Turn 0:
- Change leader name (Alt-D) to "h1.GOTM practice". [Apparently, if you open CivIV by clicking on the saved game, the leader name changes to your default profile. If you open CivIV first, and then open the saved game, the leader name stays set according to what it was before.]
- Select F9. Along with the four civs so far on our continent (I really doubt that we'll find any more on this continent), we are also playing alongside the Incas and two other civs who don't have cities good enough to make the top 5. We are also 1st in hammers, food, military and population (although most likely tied in several categories) and 3rd in land area and coins. We're in a good position so far, and it's about to get better.
- Strategy: We're Expansive and Organized, so we like to have big cities and run expensive civics. We also happen to have a very nice early unit, so we're also well served to run an early military campaign. What is going to limit us is our science, our culture, and our happiness. We can handle one out of three, but we're going to want to steal, extort, or depend on others for at least two of those.
Happiness: we need religion. We're not likely to develop it ourselves, so we need someone else to develop it and then we either wait for it to spread or go and take it. The Aztecs are the only civ on our continent that are spiritual and start with mysticism. If they founded Hinduism and/or Buddhism, they have not yet adopted either as a state religion. My bet is that they have been developing military techs and that one of the hidden civs (or both) have founded both religions. I think we should leave Monty alone until Judaism is founded. If he founds it, we take it. If someone else founds it, well, he serves us no real purpose, now, does he?
Culture: in the short term, we need culture primarily so that our cities will expand to take advantage of resources. To that end, since we haven't spent the time studying cultural things, we're going to need to build obelisks or Stonehenge. Stonehenge costs 120 hammers, or four obelisks. That's roughly 13 turns if we run Rome at 9 hammers, which we can after the gold mine is finished. We can cut that to 9 or 10 if we do a forest chop, or 6 or 7 if we do two. In the long term, we won't need culture for anything besides happiness, unless we decide to go for a cultural victory, which I think is probably unlikely.
Science: we take it, at least until we're out of our early military prime, and have the resources to set up good research. In order to take it, we have to attack and then make peace before we eliminate a civ.
We've already determined that we're going to attack early, but we're going to set up a three city base before doing so. Who are we going to attack? Monty seems the obvious choice, because he'll likely get angry with us earlier rather than later. But we'd really like for him to do some religious work first. Qin is a little far away for right now. So how about Freddie? Monty is annoyed with him, and Qin doesn't care at the moment, whereas Qin and Monty seem to be friends already. Not sure how that happened - maybe they share religion and it's just not obvious to us?? At any rate, attacking Freddie early, among other things, would seem to cause the fewest ripples in the diplomatic pond.
So my strategy is this: build the 4 resource city, chop Stonehenge, found a second city (probably on horses), and build an army to attack, though I'm not sure whom yet.
- I change research to Mysticism for now, since we can't hook up the iron if its not in our boundaries, and we need to start working on a way to get it in our boundaries.
BT: Monty converts to Hinduism! Aha, now Monty becomes our primary objective once again, unless the religion spreads to our lands, in which case it's not such a priority. China also has a scout in our lands
Turn 1 (2400): I continue scouting with the warrior westwards to make sure that this continent only contains who we think it contains. I find what looks to be the westward ocean.
Turn 2 (2360): We get access to gold. I send the worker to the floodplain to our N-NE to build a farm. This will be in the borders of our second city, so having this will make it quick work to get to pop 2.
BT: Huh. I meet the Incas. So where are they?? They are Buddhist, so if they're close, they also make a good target for religion, although attacking the Aztecs would be better for safety's sake. He's also annoyed with Freddie, and doesn't know anyone else.
Turn 3 (2320): ...
BT: Freddie adopts slavery.
Turn 4 (2280): Crap, Rome didn't switch over to the gold mine after completion, and so we lost two turns of extra research. Switched over to gold mine and noted for future reference.
Turn 5 (2240): We discover mysticism. Resuming research on the wheel, which we'll get in 1 turn.
Turn 6 (2200): We discover the wheel. Switch research to archery, by way of hunting, followed by animal husbandry. We'll want to fence up those sheep and horses, when we get to them.
Turn 7 (2160): We produce a settler. Switch production to Stonehenge, which will take 14 turns. With a chop, it will take 9 turns with a chop, and 6 turns with two, though I doubt we can get two chops in in 6 turns. I send the settler north with our warrior just in case, though given the small amount of fog up there, it's doubtful we'll see any barbs. I'll send the warrior back to Rome once the city is founded, and build one up there. Continuing my exploration up the west coast, I find Huayna finally, squeezed in between Freddie and Qin.
Turn 8 (2120): Huayna has horses.
).
, both dots look good to me, red dot, will put us a little closer to Monty, the other one has some nice coast
