The previous two GotM games I was quite pleased with my play (although #265 everyone seemed to beat my game by a couple of turns), but this game not so much. On the one hand, I had been looking forward to a new GotM, on the other hand, I was a bit distracted tonight by other matters, and should maybe have postponed my play for a better result.
The start was pretty good. I saw nothing nearby to tempt me to move, so I settled in place and scouted east with my warrior, so fortunately I first-discovered El Dorado (it's always a kick in the teeth if you find El Dorado nearby but you are
not the first to discover it). I dithered a little with settling the second city, using the settler to scout for more fish, but in the end I settled in range of El Dorado, as I wanted One with Nature after finding Kilimanjaro. Then, the errors started to creep in.
First of all, I was not sure what I wanted to do. Go for three cities, four, or even five? Go for wonders, and which ones (Portugal went for GL quite early (and then the other GL later in the game)), but apart from that the AIs were not wonder spamming too much. Next, I decided to settle a second coastal, but the way was barred by a barbarian (poor play not to have an escort unit around) - and then my settler got captured because the barbarian had the Kilimanjaro promotion. I did not lose too much time recapturing my settler, and in the end I opted for a standard 4-city tradition play.
The next minor (?) error with huge consequences was that a barbarian galley pillaged first one, and then consequently the other coastal trade route. That's a lot of turns of early game production wasted, plus it took really long to be able to get them back. Finally, I was pretty short on workers. I did manage a few steals from the AI, but I still have too many unimproved tiles, and no city connections, meaning my gold was poor all game long. Funnily enough (or actually not that funny), the AI refused to trade me anything good in peace deals. I know the AI needs to have at least one city in order to offer a 'plus peace deal', but even though they did, they did not consider my standing good enough to offer me anything for peace (to be fair, my game
is pretty slow). Even selling a luxury for 240 or even 200 gold was not accepted. Out of frustration I offered my copper for 5 gold in a peace deal, and finally it was accepted ("I must accept"), so I know the mechanism of selling in peace deals still worked. Only in the end did Indonesia offer me Surabaya - or 670 gold.
About the map, I read that it was pangaea plus, which I know has islands, so I suppose all the city states have been IGE'ed off to the islands, because I did not find any - which also contributed to my slow start I suppose. The screenshot below shows that I am on course for a sizzling T04 NC. The game is not all bad, though. Babylon got the Hanging Gardens, which is good because it's not on fresh water, and my expand built a very late Temple of Artemis.
One final thought: the nearby capitals of Moscow, Jakarta and Amsterdam are pretty decent cities, and all on flatland. Perhaps I have approached this all wrong, and I should have gone for a bowman rush instead (I almost still can, the AI does not have many defenses yet).
I had other problems too. Like 
, tech for hanging gardens, civil service, and now focus on universities.
