I settled 1SE. Conscious of the likely shortage of land, my aim was a series of worker steals and wars to keep the AI around me weak (and hopefully prevent them all reaching longbows) allowing me to conquer them at my leisure without compromising science too much and then aim for space.
Maos First 5-year plan started off OK. I settled 1SE. Well thats 40 years gone so onto the 8th 5-year plan
Anyway, while I build a worker (I want one worker guaranteed, even if warriors will soon bring me many more), the starting warrior circles around to the east and takes quite a while to find anything. But eventually - lo and behold: A celtic worker building a pasture on apparently empty grassland HA! That can only mean one thing, and the warrior swoops in for the kill. Theres a bear in the way but yknow first barb encountered, free win against the barbs and 1 turn later (how many 5-year plans?) the warrior is dead, the bear is (presumably since I can no longer see him) fatter, and the worker is (presumably) still building the pasture. And rather annoyingly, still Celtic.
Oh.
Maybe I need to figure out exactly how the free win I thought you had against the barbs is supposed to work?
No matter. I have just built a new warrior. He should just get to the worker in time.
A few turns later, 2nd warrior is dead, and bear is (presumably) even fatter.
Have the Celts started somehow recruiting animals as defenders?
This is not going well. Ive explored almost nothing, and, its now probably too late for any worker steals. On to plan B: Grab as much land as I can by settling and hope I can get something to attack with soon. Turns out theres no copper or horses nearby. I send a settler north to get the nice spot with rice, banana and lots of hills a good production location - to discover Brennus is already there. So the settler goes NW instead to grab the cows and hills near the capital. Phew. At least I have 2 decent cities.
A couple of turns after I pasture the cows, Wang Kons culture expands and takes them. I can now only keep Shanghai viable by giving it the precious corn from the capital.
I have one capital, one now useless city, theres one potential city spot SW of the capital. And (ignoring the ice)
Everywhere else around me has been taken by the Celts, Koreans and Persians.
Would I get an award for understatement of the year if I said this is not looking good?
What saved me was the appearance of iron near the starting area, and all those trees around. Chop chop. I dont think Ive ever demolished so many forests so quickly so early in the game. And at the end of it I have a very eager
terra cotta swordsman army of 7 units and rapidly growing. A few turns later Wang Kon appears to have mysteriously had 2 cities razed to the ground (Mao whistles innocently) and the cows are mine again. Wang Kon might have kept his losses down to two cities if he hadnt about 5 turns later been stupid enough settle a replacement city when my swordsmen were practically standing on the next tile!). Anyway, I then plant a settler of my own in the newly liberated lands to grab the horses and marble, and conclude Ive probably weakened the Koreans enough and I should turn my attention to Brennus. So, peace with Korea, quick march to the East, get two Celtic cities (and get that rice/banana spot back
), peace with Celtia, and now its time to prevent Cyrus getting too big for his boots. And thats basically where I am at 0AD. Thanks to mass cottaging on all the flood plains in the capital, Ive just managed to research construction, and my army of swordsmen, accompanied a couple of catapults, are about to brave the 60% defences of Persepolis.
I have just 5 cities, total pop 21, a rather low sustainable research rate of 18gpt at 40% science, but thats partly because Im paying 7gpt for all the swordsmen. And I suspect with an army this size I just might have a chance of some kind of victory
With hindsight, on this map, building a worker first was probably not the most brilliant decision Ive ever made. But a very fun game so far
. (Well, I suspect Wang Kon wouldnt agree)
plot in the immediate culture ring and I correctly suspected a PF (3
. After that, there was no good places to settle another city (well, I guessed 
).
.
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