Hmmmm, Venice, I love it! You're exactly right! One of the early turns I told Sirian that the impact of the rules all came in sudden rush when a new spear was made and I started to 'goto' where I wanted him. "21 turns" just to cross our mainland!
It will be NO faster when infantry arrive. AI invasions, should any come, will not be the utter joke they are now (especially post railroad), but potentially a major crisis.
What the map does NOT show is just how many resources we've settled on. Ivory galore, dyes and more dyes, horses, and an iron. The presence of a luxury/strategic resource was the dominant factor in our dotmap, in addition to the need to go almost all-coastal. Our inland barracks-troop-towns now making spears won't get any lux or any resources for better troops until flight! As Rowain commented, the results are drastic. Food and shields both in dire supply, the only commerce coming from river tiles, and much more.
At first I was as shocked as readers were to hear Sirian suggest Regent, but... I think he chose well.
Anyway... now for the latest turn. This is a MAJOR round, enjoy...
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64 shields. The ENTIRE shield output of our nation of 29 cities is 64 shields. In
350AD no less. I've had games where the capital alone cranked that much in that year.
Delhi isn't even hitting 10spt yet. Is there something the AI knows, automating workers
and such, that we don't know?!??! Is this some regent anti-player penalty? (This paragraph was written before Sirian's response and meant to be a 'hint' at lack of mining)
I look at the temple and shield situation, and plan a revolt in 5 turns. Er...
scratch that. The ones due for whip in 5 are just size 1! Make that 3 turns, for
New Lahore and New Calcutta.
I must say, our lands look just LOVELY and untainted! The Chinese environmentalists
would be SO proud!
BTW, what was that news at 11? How was Otto being a bad boy?
** OH CRUD ** Now I see! He's landed a settler pair next to New Hyderabad??!!
[0] 350 - Our horse is just short of Otto's boys, and cannot protect, only watch.
What will happen?? Hrmm, wait. New Hyderabad was founded *THIS* turn?
You beat him to the absolute LAST square on our continent by a half turn??
There must be some *brilliant* guy in your SG who cranked out settlers earlier, eh?!
IBT - German pair fortifies!
(What's that phrase again? Sometimes's it's better to be lucky than good!
)
[1] 360 - The horse next door enters New Hyderabad to defend, and asks for a spear
to make its way up here. One should arrive by the *END* of Charis' next turn,
unless it takes a shuttle boat. Someday we're going to have to airlift just to
move units on our own continent. Omg, helicopter shuttles... shutter...
Pink boat picks up settler and heads toward red dot of USA jungle island.
We're short a settler (for dots), but Madras can get the next one too.
Good eye on the sea currents, our South ships goes right there instead of finishing
its look around the other island. Bingo!!! Purple borders. And they lack Monarchy!!
They have Math, Philosophy, CoL, and communications with Spanish, Celts, French,
English, Koreans, and Aztecs! While in theory I could press on sailing and meet
most, that would risk our brokering chance. No doubt by trading right now we can
pick up all communications, all territory maps, and all techs. Here's how it goes:
- Monarchy to Iro for contact with Aztecs+TM+18g. (Tech prices will drop in a min)
- Aztecs, oddly, have Monarchy, but lack Lit, Map Making, and Poly. They seem to
be researching Lit, and I trade those three techs for French+Korean+TM+3g.
- Korea needs Poly, has the same 3 as Iro, while Joan has poly. Poly+18 to Korea for
Contact with English and Spanish+TM.
- Spain lacks Poly, England lacks Monarchy! Liz will give the whole Enchilada except
Philo, so we trade Poly to Spain for Philo+TM, then Monarchy for Celts+TM+93g+
Code of Laws+Math.
- Celts too lack Monarchy, but have Currency and Construction. Looking back at Korea,
they lack Monarchy (duh, just sold them Poly) and have just Currency. Spain has
neither and Aztecs are as backwards as Germany. So we trade Monarchy to Korea for
Currency+WM+21g. Monarchy to Celts for Construction+WM+136g.
- "Score" leaders are India (hey, that's us!!), France, Iro, Russia, England, Celts,
Spain, Korea, Germany, Aztecs. We have 2.2x culture of nearest civ, Iroquois.
- We're in the Middle Ages! NO one has any middle age techs. Two countries
are working on Hanging Gardens (Russia and France), so not much going on cascade-wise.
If Joanie finishes before SunTzu, the cascade will be broken. (She's building in
Marseilles - if it were Paris I would build embassy and see)
* We have *NOT* sold our world map, and certainly not any contacts. Our WM should be
worth a pretty penny, likely a tech, when they research one. When Korea gets construction
they will likely learn Monotheism (but have nothing to give for Constr. now).
Russia and Iro are ONE tile short of being able to reach each other, so we are the SOLE
communication brokers until Navigation. If we keep the tech lead and press things,
we could possibly wipe out both Russia and Germany before any other civs even know 'em.
Our main foe later could be Iro. They share a decent sized continent with the puny
Aztecs, while France is surrounded on a huge continent by equal sized civs. When the
time comes we all dogpile together on one AI after the other on that landmass, methinks.
It's just the end of the first turn, but it's a different world already!
(BTW, we're the only ones who can reach USA island before Navigation as well)
Looking at the map, there might VERY well be a LARGE island to the south of us.
Someday when we have a ship or two to burn, suicide galleys there could be most
beneficial. There's also an interesting small 'sea zone' south of USA island that
might be interesting to look at.
Our research is now Republic at 40 - if nothing else it should trade well.
[2] 370 -
New Calcutta whips a temple. Chittagong gets a double-partial whip towards
granary, Dacca a partial whip towards a harbor, Ganges partial towards harbor,
Pune a double whip towards harbor, New Delhi (with horses) a partial whip,
New Bombay a partial whip towards harbor. That's about 140 shields for 9 pop.
[3] 380 - Delhi finishes harbor, starts a Marketplace. At some point, Colosseum prebuild
for SunTzu or Sistine might be good. Bangalore likewise starts Aqueduct. A spear and
horse complete this turn.
(IBT-ish - announced in middle of our turn????) Moscow completes Hanging Gardens.
That's it folks, NO cascade, it's over. (Cool! Unexpected)
Four workers in Delhi, hmm... could add in two and keep happy with the harbor and
one lux now in Delhi. Until out of despotism though, that would give no shields.
New Bengal is founded where the settler goto arrived, near fish pair near dyes.
Ok, people of India, LAST chance for a good
! New Lahore gets temple.
Calcutta gets a partial towards a harbor, as do Kohlapur and Indus.
The docile people of India, utterly sick and tired of all the despotic whipping,
hereby do revolt!!!
[4] 390 - Well that was a quick revolt! It seems they've chosen a King to lead them!
Income goes from +30 to +37gpt, but food is up a decent amount due to game and wheat
and the civ-wide shield total is 74, up from 64. A worthwhile govt change.
Korea does now have Monotheism, as does England. We're looking for a brokering
opportunity when another tech is discovered and a third country gets Mono.
[5] 400 - Forbidden Isle expands by culture and now all squares on the island are
under our control. Aha!! Our Iro-exploring galley sees currents.
[6] 410 - Indeed, another "seas-only" island for us to snag. The Lighthouse is a
MAJOR boon here, yet another brilliant strategic call!
[7] 420 - A spear arrives in New Hyderabad next to the German. (ok, it didn't take
a hundred years, but that's because I did a 'shuffle' maneuver with a few.
That settler heading for USA island, I take him around the unexplored east
coast, to see if there's an especially good spot. Also, I'll leave him onboard
so that if you prefer, you can continue him further on south to 'new island' ?
At new island, we see iron but in mountains (useless to us, but deniable)
Oops, better a few turns late than never. We can actually now slide the lux down
to 0% instead of 10%, so income is now +49gpt. Nice. (Pune the double-whippee is
sad either way, but he's providing our scientist) With this new income stream,
and with more harbors due before TOO long, we'll want to kick up research soon,
even now could go for Republic in 20 turns at even income with 45% sci slider.
[8] 430 - The top of 'new island' is seen, with a goody hut. It's a fairly large
but fairly icy island. Might we see a near monopoly on oil??
[9] 440 - More currents, and ANOTHER new island! oh my!! I'm not even done exploring
the first. You can forge forward or reverse and finish as you please.
Hmm, Pune is no longer utterly sad. Scientist moves to New Madras for now.
[10] 450 - No change on the diplo or tech front. Well, one. France has Republic,
but still lacks Monotheism. Our income now +60gpt... Huh, wait...
RUSSIA HAS MONOTHEISM????????? They lacked MATHEMATICS and CoL just a few turns
ago?? They have contacts with all? All have contacts with them and Germany???
Inconceivable!!!!!!!! Suicide galley??? There's just NO route!!
THEY CHEAT ON REGENT?!!
Notes to Sirian...
- Spear and horse are unmoved, I was thinking maybe horse to Pune and Spear to go
with the next settler. With all these islands we need even MORE settlers!
- The ship near Forbideen Isle just finished going CW around our mainland, and should
problem grab a settler for one of the newly discovered islands.
- The settler pair in boat JUST north of USA island can see a 'sea square' two tiles
directly west. Might be worth going over there to look.
- I showed amazing restraint not spending cash on our colonies, I'll let you do that.
But I would suggest rushing the warriors, or even spears, on the island colonies
near us. Also perhaps the iron or lux harbors.
- I'm still in shock over Cathy. She just went from hopelessly behind, we crush at the
advent of Chivalry, to major world power. 8-\
Save file 450AD
Good luck in this brave NEW world!
Charis
PS Curiousity is killing me. I figure that I must have mis-clicked and given someone
communications with Russia. But no! I load the end of 360AD file, and Russia is
backwards, NO ONE has communications with her. Hit next turn. She has Monotheism
and all contacts??!! I try to sell communications with Russin and Germany instead
to see if she remains backwards. (It also nets us several hundred gold). End of this
alternate turn, everyone has contact with everyone, Cathy still lacks Math, CoL,
Construction and Currency. Hit next turn. She has all but Construction. Now mind you,
she had NO cash, no techs to trade. Ah... light goes off... sold world map.
Test number 2, GIVE everyone our WM and see what happens. Nope. That's not it, she
still lacks just construction. That's three techs on one turn with no means to pay for
it that I can see. The bigger mystery is still, how, in the actual game, did she
ever make contact with the rest of the world?! Test number 3. Load 350AD file and
do NOT make contact with Iro at all. Now what happens? "Next turn". Poof, she's
got a new hat and contact with all seven civs. And we suddenly somehow know the
French. There's clearly a tiny coastal route under the fog, or they DO suicide in PtW,
but in any case, it turns out that...
We beat Russia to the 'new world' by half a turn!
It didn't hurt her, was somewhat beneficial to us, but overall, just a
surprise that it was so close.
Up to something??? 
Stay tuned, though. You won't be disappointed. 
News at Eleven.
worker actions!! 
