but thats off topic.

 

[Sonereal]

mre trade routs might not be bad if you cut the yield from them.

My original reasoning for not doing anything to cut yields is that, well, the AI can use it too, right?

lolno. Still fun though. I don't consider the food routes OP given that, even though the screenshot gives that idea, I'm not swimming in happiness, but the Avoid Growth option is for quitters!

To be fair, the Amazon Jungle script wasn't the best mapscript to test this theory on, given all trade has to be with caravans and luxuries are so sparse the AI doesn't expand very well.