I'll open the write-ups with this somewhat half-hearted game that at least managed to beat the previous #1.
I was trying out some test games to see what settings I should use for Mapfinder. My basic strategy was
going to be to build a bunch of settlers while researching to Monarchy, gift Monarchy to Agri-AIs and
take their cities now that they can't whip them to size 1. So shamelessly ripped off from
here.
I think Agri-civ is needed here. First I was thinking of using Sumeria due to the increased SGL chance.
I just overlooked the fact that I couldn't build warriors to be upgraded to swords which I thought would
be too big of a problem. Swords would probably be too slow for this as well.
Next I decided to try the Celts as most of the games in that table have been played as Celts. Incas, Iro and
Netherlands were chosen as the opponents. I generated few more maps manually and got a start with river and
no less than 3 grass cows and 3 grass wheats in the fat cross. Things were looking really good after a Myst-SGL,
which I decided to use for the Pyramids with the idea that I'd hand-build the ToA.
Unfortunately this map turned out to be a continent-like Pangaea with something like 70-30 or 60-40 distribution
of land. I didn't play it out to see if I'd have enough tiles since it seemed likely I wouldn't. A couple of things
were learned though: Firstly, I ran out of room to expand so fast that Pyramids definitely wasn't the way to go if
I was only expecting one SGL. Two cities producing settlers and workers should be enough and building/chopping
granaries for those should be good enough. Secondly, the whole idea of building warriors to be upgraded to GS
seemed very difficult.
For my next try I chose to be Iro and replaced them with Maya as the opponents. Rushing MWs just isn't that
much more expensive than upgrading warriors to GS and you don't have to move those slow warriors around. Again
I rolled manually a couple of starts and got one with two cows which I started playing. After getting a CB-SGL
I started taking it a little more seriously.
I set up my twin cities and then started building granaries in both of them. The terrain wasn't great but I think
I managed to produce enough settlers. A few more BGs would've been really useful though.
Research went CB-Wheel-Myst-Poly-Writing-Philo-Monarchy-HBR. WC, Masonry, BW and IW were gained through trades.
Monarchy was reached in 1600 BC and I immediately revolted drawing 4 turns of Anarchy. Following my plan I also
gifted it to all the AIs. I didn't proceed to HBR right away, but chose to gather a little gold and build a few
chariots first. In 1250 BC I had 5 chariots and had run out of patience so I completed HBR.
It was definitely a good idea to research Wheel so early since I didn't have horses very close. I sent my third
settler to claim the closest horses. The Mayas of course had them under their capital...
In 1150 BC I had a few MWs and were planning strategy for my Mayan campaign. Here's the final plan. It went alright
although I probably played it out too conservatively as it took 8 turns to eliminate them.
In 950 BC I declared on Inca and took all their cities in a few turns. In 900 BC I also declared on the NL and
soon it was just a matter of waiting for the border expansion from ToA to kick in. I was still walking some
settlers to the northern jungle too and had I spent a little more energy to count tiles I might have been
able to squeeze at least one more turn out of the finish time as I was only 11 tiles away from domination
in 775 BC. I didn't though and ended winning in
750 BC. Here's the minimap animation:
There's no question that this can be done faster (and maybe Mathias already has) even with this same strategy
with a better map. More central location would be appreciated as would be a couple more BGs near the starting
location. Patience to pop two SGLs might improve things as well, but that seems like a lot of work.
