I load it with the C3X mod. I suggest players not using this mod might be grinding in ways that they don't like which aren't necessary any longer.
Edit: I checked the move order by starting a game and retiring. I assumed/misremembered that the move order is top to bottom on the frenemies list. It was bottom to top when I checked!
0 - 4000 BC Move the worker to cow. Worker moved in way I didn't like. Change preferences. Biggest change is show wonder initiation pop-up. Don't you want that information about what the AI is doing to better plan or better understand them? Check the spaceship screen/frenemies list. It looks like the list above. So, China moves and builds first, if my memory is correct. Then Inca. And so on. I think China is also most likely to discover techs first, except when we learn something first someday. Someday. Someday. But, not any day soon. Maybe?
Look at bonus grassland on the river.
Plant fit. Our local peoples exercise out in the wilderness. We also like foreigners who can manage to bring us resources or luxuries while showing us that they are strong or at least hardy. When they don't, we reserve the option to deny what we pay them in gold for years. Consider researching pottery in 30 turns. Recheck list. 5 know pottery. 5/7 probability of our first contact knowing pottery. Have Alphabet. 5 turns for a warrior. Try to think about pottery's maximum self-research time at this level. Decide against analysis of that. Citizens like walking in the wilderness, hardy folk that they are. Set research to The Wheel at 0%, on the unlikely hypothesis that this has some affect on our neighbors learning it.
1 turn workers in despotism? 4 turn granary less settlers in fit? Have 5th cow for 2nd city for a few settlers. Like 1 turn workers. 1 turn workers push our advantage.
1 - 3950 BC Irrigate worked cow on river.
Look at bonus grassland on the river. Maybe our hardy citizens will tolerate a little civilization development there in the form of a unique road there?
2 - 3900 BC Someone asks us about why someone has drawn these funny hieroglyphs. We tell them the gods told our prophet that if we walked over our cows they will smite them. If we walked over the trees, we would feel the pain of wood. If we walked over our mines, they would smite the mines. They told us that walking over this area would make us stronger. A new form of exercise for our hardy people, for a bit of a change from their hardy ways.
3 - 3850 BC Check finish time on worker irrigation. Look at map. Our prophet says that they are more people south than north. Someone objects. Our prophet surprisingly says he's not entirely sure, but in previous lives more often than not he's found more people south than north in our world. Prophet then thanks the objector for his criticism and says it's a good one.
Press G. Hmm... the new setting might be more useful for understanding the map, even though it's coarse.
4 - 3800 BC Talk to our worker leader. He promises that his team is almost finished.
5 - 3750 BC Warrior leader starts moving out of our city. Our prophet stops him and tells him to go south. Our warrior leader does so. He tells us that we might be happy with gems. "Yes." Says our most trusted philosopher. "But what if someone else would be even happier with gems?" Our counter asks him how many gems there are. Our warrior leader says that he needs more time on this. Start training another leader of warriors. Worker leader moves his team to some patch of cows. Out liaison with the common people tell us they don't smile much, but he doesn't see frowns. Raise luxury slider 20%.
6 - Raise luxury slider to 40%. Think about 70%. Start doing calculations in my head. An irrigated grassland cow gives 5 food. Agricultural +1. 2 bonus from the irrigated cow. ...
20 food in the box without a granary, 10 with a granary. 2 food from the center. 4 from an irrigated cow. 3 from a mined cow. 2 + 4 + 4, 10 food, but I remember 2 cows doesn't work for 2 food. 4 food getting eaten. 2 food eaten per citizen. 2 extra food from irrigated cow. 1 extra food from mined cow. 3 extra food from city center (agricultural +1 on river, 2 default). 5 surplus food from irrigated cow at size one now making sense. 7 surplus food from 2nd irrigated cow. What? Check city center. It has two food! Oh, we're India. I knew that, but the purple is also the Iroquois color, and I was thinking about them. It was 4 surplus food at size 1, from irrigated cow. 6 surplus from two irrigated cows. 4 irrigated cows is 10 surplus food. For 5 shields per turn at size 4. 7 shields per turn at size 5 with a mined bonus grassland. 8 shields per turn at 6 size, not needing to mine a bonus grassland. Plus 2 from the forest. Oh, this save comes out of nowhere.
Check if production is emphasized. It's not. Well, it's easier to play without it checked, instead of rearranging tiles periodically. We could mine that bonus grassland, BUT that takes longer to get up to 10 shields per turn for a 1 worker pump. It's 9 more turns. This is Sid anyway with desired careful play. Emphasize production. Check this city before ending any turn. It's one city, and a powerful one.
Worker leader has his team irrigating.
Warrior leader tells he's thinking one gems only.
Consider dropping luxury slider. Decide against it. Better safe than sorry on happiness, even when not playing for score.
7 - 3650 BC Warrior leader talks about seeing deer east of cows. And a plains. Settling on plains is better for growth eventually. But, production might be weaker than settling on regular grassland. 3 turns to palace expansion. Laugh while looking at worker irrigating. Guessing grassland between cow and deer is better than plains for easier development. See hill on river. I like planting on hills, as it increases food, and lots of mountains near there anyways. Would be CxxC instead of CxC from cow-deer city. Remember getting ahead of myself on planning cities spots on this level, because of AIs wanting to plant there.
Check worker finish time as I see and remember 2nd cow is not on a river, and the bonus grassland of this one special road can get built. And our warriors can stomp. And our workers can build in a ritualistic fashion. Tell citizens to go to there promising of some ritual. They are so baffled, that they give us a single gold for free.
8 - 3600 BC Move citizens back to cows so they can eat more. Send new warrior leader east. Think about 3 warrior leading to negative gpt once settler is built. Finally remember roads making up for that. Only need to get some gold to get some gpt from the AI. Can use temporary tax collectors (they go back to their tiles before the turn ends) to get gpt for luxuries/resources and tech/lump sums. Can't maintain control of those luxuries without real gpt though because of ritualistic stomping of warriors. But, such stomping comes with a reputation hit to frenemies, so frenemy A can't/is less likely to trade with frenemy B? Don't necessarily need all of the possible luxuries/resources every way, and real gpt comes soon after. Unit support seems like less of a concern, so start thinking about pushing 2nd settler to the last minute.
9 - 3550 BC See flood plains and desert and we're not agricultural. Well, oil could be close. Think about scouting. Remember Spanish as frenemy (and how more needs defended because of conquistadors if fighting them). Coastal scouting with warrior might just work. Check them in the frenemies list. They are third. No. I disagree. Ideally they would be last, if they trade last. Well, their turn has to be last, and their trade on their turn like the human player, right? Think about UUs of AIs. China having a powerful one for AIs, I guess? They have the move initiative, which since AIs are on even level, heavily favors the first mover. Check civiliopedia for Arabia and ansar warrior, and see once again it has 3 movement at 60 shields. Arabia is fourth on the frenemies list. Still think China becomes a super power on this map if they can get horses and iron. Not sure I like playing with super powers. Consider dropping map. But, a super power can do research. But, I don't know how a Chinese super power would fare at research in the industrial age comparatively speaking. I don't know the terrain. China could still end up weak comparatively, because of bad terrain, but I think it unlikely due to the strong advantage of moving 2nd, and their UU. Fit says 2. Check worker again. It grows next turn.
10 - Worker leader moves his team to another cow. Raise luxes to 50%. Move worker to cow nearest coast. Irrigate next turn. Then,
without a road, move it to the nearest cow, and irrigate and road that. I think that the best time for the first settler to come out is when fit grows from size 5 to size 6. It would drop back to size 4 then at 2 turn growth. The best spot for the second city seems not between the deer and cow, but one tile at the '9' spot from it (north) on regular grassland. I wouldn't bother mining all of those tiles. The bonus grassland near it, of course, but our warrior leader insists on stomping ritualitstically as healthy for our economy. Our prophet agrees with him, and the gods told us that our prophet is a visionary.
For why I'm talking about stomping, it's a means to unlock the economic and in part the technological potential of the AIs. Unlocking some of the economical potential of AIs can also get achieved by selling technologies after stealing technology from an AI as happened in Betazed's Ad Astra Per Sid game. Also, by being the first to discover a technology. My old photobucket screenshots have reappeared. For more information with an example see
here. There's also a Sid domination game for AnthonyIII around here somewhere. The ideas involved have gotten developed by Lord Emsworth, and date back to some post or posts by Microbe. Drazek noticed 1 turn worker pumps first.
The Xs in the picture are where roads do not go. The O is where a road goes. Every other square can use a road like normal, with roads going to a frenemy first perhaps.
Given that we feel comfortable with control of the game later perhaps, I will feel comfortable with roads around the capital. Soren Johnson the designer of civ's III AI said that the game's design is so that the human player can always win or at least understand why they lost. Because of that, I do feel it fair to use such ritualistic stomping. It is an extremely powerful tool combined with resource and luxuries.
And it can be a lot of fun to get very rich, very smart, and very powerful.
