t97, bureaucracy tech is in and I have close to 250bpt at 100%. Those cottages look juicy

...who needs food resource in capital BFC when you got floodplains galore? There needs to be a subreddit called /r/civ4cottageporn and this capital should be among the top results.
Used 1st GS for academy and now my cap is a monster cranking out over 125bpt at around 500BC. My teching is leaving everyone else in the dust. I can lazily get trebs in 10-15 turns if I want and push over the other AIs like a stack of dominoes - maybe I don't need trebs, just a few maces and crossbows. Or I can continue spamming/whipping settlers and get 20 cities out peacefully, no problem. This is a relaxing pleasure cruise compared to the deity Boudicca iso grind that I just completed.
The early game was kinda slow, so I countered the lack of fast food by using a never-seen-before technique: size 1 settler without imp

. Barbs were off so I could just walk my civilian units wherever I want unescorted, and my city center tile was about as strong as it could be, so it made sense to build a settler entirely using that, a mine, and 2 chops. And besides...gold + corn + oasis, getting that ASAP would do my economy wonders. That paid off, with me grabbing my 2nd city site on t25, I think the earliest 2nd city I've ever managed. Oracle'd MC too - it would've been a waste not too with marble + mysticism starting tech (though I didn't go for CS because Izzy in the game means Oracle goes pretty early).
btw not a fan of the BAT terrain textures but loving the new skins and animations

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