Featured Game #4 Spoiler 1: Pre-Renaissance

[Thalassicus]

Click Here to begin VEM Fatured Game #4. As fair respect for your fellow competitors, do not read the Spoiler threads before starting the game.

This thread is to discuss what happened in your early game - strategies, other civs, resources, events of the game, and so on. Please DO NOT post spoilers here about gameplay during or after the Renaissance era. Visit Spoiler Thread #2 to discuss the late game and post your final victory save.

 

[Gamewizard]

Turn 130, just researched Astronomy. I went Tradition, farm focus and improved resources as they became available. Built Great Library, Oracle, Notre Dame, and Porcelain Tower in the capital. I think I've used 3 Great Scientists so far, but I have 2 camped out at the capital; will probably use them to get Scientific Theory shortly. I built a second city thanks to Liberty settler (after finishing Tradition) on the tile southwest of Krakatoa. The unintended side effect of this is that all AIs are friendly since I've kept my distance. Capital is size 20ish and the other is 10ish and rising rapidly. Happiness has never been an issue.

Amazingly I've gotten away with never building a unit. My starting warrior became a spearman via opportunity and I bought a Trireme, but that is all for my military. I would really like to start spamming Longbows and Ship of the Lines to take out Persia, but I should probably take advantage of having so many friends and start spamming RAs.

 

[Txurce]

That's a very quick traditional science start. Not having Germany declare war on you despite lacking no army was a good break. They declared on me fairly early on, but I had no difficulty fending them off, due in part to their slow progress through the rough terrain.

I built by the mountain to the NW, went straight Liberty, and built my second city across the river to the south. I skipped the Great Library altogether, but built the Great Lighthouse, Colossus and Pyramids between the two. (Later I got the PT.)That got me a third city on the river near Almaty.

An early trireme allowed me to meet a lot of CS quickly. Focusing on building GM's, I had plenty of gold by the time I researched Aesthetics and started to pick up CS. This led to pretty quick denouncements from Egypt and then Persia, followed by DOW's from them on the same turn. By then I had added two more cities - the pearls to the NW and the SE - and had just upgraded to longbows. (This occurred some time after researching Astronomy; I forgot to check when I did it, or to post here.)

Overall I'm continuing my pre-game plan of focusing on gold to go wide for science or diplomacy, shifting to war once I had longbows (and then SOTL's). That's where I am now. I considered conquest, but decided that picking off the coastal capitals with capital ships was a bit too easy.

 

[Txurce]

(double post)