GOTM-09 First Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 09 Spoiler 1:

Reading Requirements

1. You must have a of the majority of the starting continent (know the cultural boundaries of other civs.
2. You must have reached at least 0 AD.

Posting Restrictions:

1. No discussions of events past 500 AD.
2. No screenshots of anything not on the starting continent.

How have you managed with this emperor-level game? Are you surviving, going strongly? Just holding on?

 

[azzaman333]

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 670 BC
Base score: 170
Final score: 270

Barbarian's Like Hinduism
My limited experiences on Emperor (ie, none) were shown when the barbarians started raiding my lands...

Founded Hinduism, and thanks to many fogbusting Quechas, had no problems with barbarians until shortly after building Tiwanaku near the Iron to the south. Patrolling Quechas and Archers did a good job keeping barbies at bay, until 2 axemen decided to show up. The first axeman came from the NE, and after killing my 2 archers patrolling the lands around Cuzco, he attacked the Archer on garrison duties in Cuzco. And the Barbarians had control of the Hindu Holy City... . Then another axe came from Tiwanaku's SW, and wandered in an undefended city after killing 2 Archers on the hills outside the city.

Ghandi and Caeser had no effect on my puny existance.

Hopefully I can do better next time.

 

[Gr8scott]

I'm definitely not playing this one very well...

I don't like the leader much at all. I'm not usually a huge early war monger (I prefer a civilized war with catapults ) With an aggressive trait and the earliest UU possible, this civ screams for an early rush.

I gave it better than even odds that we would have another civ close by so we could use a quechua rush. I was hoping this was just another way of giving an improved starting location to temper the emperor setting. Obviously, this was wrong! It actually didn't change things for me much. I had decided that if I didn't run across a civ before the first Quechua was built I was going to abandon the rush and go for the CS sling.

Well nobody within a country mile of us, so off for the cs sling (although I did steal a worker from caesar. pissed him off for thousands of years and I couldn't get it back to my area anyway ). Plenty of research due to all the cottages on the floodplains. In fact, I got to CoL very fast and production was the major bottle-neck for the CS sling.

I was beat to the oracle by a good number of turns, so I had to rethink things. I decided to go heavy builder mode. Popped out 2 or 3 more cities (including one next to the iron to the south) and invested in enough military to keep the barbs at bay.

as of 500ad the biggest problem is I can't build nearly as fast as ghandi (score wise I am tied with caesar and about 60% of gandhi. My plan, such as it is, is to try and take cats + maces and thin gandhi a bit. I'll need to prioritize engineering because the war will be miles and miles away. I haven't yet figured out if I'm going to keep cities I take even. Hmm. Probably best to come up with a more concrete plan before acting lol.

Bottom line: Continents + all civs at least a millenium from the capital means Hyuayna has pretty much a wasted trait (aggressive) and a nearly wasted UU (yeah yeah helpful against barb archers, but how hard is it to research archery?). This fighting with 1 trait tied behind my back is hard!!


GS

 

[Stile]

This is my first real try at Emperor, but I've been decently successful at Monarch. I'm playing contender. And I'm planning on a cultural victory, which I've also never tried before.

I thought about harrassing neighbors, but aborted that plan when my first quechna was killed in the jungle by 2 panthers I couldn't even see. I settled in place, even after I saw the additional gold north. Not sure if that was best because it was quite a while before I put cities to work those other two golds. I founded Hinduism, built several Quechnas, a worker, and put my 2nd city next to the horses to the north east. I made hooking up the horses a priority which really helped against the barbs. At 500AD I had about 10 cities, three of which I took from barbarians, and I plan on building two more.

Interestly in the early AD's I got a message that a civ (I guess I can't mention) was destroyed on the other continent. It has me a little worried about what's out there. Was it barbarians? Is a civ running away out there?

On my continent, Caesar and I are about even in score. He settled all of the jungle with cities I can't think will help him at all. Ghandi has a decent lead on us, and founded Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism (I think, can't check now, maybe even Judaism). Point is, he's rockin' with the old time religions. Would be interesting if the other continent was all tao. I might have to make an effort to get my religion there.

I just got Islam spread to me, so my plan is to spread that around and build some cathedrals in my three cities. I'm picking the capital, the city I mentioned by the fish, corn and horses to the north east, and a city I built to the south, east of the iron which is working all the floodplains down there. I feel I have a better than average chance at winning, but like I've said I'm charting new territory for myself.

We've all been friendly on my continent. I've only been threatened twice. Both C and G are Buddhists. If I can get it spread to me I might switch, because Caesar thinks our close borders spark tensions. I have several open cities and don't know what's taking them so long.

Also, I've only built one wonder, the Hanging Gardens. I have a couple in the works, but I'm not optimistic. I don't think I'll need them.

Well, that was a rambling post...

 

[Stile]

I don't like the leader much at all. I'm not usually a huge early war monger (I prefer a civilized war with catapults ) With an aggressive trait and the earliest UU possible, this civ screams for an early rush.

I can't wait to if anyone tried an early rush. It seems to me the other two civs are too far away. I didn't even map out their territory until horse archers. Plus, I tried to take an uncultured barb city on grasslands defended with 2 archers, using a chariot and well promoted Quechna and my odds for the quechna were around 60%. I think you would need quite a stack, and I don't think it would help your game too much.

@ Azzaman: tough break with the barbs. I felt like I was walking the line with my troop strength, but the first axeman came fairly late in my game. I only had one tile pillaged, and that was when a barb spawned in a one tile fog of tundra to the north. I'm thinking Caesar was hit by barbs hard in my game because his starting position looks good, but he was lagging in score for most of the early game.

 

[Stormreaver]

Like other posters, I was prepared for an early rush or at least a worker steal, but after 17 turns when my first quecha was finished and I had only seen a Gandhi scout and no sign of any cultural borders I abandoned that idea, and started building a worker. That I had as a focus point in this game - to have plenty of workers. I usually don't build enough and many of my cities after the first three are hampered initially by a lack of improvements.

Cuzco I founded 1 NW of the starting spot, not because of the extra gold (I went warrior SW with it's first move) but because I wanted to get one more city in that could use the floodplains and be a Commerce central, while the capital was to be more focused on production. It turned out there was plenty of Flood Plains along that river for both a Commerce city and a future GP Farm further to the SE (founded as 5th city at the only jungle free grassland spot along the river). Tiwanaku was founded N,NE of the Iron (Joy! I was getting nervous without copper!) and Macchu Picchu out at the eastern coast, slightly north of the captial, and Ollantayambo between the copper and iron to the NW from Cuzco. Those more northernly cities probably saved me from a lot of barbarians, not too many showed up and except for one situation where 4 archers approached from different directions simultanoeusly I was never in danger. That I managed to survive that attack thanks to the Quecha archer bonus, and actually never researched Archery (traded for it later).

Early research path was
Poly (wanted a religion, and got it)
Mining (gold)
AH (sheep for both Cuzco and Tiwanaku)
BW (copper, but no)
Wheel (hook up gold)
IW (needed metal - would have delayed this a bit if I had copper)
Then I went, in turn, for Monarchy (Hereditary Rule and wine), and the Alphabet (to be able to barter for some techs, primarily with Julius since Gandhi was running away a little in score) . I was consistently 100-200 points behind Gandhi in the beginning, with Julius comfortably behind me.

General targets after building my first four cities (including Cuzco) was a moderate-to-fast peaceful expansion to the jungle belt, building up my economy to keep up in tech, get Optics and find the other civs, then focus on a little military and start a succession of quick wars with Gandhi to eat up his territory a few cities at a time, using the fact that Gandhi is peaceloving and do not like long wars. I was not close to have a force ready at 500AD though, so that's for the future.

Barbs turned out to be much less of a problem than expected. After hooking up the Iron I quickly built a few axemen, who then had to sit idle for almost their entire existence. I had hoped to get a level 4 unit for HE from barbs, but that had to wait for a while.

Wonderwise I've built Hanging Gardens and Great Library, netting me a Scientist that built an Academy in Tiwanaku.

 

[AU_Armageddon]

I returned to Civ4 and GotM at the end of June to be pleasantly surprised that a patch had come out removing chopping as the only way to play the game. Rushed in Junes GotM but this is my first write up since March and I'm back into enjoying this game and this monthly event

On to the game at hand. Well, I've never wanted to restart more because I played this probably as stupid as it gets. I committed to genocide, and was too bullheaded to back down just because they weren't within a thousand years march. The sweating began when I was already up to my 8th Quechua and I still hadn't found any enemies...

My god! How far was Ghandi! He was the first I found with Romans only a turn or so later. I stole Ghandi's worker but quickly realised the distance back home was well beyond range to bother. I kept it there instead and waiting for reinforcements to chain in, starting a second war and taking one of Rome's workers on the way, escorting it towards Delhi as well.

When the third Quechua arrived at India I pillaged all Delhi's resources and then struck Bombay yet further west taking it with the 4th arrival. Here, looking at that raze/occupy screen for 20 minutes, I made a crazy choice. I figured I had invested so much by now that it was all or nothing, so I occupied it taking on the chin the I think it was 12gp/turn distance penalty.

It was all or nothing now so I switched to maths intending on chopping an army at Bombay to finish the job (Delhis culture too high to do this with just Quechua). In the meantime, Ghandi made peace and I marched everyone over to Rome who was encroaching on Ghandi and took one of his new settled cities keeping it and then destroying another (his 4th and 5th) only to see Praetorians marching out of Caeser's 3rd city Cumae to my utter dismay. Time for peace with Rome!

I got maths as my research dropped below 50% from 2 distant cities and was struggling back at home with my 2 cities there inundated by barbarians, the undermanned army earning every coin of their pay.

I took a third city on the east side of Delhi just as Ghandi was linking up iron there, and built a settler in Bombay planting it for the iron on the coast far west of Delhi. See how stupid I am playing at this point!?! Mad chopping of axes and swords, I was quickly facing total bankruptcy. Rome kept spreading so I decided if I didnt cut them off now I was going to lose even if I recovered financially, so made peace with Ghandi and sent everything at Cumae which I could now see was Caesers only bridge to the mainland. I destroyed several more of his outlying cities adding to my coffers and took Cumae at a more reasonable man cost than I anticipated.

Then it was peace with Caesar and marching the army back to India to finish them once and for all. Ghandi went down to the veteren army fairly quickly now and I spent some time consolidating my forces and settling another city back at home. Here's how the scattered and ridiculously expensive empire was looking at 245AD:

Caeser's iron cut off, the final war on Rome went fairly quickly, with Rome itself captured on the final date of this spoiler:

As you can see Rome still got away with one settled city to the west. Without giving away much, I continue on from this point to finish him off (keeping that city too) and begin seriously spamming settlers and workers across the entire continent, now entirely mine, to where I am currently at which is around 1000AD...

 

[Appren]

I settled in place, and started churning out some quick quechas by using the forested hill, after making 3 I switched back to growing the city while the first guys went out scouting for the enemies, knowing that I was north of the equator I sent them all southwards, and the roman civ was soon found, put the first of the arriving quechas on guard outside Rome, waiting for something to happen, and soon a settler guarded by an archer came out.
Declared war, killed them, and escorted the new worker home, then fortified a couple quechas in the jungle outside Rome while I made a few more to actually get the city.

Due to the long distance, this took a while, and I lost one of the quechas, resulting in a settler+archer team breaking out of my blockade, and founding a city a few squares southwest of rome, actually a good thing, since it meant it was fewer defenders IN Rome when my army arrived.

Captured Rome, had some losses, so two more quechas arrived to take out the last Roman city, being on a hill with 2 or 3 archers in it, I needed some power, and finally captured and razed it. (not in game atm, not sure on dates etc).

Only after Rome was mine did I map out the rest of the surrounding areas, finding the Indians and (incredibly late) building a city to hook up copper, actually I got iron before copper, I captured 3 barbarian towns (and one later after this spoiler period), all fairly nice situated, and not needing razing.

Apart from one or two archers, and a chariot, I had nothing but quechas until very long into the game, the Romans was dead, and Gandhi wasnt exactly very threatening, I took his religion and traded some with him, and hes a good buddy.

Barbarians was actually an extremely minor problem for me, I did loose one or two quechas, but I never saw a barb axeman or anything mounted at all. The only higher ones was a trio of longbowmen in a city I captured later.

 

[toller pretzl]

Loving this game sofar. I almost always practice with Inca on emperor, so this should be the game for me. But before I always played the Inca on Terra map, which is stacking the odds a lot more in favour of the Quechua's.

I also hope that this game will show to the GOTM staff that not all emperor games are equally difficult. In my opinion the previous emperor game had some deity qualities to it. And when they said "now we will do a game at Warlord-level because obviously many people are not ready for emperor" I thought it was in questionable taste.

I made a funny mistake early on. I had seen the first Roman scout coming from the South-West. Then I saw the first Indian scout coming from the South-East. As I moved my Quechua's to the South-East, I encountered two more Indian scouts. Then I met a purplish city border and a juicy archer in grassland. I like to see beforehand what my odds in battle are, but then you have to declare war first. So I declared war on the Indians using the alt button and the list of leaders. Turns out the civ I had met was the Romans instead of the Indians, the Romans being dark-purple and the Indians light-purple. And they were in opposite spots from what I had assumed from the scouts. I still didn't realize what was going on, so when I wanted to attack the Roman archer and the question came "do you want war with the Romans" I clicked "no" and then it began dawning on me what had happened.

Luckily, being at war with a civ that I couldn't fight yet didn't hurt me too much. The next turn of course I also declared war on the Romans.

 

[toller pretzl]

(uhm.. playing contender)

I took Rome from the Romans, which made them in effect Antiums, and made peace. I razed one Indian city and a lot later I managed to take Delhi from the Indians (the Buddhist holy city, in the beginning it had beaten Cuzco to Buddhism by one turn). Also made peace with what was left of the Indians. I needed them for trade and fighting the barbarians!

After that, my problem was that I didn't have any copper or iron. The Indian city that I had razed turned out to have had copper, but I didn't know that at the time. I should say that with the Inca's I never build any settlers. I was relying on something I read in the pregame discussion : that when you don't have mined copper or axemen (the details of this are a bit hazy) the barbarians won't have axemen either.

When the Romans built Neapolis next to iron, I had to first prevent them from mining it, and then take the city myself. After that it was very important that as soon as I had mined the iron, it would be available to far-off Cuzco. This worked out beautifully, because I researched Sailing just then, and Neapolis was by the sea and Cuzco on a river.

Phew to fase one. My next task was to race towards Optics, in order to meet more civs.

 

[Cabledawg]

This is the first time Ive played at this level and the first GOTM. I regularly win on prince though.
I had no real strategy going in other than found Hinduism right away, which I did and find copper asap. My research order was:
Poly
Mining
BW
Wheel
AH
Fish
Masonry

My build order was
Quesha...then grow to size 2
Worker
Worker(chopped)
Settler(chopped)

I knew where I was on the map, but had sent my initial Quesha north to do a circle around so I would have a better idea where the first settler was going. When I saw the clams, I moved into that upper area even more. When BW came in and I saw the copper near the clams...it was an easy choice. So the second city...Tiwanaku was founded 1E of the copper and eventually had Copper, Iron, 2 Clams and Marble in the cross. I didnt have to waste time researching Archery because of the copper...that helped.

After I had pumped out some fogbusters and Axemen. I put out a few more settlers. Machu Pichu was the 3rd city being founded 2E of the Horse on the coast. It had Pigs, Fish and Horse in the cross.

Ollantaytambo followed next being founded north of Tiwanaku. It was founded 1W of the deer giving it Deer, Wheat and Crab in its cross.

The barbs had founded a city near the Gems. I sent a couple of axemen over there to get some XP until it grew to size 2. Took the city of Mauryn and kept it since it would have Gems, Pigs, Stone, Floodplains and hills. This would be a monster city.

I believe I ended up with 9 cities before 500AD. I never even tried Oracle or Stonehenge. With all the barbs, I never got a chance to go on the offensive and really couldnt see how it could be done till I read Armageddons post....well done dude.

Ghandi was Buddhist and the Romans were Confused....lol. He founded Confusedism. At this point, he had asked for open borders, which I conceded to. He sent a confused missionary to me. Within a few turns, he was annoyed....so I switched and became confused as well.

At this point I had 3 religions. So, I had to pick some sort of victory...didnt see Domination or Conquest as an option. Diplomatic?....I would never have enough. Space?...Ghandi was getting further and further ahead in techs and score. So it was at this point I decided to go for a Cultural win. I have no idea if its gonna work....especially after I checked out the requirement. Im used to 25000 points for cultural.....it was 75000...OMG.

I gotta tell you, at 500AD, Im not happy with some of the choices I made. The only upside is, I didnt lose 1 man or pillaging to barbs. I allways had the high ground or forest.

 

[ungy]

A disappointing start --moved quecha sw and then founded 1w. Went for Hindu and missed. Found Gandhi late and Caesar very late--lost my quecha going his way and he must have lost his scout coming to me.

Had not met Caesar and decided Gandhi was too far away for a quecha rush and went builder instead--tried CS sling and got it 985 fortunately. However, I had not gotten out a settler and this left me hammer poor basically all game. Got a rush of barbs that I mishandled and lost a newly founded city by the iron north. Not sure if it was because I was late to hook up metal but no axe barbs.

By 500 AD I am about to eliminate the barb threat to the north and teching along nicely although my expansion is slow and despite good relations with both almost no tech trading. So generally unhappy with the way I've played but decent prospects anyhow--not sure if it will be a later war or just a peaceful race. Am very curious to hear how the quecha rushers do--so far it seems pretty well.

 

[jafink]

Well this is definately the strangest game ofCiv i have ever played. Our start location had 5 floodplains, and a sheep and a gold. Then there were two more golds directly above our capital. Also, this is the farthest i have ever started from my opponents. I expected alot of barbs because of all the empty land, but I only faced 7 or 8 of them, and not a single axe!!

Anyways, at 500AD i have 8 cities, with one more just about to be founded. Benn completely peaceful, playing it safe because this is my first emporer game that isnt on a tiny or duel map. I think i am well on my way to a space victory.

 

[Equendil]

My third GOTM, I'm normally doing alright on Monarch, but not quite up to Emperor standards, I picked contender anyway.

The plan

After playing a few test games with the same settings, I made a few decisions for this game. I won't be going for an early rush with quechuas or even attempt to steal a worker. It's too much of a gambit, besides, crippling a neighbour early would slow down tech research after alphabet, which is not a good idea on a continent map at that level. My qechuas will be used for exploring the immediate area, fog busting, and protecting my early cities since barbarians start popping soon on emperor. I could easily manage the CS slingshot in my test games, even a late one, so I'll try to pop a settler and a few units and go for that then research military techs and take over my nearest neighbour while I still can. Beyond that, I have no idea.

I will also grab either hinduism or buddhism, since the incans start with mysticism, I may as well ease my early expansion.

The starting position looks pretty promising, flood plains for cottages and food, a nice gold mine for early research, forests to counter the health malus of food plains, sheep and vines. Almost the perfect place. I see no reason not to settle in place, so I'll do just that.


The early years - CS slingshot

Hinduism or Buddhism ? Since most AIs seem to go for Buddhism, I pick Polytheism as my first tech, and begin a qechuas to let my city grow before a worker. After that, I'll research mining for the gold while I build a worker, then animal husbandry for the sheep and hopefully horses nearby for chariots. Following that, I'll research the wheel for roads, pottery for cottages, then most likely straight to Code of Laws for the slingshot while my capital builds qechuas, a settler then the Oracle. No Bronze Working yet unless I really have to (ie, if I find no horse and barbarians are too threatening), I don't want to chop because of health concerns, and pop-rushing is counter productive with cottages to work.

It all went according to plan:

3490BC Polytheism (founded Hinduism)
3220BC Mining
2740BC Animal Husbandry (horses spotted north-east)
2530BC The Wheel
2320BC Pottery
2140BC Priesthood
1900BC Writing. My settler founds Tiwanaku north east on the coast, near horses, corn and fish. Should make a half decent production city. It will build a few units for protection, and barracks.
1090BC Code of Laws (+Confuscianism)
1060BC The Oracle is built, Civil Service discovered.

Thanks to the few qechuas (and a couple chariots) strategically positionned to minimize fog, I had few barbarians to deal with.

I met Julius after a long while (thought I was alone at some point), it appears my civilization is in the northern part of the continent, separated from Julius by thick jungle. Amazingly, I wasn't behind him in score, he probably started surrounded by jungle. I didn't explore far south though, and quickly set my qechuas in a protective ring around my capital. My other neighbour(s) will find me.

I spotted nice areas for further expansion near my capital. Flood plains for cottage spam, stone SW, and marble NW.

The Bronze and Iron Age

Time to prepare for war, it's going to happen soon or later (though with all the jungle, rather late than soon). I'll research Bronze, then to catapults, iron working, and maceman. My two cities will produce workers and settlers, military units, as well as a library in my capital, which should keep me in the race along with bureaucracy. I'll delay alphabet a bit, not much point yet with just one neighbour contacted.

940BC Bronze Working. No bronze nearby I can see.
880BC Masonry
745BC Machu Picchu is settled on the cost south west, near the stone, flood plains, sheep, and gems just outside the fat cross. Should make a good commerce city. I'm building roads toward a barbarian city NW near the marble, and chariots to capture it. I'll soon find out there's copper there too.
715BC Mathematics
475BC Construction.
355BC Iron Working. Iron will be spotted next to the barbarian city.
325BC The barbarian city, Thracien, is captured, I thought the city would be razed since it was at size 1 but it just wouldn't grow and I was bored waiting. Turns out I captured it instead, weird. It's got copper, iron, marble, and 2x clam.
175BC Hanging Gardens built in my capital. That'll help with growth.
160BC Ollantaytambo settled north on the coast near horse, deers, and gold. I wanted to make it a production city, which was my first big mistake in the game, not enough food around to grow and mine the hills.
40BC Metal Casting
25BC Hindu Shrine built in the capital.

Circa 0AD, I still haven't been contacted by another civilization, I'm still ahead of Julius in score, he hasn't expanded toward my borders yet, and I'm starting to think it's just the two of us on the continent. I was foolish enough not to explore to find out. Big mistake as it'll turn out.

I have two commerce cities with my capital along with three peripheral cities, two of which with decent production, access to strategic resources including horses, copper, iron, stone and marble. Life is good so far. Maybe I should have shot for alphabet earlier though ...

 

[bshumbera]

Before the game started, I decided to attempt a cultural win. All of the test maps I played were geared towards perfecting an early strategy for a cultural victory. My goal: found as many religions I can and spread them among my cities. I wanted to build culture early through temples and monastaries (and eventually cathedrals) from all of my religions without revolting to one particular religion until I was ready to farm great artists.

Observing we were in the northern hemisphere, I moved the quecha SW and decided to move the settler N to eventually take advantage of the floodplains with another southern city. So I settled N and, to my surprise, found more gold. I focused on Hindu (and got it) then grabbed mining for the gold and rushed to pottery and writing. Pottery allowed me some cottages. After learning that Rome was too far south, and loosing my first quecha to animals in the process, I scouted NW of the capital and decided a city there would severely fog bust that penninsula. I founded my second city to take advantage of the marble, copper, fish, and (to my surprise later) the iron. I quickly researched Masonry and then founded the Jewish holy city. Having the marble, I rushed to build the Oracle and research CoL, thus founding Confucianism. I was easily able to pull of a CS-slingshot.

I then pushed for the Great Library in my capital and was succesful there too. I founded my third city to the E of the capital to take advantage of horses, wheat, and one other water resource. Then, I planted my fourth city to the S to take advantage of floodplains. All the while, I focused on founding more religions and spreading temples.

Since I'm not sure where this update puts me on the timeline, I save the rest of my discussion for the final spoiler thread.

Edited to add that I'm roughly equal in score with Ghandi and we're both miles ahead of Ceasar at this point in the game.

 

[blastoidstalker]

My initial plan was to use Quechas to steal workers and ambush settler, go quickly to iron working and rush nearby opponents with swordsmen. Focus on cottages around capital and settler 2nd city in good spot and third on iron (ignoring copper if possible) generally this worked though the nearest rivals were so far away that it worked a little differently.

Intial tech path was Poly (got Hindu)- Mining – Wheel – pottery – BW – Priesthood – IW

Build was Quecha - Quecha - worker - Quecha - Quecha – Settler


Sent first two Quechas SW and SE. Took a long time to find Gandhi and JC in south. Got a worker steal on Gandhi and use a third Quecha coming down to escort the worker back? Sent 1 Quecha on a pillaging raid on Gandhi which though it netted only about 40 gold, was very useful. I lost one Quecha to Gandhi and a second to animals. I made a big mistake not checking a barbarian archer, which actually was two archers and I lost my second city to the north near the gold.
Made peace and completed a settler ambush a bit later, again escorting the settler back.
I settled my third city near the iron, repopulated the second spot. Produced a bunch of swordsmen and crippled JC, taking Rome, keeping him off of iron and razing his second city. Made peace with JC and went back an attacked Gandhi again, this time taking two cities and razing a couple more.

Though I was not able to eliminate the CIVS in these wars it has put me in a dominate position on my continent at 500 AD. Now putting together cats and macemen and filling in the wholes that the barbs have filled. Cottages in the Cuzco have paid off and has me doing OK with tech though I would guess I am behind the other civs on the other continent.

I have built no wonders except the Hindu holy city.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'll post an actual spoiler in few days, in the meantime i would like post those considerations:
1) OK, we got a good starting area for Emperor, but the northern side of our continent is poor of resources, or better not so varied.
2) the distance from our opponents is sideral, i've seen the posts of other palyers who performed a quechua rush ... good job, but i guess they'll pay it, and a big price for it.
3) I can't talk about the other continent in this thread, but just this (i hope is not spoiling, in this case i apologize): if our continent is hard to emperor level, the other one arises the difficulty to deity, no less ... i'm curious to read the other players opinions in next spoiler.

Only one note about my game:
i settled 1N for better health (less fp, more forests), not researched early religions, popped a goody hut , one goody hut, could you believe? gave me some money.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Playing contender - 1st emperor game (aside from test games for this GOTM).

Early game summary: almost identical to Equendil`s (see his post above).

Slight differences: quechua moved N and as more gold was revealed I settled 1N. Focus on city growth to size 6 - 4 cottaged fp`s + 2 mined gold. Net result: playing OCC-like got an Oracle CS slingshot 1300BC.

My initial plans were like everyone else, steal a worker or maybe quechua rush if a close neighbor shows up. Not the case, they were too far away.

Even then, I tried to steal a worker but 2 quechuas were killed by animals or barbs while on sentry near the neighbors. So, our island remains peaceful as of 500AD. At least I could trade some tech from Alphabet which I discovered 850BC. Tech-wise I discovered Machinery 190BC (macemen!), and Optics 155AD. Not bad, but the settling of my land was too undeveloped, so the 1st caravel was still 2 turns to get ready at 500AD, as shown in screenshot.




From Demographics screen I was 1st in GNP, but 5th land area, 6th Mfg goods and 7th pretty much everything else, but I guess there is still hope for me

Barbarian activity much lower than in my test games. Up to 500AD I killed 18 archers, 7 warriors and 4 animals. Lost only some 4 quechuas, a chariot and a macemen (taking a barb city NW).

 

[Ribannah]

Contender

The highlight of my game so far was when our initial Quechua popped a hut at the south polar sea for 60 gold. He died on the way home.

Cuzco was founded in place. I think working a second gold would have been suboptimal for lack of food. It's a close call though.
In contrast to many others, I researched Animal Husbandry before Mining, which produced the CS slingshot as early as 1270bc. From there, it was a race with Gandhi for top score. He has more land but we have far better commerce. Rome is dead last on our continent.
I'll have to start building an army soon though, since the space between north and south is getting filled up now.

Technology
4000bc Agriculture, Mysticism (starting techs)
3460bc Polytheism --> Hinduism
3010bc Animal Husbandry
2740bc Mining
2470bc The Wheel
2260bc Pottery
2110bc Priesthood
1900bc Writing
1270bc Code of Laws --> Confucianism; Civil Service (Oracle)
1180bc Fishing
1060bc Bronze Working
910bc Iron Working
865bc Masonry
835bc Meditation
760bc Monotheism
625bc Monarchy
580bc Hunting
550bc Archery
505bc Sailing
385bc Alphabet
235bc Metal Casting
160bc Mathematics
55bc Currency
65ad Theology --> Christianity
245ad The Calendar (Rome)
260ad Literature
410ad Divine Right --> Islam
500ad Paper; starting on Education

Religions and Civics
2920bc Hinduism
1240bc Burocracy
595bc Hereditary Rule, Organized Religion

Cities
4000bc Cuzco (sheep, gold, 2 wine)
910bc Tiwanaku (2 clam, copper, iron)
760bc Machu Picchu (pig, fish, horse)
280bc Ollantaytanbo (corn, iron)
25bc Corihuarachina (crab, deer, marble)
80ad Tartar (pig, gems, stone) (barbarians)
420ad Scythia (deer, gold, horse) (barbarians)
In 500ad, 3 settlers are nearly done.

Cuzco
4000bc Founded in place
3670bc =2
3400bc =3
2950bc Worker
2680bc =4
2530bc Quechua
2470bc =5
2200bc Worker
2110bc Quechua
1870bc =6
1270bc THE ORACLE
1210bc Quechua
940bc Settler
900bc Quechua
775bc Settler
685bc Worker
565bc Granary, =7
400bc Library, =8
310bc Settler
250bc Swordsman
205nc Quechua
175bc =9
85bc Hindu Missionary
70bc Quechua
55bc =10
20ad Forge, Great Prophet -> Kashi Viswanath
50ad Quechua, =11
140ad Aqueduct
170ad Hindu Missionary
200ad =12
290ad Market
455ad Academy (Great Scientist from Machu Picchu)
470ad THE GREAT LIBRARY, =13
500ad Working on the National Epic

 

[strollen]

My official game ends quickly
Discover the 2nd gold square.
Settle Cuzuco 1NW to work both squares
build 2 or 3 Quechas
worker
settler.
Tech: Poly, Mining, Bronze Working, Masonry, Wheel, Animal
Found 2nd city on river to south, bad health because of swamp and FP, so it builds a worker.
Cuzuco builds 1 more Quecha than starts on Stonehedge
Beat of a couple barbs, than Archer makes a beeline for Cuzco, despite
100% archery, 25% city, 60% culture, 25% fortify Archer overcomes 3 to 6.2 odds takes Cuzuco.

I quit.

Started a 2nd unofficial game, will post on that soon.