[BTS] Need some help with my start on GEM as England

[TenaciousHugo]

Game settings:
Difficulty = Noble
Size = Huge
Map = Giant Earth Map (Ancient Resources)
Speed = Marathon
Nation = England (Techs are Fishing and Mining)

Any tips for this start?

Spoiler :

I've got one Wheat NE (London will be the reference point unless otherwise specified), another 2 N and one more SW, as well as Cows 2 W and Sheep NW and fish 1 NE 1 N. All techs are gonna take more than 50 turns, so there's no point in making a worker (21 turns) and slowing my growth. Should I go for Mysticism (40) to fight a culture war with the Dutch and French? Go for sailing (70) to colonise Ireland and explore the mainland? Or get my whip on early and just rush Bronze Working (84)? Or something else entirely? I'm not at all experienced at playing an island nation whether on this map or on randomly generated civ maps, so any tips regarding that are welcome as well. Please explain the reasoning behind your suggestion, so I can apply it to other starts. General plans of action would also be great, (eg: research sailing so you can take Ireland and make sure to get the Hebrides Islands within your borders).

Any links to AARs for island nations would be awesome.
I'll drop a poll for the techs if you don't want to make a post but still want to suggest something.

 

[lymond]

mysticsm? no way

I'm not familiar with this map. Is there any seafood in London? what kind? If so, especially fish, I would build a workboat first which would allow you to grow onto more commerce to speed up the teching a bit. 12T worker on marathon does not sound right to me though. Regardless, worker should be next priority.

Always keep in mind that food is king.

Here, I would go Ag>BW>Sailing>Masonry>TW. Build Great Lighthouse in London and Pyramids in a second city, which should probably go 1NE of horses above London. Do not be afraid to overlap cities here and squeeze an every possible city you can in Britain. This plays into the Great LH effect, and cities in Ireland will boost those trade routes. Even a city on the apparently weak Hebrides will be a boon as well. But, ofc, get a couple of strong cities working next to London, although 3rd city could go on ireland.

Mara speed is not my thing, but use your food power and slavery to maximize whip overflow of settlers into GLH and Pyramids. Save chops for Pyramids in city 2 until after stone is hooked up.

Then, I likely recommend an beeline to Alpha via AH or POT. AH appears to be better option here with the resources, although those early Granaries are nice too. Alpha will let you backfill all the other techs easily.

Oh..and highly recommend fairly early getting a scout workboat out to meet AIs and open up trade routes.

 

[TenaciousHugo]

Thank you very much for the reply! Britain is stuffed with seafood on the GE map, with fish in London's BFC, so your solution should work. Also, thanks for spotting the typo, typed 12 instead of 21.

Just uploaded a new image with resource bubbles, thanks for getting me to find that feature, lymond; it really helps me skim areas for resources.

 

[lymond]

I added some more notes above, but will also mention that speed of Agri should reduce some on meeting Louie, as France starts with it.

hard to see from WB view with resource bubbles off, so can't really see the seafood. Important thing is that there is seafood for London to work now. (edit: when workboat finishes)

That 5F tiles is a strong start. What is that wheat? odd that it is 5F. Is it somehow listed as a flood plain tile?

Anyway, at size 2 I recommend switching to hammers to speed up WB. At least 2 citizen working 1F2H tile or even switching both to 1F2H tiles at 0 growth. But again, I'm unsure of timings at this speed

 

[lymond]

which GEM mod do you use?

I assume that is fish up there. Odd that the coastal tiles with seafood display as 1F. Must be a mod specific thing.

 

[TenaciousHugo]

I have no idea why it provides so much food without an improvement. The map's 100% hand-made, so it was probably included to give England a helping hand. I just downloaded the mod from this link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/welcome-to-giant-earth-map-gem.276594/ on default settings and am running the ancient resources map.

 

[lymond]

Yep, figured is was that one. Are you playing just the map or a scenario?

 

[TenaciousHugo]

Just the map.