Turqoise, aka the Chinese, spawn in the northwestern corner of the second-largest continent, which spans close to half the southern Hemisphere. Yellow, aka me, near the eastern edge. The first things I build in my first city are two warriors to go exploring. Which get me two horses from two huts, among other stuff. Eventually, those horses make it across the continent to China. Weirdly, they have a handful of cities but must have done close to no exploring at all beyond those, as there remain plenty of huts.
One was southwest of Beijing but not on the coast, which means it must have been touching, or actually inside, the city radius. One was within two squares to the west or northwest of the end of the southern road, which means it must have been at most one square further than that from Canton. (That one gave me the settler who is building said road.) One was touching Shanghai's radius to the east. One of their warriors was actually standing next to it when I popped it, plus there clearly must have been a settler there earlier on, to have improved the square. One was close to that wheat at the eastern edge of the main window. A couple more were someplace else within or not far beyond that. I'm guessing there is some combination of traits that actually makes NPCs reluctant to pop huts it knows about?! I guess that's not so much bad luck as bad play, to that point..
Luck comes into it when I come along, happily pop one hut after another, and end up with four legions. Four legions versus four cities... sounds promising! Luckily, again, there're even defensive terrain squares touching the three secondary cities, so it went as well as it could have, with zero losses in those first three battles. The remaining capital doesn't have any such convenient staging area, but does have a city wall. The legions would likely have been enough on their own even so, some of them being vets by then - but I curb my impatience and start building catapults in the conquered cities, instead of risking those nice NONE units.
Turns out to be a good decision, too, the first two catapults to attack Beijing some turns later do die, and a third one almost does. China is no more.
Meanwhile, my original two warriors, having explored the rest of my own corner of the continent, walk both ways along the Antarctic shoreline, and find that it connects to another major landmass - the largest continent, as it turns out. Nobody else is around initially, so plenty more huts to pop. Which, apart from my two instant cities already shown in the map window above, once again give me a handful of useful offensive units, this time even including a crusader.
And the first foreign city I then run into is... Turquoise, aka the Americans. Washington is already size five, and has five irrigated squares surrounding it, but I'm guessing that's part of their re-spawning bonus, not anything they actually did. They have one settler, which has had enough time to build two squares' worth of road, and a couple of defensive units. One turn after most of my new NONEs arrive, they no longer have any units. Or city. America is no more.
By this point, I'm of course hoping to make it a hattrick and wipe out Turquoise for good in short order. As it turns out, though, the Persians re-spawn on a smallish Arctic island, with several larger landmasses, inhabited by all the civs that aren't on the large continent, between my home and theirs. So by the time I finally find them, I've already explored most of the rest of the map, and BC has turned into AD. Huts have more or less become a thing of the past by now. Sigh.
Also, the Vikings, uncomfortably close to what used to be China, have somehow managed to beat me to Gunpowder, which probably ought to be a higher priority than building and ferrying a strike force to the other side of the world to, well, let's call it to scratch an itch. Then again, what's the fun in "ought to"...
One was southwest of Beijing but not on the coast, which means it must have been touching, or actually inside, the city radius. One was within two squares to the west or northwest of the end of the southern road, which means it must have been at most one square further than that from Canton. (That one gave me the settler who is building said road.) One was touching Shanghai's radius to the east. One of their warriors was actually standing next to it when I popped it, plus there clearly must have been a settler there earlier on, to have improved the square. One was close to that wheat at the eastern edge of the main window. A couple more were someplace else within or not far beyond that. I'm guessing there is some combination of traits that actually makes NPCs reluctant to pop huts it knows about?! I guess that's not so much bad luck as bad play, to that point..
Luck comes into it when I come along, happily pop one hut after another, and end up with four legions. Four legions versus four cities... sounds promising! Luckily, again, there're even defensive terrain squares touching the three secondary cities, so it went as well as it could have, with zero losses in those first three battles. The remaining capital doesn't have any such convenient staging area, but does have a city wall. The legions would likely have been enough on their own even so, some of them being vets by then - but I curb my impatience and start building catapults in the conquered cities, instead of risking those nice NONE units.
Turns out to be a good decision, too, the first two catapults to attack Beijing some turns later do die, and a third one almost does. China is no more.
Meanwhile, my original two warriors, having explored the rest of my own corner of the continent, walk both ways along the Antarctic shoreline, and find that it connects to another major landmass - the largest continent, as it turns out. Nobody else is around initially, so plenty more huts to pop. Which, apart from my two instant cities already shown in the map window above, once again give me a handful of useful offensive units, this time even including a crusader.
And the first foreign city I then run into is... Turquoise, aka the Americans. Washington is already size five, and has five irrigated squares surrounding it, but I'm guessing that's part of their re-spawning bonus, not anything they actually did. They have one settler, which has had enough time to build two squares' worth of road, and a couple of defensive units. One turn after most of my new NONEs arrive, they no longer have any units. Or city. America is no more.
By this point, I'm of course hoping to make it a hattrick and wipe out Turquoise for good in short order. As it turns out, though, the Persians re-spawn on a smallish Arctic island, with several larger landmasses, inhabited by all the civs that aren't on the large continent, between my home and theirs. So by the time I finally find them, I've already explored most of the rest of the map, and BC has turned into AD. Huts have more or less become a thing of the past by now. Sigh.
Also, the Vikings, uncomfortably close to what used to be China, have somehow managed to beat me to Gunpowder, which probably ought to be a higher priority than building and ferrying a strike force to the other side of the world to, well, let's call it to scratch an itch. Then again, what's the fun in "ought to"...
