Ahh another game and now with the beautiful blue marble mod and the excellent BUG mod (I'm hoping the latter will save me a few hours game time. If only it would alert on WHEOOHRN
).
Like the rest of you, I moved the Settler 1E to claim the gold. I also saved the hut for a turn to get a chance at a free tech.
This payed off as I popped Hunting on the next turn. My initial research order was Mining > BW > AH > Archery > Mysticism.
I built a worker first then a scout and three warriors and then my first settler which moved south. By this time I had met Willem who founded Hinduism.
In hindsight, I probably should have settled SW to claim the second gem and then place another city by the river somewhere as I had already located copper close by up north. Edirne started building a worker then switched to a monument a few turns later when I finished Mysticism. After that I decided to go for Writing and not make the mistake of delaying it like I did in the Montezuma game.
Tech order Fishing > Pottery > Writing.
I built another worker and alot of archers in Istanbul to combat the barbarians and then another settler. The settler founded my third city up north to claim copper.
I read through the BC reports after finishing this round and I see that everyone else has placed the northern city in the same spot. I think this is a good example of when it's NOT wrong to place a city 1 of the coast. Sure you waste the two coastal tiles in the bfc but you get alot of food and strong production which is invaluable early on, the advantage right now is what counts at this point in the game.
Still, I should probably have waited with this spot as I went for archery anyhow fearing axes would come too late. I could have used my second settler to steal more land from Willem, fortunately his initial expansion was to the south.
I had to spam alot of archers to keep all my tiles safe and I quickly gained a 10XP unit from all the fighting. I felt I had to claim the southern spots fast so after I had fortified my defense I whipped two more settlers in Istanbul. The first claimed some sugar and a wheat.
And the second some more sugar as well as fish and gold.
I'm not happy with the placement of Bursa, I would much have preffered a city SSE to claim the gold for the profit and to gain a monopoly on it and leave more space for later, but Willems religion and creative -fueled culture was starting to become a problem there. I actually thought he had founded another city as his borders popped just as my settler was moving towards my preffered spot but it later turned out to be from Amsterdam itself. I decided to play it safe.
At the same time I settled Konya, Hinduism spread to Bursa and I wasted no time adopting it. During this round Willem then kept spamming missionaries to all my cities.
After this expansion wave my economy was strained to its limits and my research didn't pick up pace towards IW until I had gotten some libraries up and running. My first GS was born in Istanbul and I settled him there figuring it will be my bureaucracy capital with Oxfords.
After IW finished I went for Aesthetics that I planned on trading for Alphabet to Willem who now had a sizeable tech lead. However, after finishing Aesthetics, just as I put the required turn of research into Alphabet I was met with disaster.
Aarrrgghh! Willem stole my tech! One turn more and I would have had it. This made me sit back for a couple of minutes and ponder which path to take.
I decided to go for Hamams via Mathematics first and then possibly give TGL a shot with help of a junk city up north to claim the marble. I'm not sure though, is a junk city worth it considering my economy at this point to claim TGL? I'm planning on making my northern copper city Ankara my GP farm as it's the best city for that endeavour except Istanbul which Im cottaging up. My second GS was born at the same time as Aesthetics was stolen and I built an academy in Istanbul.
At the end of the round I sent another settler to claim Iron and fill up some first class land.
Well maybe not first class with all those plains, but good.
A look at southern Turkey.
And the northern parts.
Willem is sending units to capture Yue-Chi one at a time, I've posted some units there to take advantage if he manages to weaken the defenses enough. So far he has only wasted several units and given the barbs some promotions.
I want to raze Yue-Chi and place a city to the south to claim the iron there as well.
The demographics, poor in all but land, small wonder. Optics is looking very tempting right now as is early Astronomy, I'll have to dust of my GP tech preference knowledge if I go for that.
Lastly a look at the Dutch empire.
Good reads from the rest of you so far, it seems most of us are struggling with the city placements, I'm unhappy with just about all but the copper city myself.
Keep up the good work and remember to take your time.
Agreed! I had a big chunk of Civ time, so plenty of wine tasting to go around. I was one of the last to finish Immortal III (that has posted so far), so I wanted plenty of time to play the late game this time around. Oh, and this way I can read your updates as they get posted 
?). This map is a virtual isolation - having one neighbour only is probably worse. In the past I used to reload such games, but this is the immortal university, and one cannot become immortal without pushing to the limits.
