T21.
BW. Slavery. Copper. Axe-rush Pacal ?
Would’ve done it on Normal speed. Here it looks like it’s gonna come too late. Better beeline Construction. Definitely skipping Archery, though. 2 more barb warriors have spawned up North, will most likely stay safe until I can get out an Axe or two.
Espionage screen show that there’s at least another AI on the continent.
T26.
Pacal goes for the PH-pig spot (unsurprisingly). This will make dealing with barbs a lot easier. 2440BC 3rd city for a Deity AI is surprisingly slow. Means he's most likely building a wonder or having major barb trouble.
T28.
Met Stalin. Killed a barb warrior @97% odds.
T29.
Second worker whipped in Shanghai, he will improve & road the copper. OB with Pericles.
Pacal completes the Oracle. He’ll probably take Monarchy, which can mean early longbows.
T30.
Pretty neat.
Pacal did not adopt HR, and Confu wasn’t founded. Which probably means he oracled MC. Or IW (would be really stupid but maybe he didn't have Pottery).
T33.
Importance of timing.
Settler is out. Worker will finish chopping the forest before the city is settled and ruins it. Clams will be improved on the turn after that.
Time to road the copper and get an Axe out. I had to pull back my fogbusting northern warriors, so there might be some Archers coming. And the fur spot is too far away to settle with just warriors.
The 36 gold from the hut really helped with the tech pace.
T34.
Here comes trouble.
The barb warrior is wounded & my FPH warrior has a 15% fortify bonus. Copper online next turn & chop coming in, so I can have an Axeman before the Archer reaches Beijing. Getting a warrior out in Shanghai this turn just in case he forks my worker and capital.
Oh and timing for Pottery kinda sucks. Could’ve had it 1T earlier and saved 2h in city #3. Saved 1 beaker instead (rounding errors).
T36.
Now this is going to hurt my maintenance (-4 unit cost). But having 2 woody I warriors will definitely delay the need for an Axe.
T36.
Pottery. Warrior discovering some more mediocre land to the south, which I’ll let Pacal settle for me. Looks like I’m pretty much done with barbs (have 5 warriors and 1 scout).
3 cities, 1 more in a few turns. 3 workers. Gonna 2whip a Granary in Beijing, then 3whip a Settler for the fur spot. I think I’m also done chopping until Math/Construction. From here it’s probably gonna be Writing-Hunting-Math-Masonry-Construction. Could squeeze in Sailing for lighthouses but I don’t think that more food would do any good here.
I’ll probably get a GS in Beijing, not sure what to do with him. Probably bulb Philo for trade bait. Beijing has the potential to be a very strong bureau cap, but I’ll be at 0% slider for a long time, and this looks like an espionnage-heavy map, so an early Academy is probably not worth it.
Also gotta keep in mind that it's a Large map with Low Seas. There is A LOT of available land for AIs to settle (didn't check for this map, but should be around 1800-1900 land tiles for 9 players). This means 2 things. First, most AIs will have between 12 and 18 cities in the mid-game, so they'll be very hard to kill in the Renaissance era. Second, having lots of land means the AIs stay in expansion mode for longer, which gives Classical Era wars a larger window of opportunity.
