Hmmm. Time to start planning strategy and start actually playing the GOTM.
After lots of thought and soul-searching (sod the 'it's only a game'
) I think I'm going to go for the adventurer version (Never won on emperor so I qualify). My reasoning is: I want to have some fun and go for the early wonder/religion/culture -> cultural victory route. From some practice games, it seems it's usually just about possible to do that and get most early wonders, but it's stretching at the limits of my ability, and I usually end up culture-rich but without enough units to stop myself getting stomped on by whoever first decides I'll be an easy target. Worse - from the initial screenshot, this game looks harder than most of my practices because (1) not much forest to chop, (2) seems to be at the end of a continent => not much production and going to be even more confined than normal in the initial land-grab. So I'm thinking adventurer could make the difference between a 15%-discounted victory and a game that ends up with me just drifting, strong enough to live out the game until someone else builds a spaceship, but not strong enough to ever win.
The adventurer-level bonuses - I can see that extra settler could be a poisoned chalice - I know from my practices it's incredibly easy to totally kill your science by founding one too many cities (or cities in the wrong places without enough opportunities for early commerce). However, used properly, it means you don't have to research bronze working quite so early to chop first settlers/workers. That means I can research worker improvements earlier (which in turn helps science). Also, those archers make early stealing of AI workers a lot more realistic (you don't 95% probability lose your warrior (ie. 33% or 50% of your army
) the turn after you've committed the theft! - and you have a decent chance of escorting said worker back to your lands without him getting eaten by a bear en route...). Set against that, there's a potential issue that I'll be founding my 2nd city without knowing where the copper is - I might regret that later on. But I think that's more than offset by the advantages of the extra settler.
In terms of strategy, I'll most likely research polytheism first. If there'd been any rivers nearby, I'd have micromanaged city tiles to emphasize commerce - shaving 1 or 2 turns off polytheism could make all the difference to getting the religion, but that's not going to be possible with this start so I'll just have to hope. I'll settle my second city most likely the turn I discover polytheism, not before (or - the turn someone else beats me to polytheism and so I'm no longer interested in it). Actually I might do it the turn before in the hope that my second city will be assigned as the Hindu Holy City. I can't see the initial capital being a big culture centre - the starting area in the start screenshot just doesn't have the production potential, and if I'm going for a cultural victory, I don't want to waste the 5 culture/turn from Holy City on a city that won't be one of the three culture centres. After that, depends a bit what land I've discovered, but fishing will be a very early tech - just so I've got the option of switching to water tiles if my research starts dying. While I'm researching polytheism, I'll probably have the capital build a barracks just because it has to build something - I'll be a bit reluctant to build many more military units too early because I'll have an eye on the unit cost (not quite sure how many free ones you get - need to check). And I can see the adventurer free worker is going to start by mining that hill and then be sitting around with nothing to do for a fair while, but never mind. Perhaps I'll research the wheel next instead of fishing, to make sure I can use him. Beyond that - who knows....
Guess I did at that...Thanks, corrected. Need to drink more coffee before trying to do something difficult, like think.
After BW and forges, I will try to use slavery to my advantage (generally like to do 2 or more citizens at once; overbuilt the happiness by X, then use X+1 citizens is my favorite option), though it won't be a priority to get there. I want to assimilate my closest neighbor before they can defend themselves well. Here's hoping its America or some other Civ without a good early UU.
