This game promises to be something really special from a community perspective as well as for the individual participants. The unique setup makes it possible to compare against the AI in other players game.
It will be extremely interesting on report day to see if someone else got to play the same civilization as I and how "my" civilization managed in other players game as an AI.
The rule about no war declarations before 1000 BC will definitely force a different strategy upon the players. An early military rush to eliminate or cripple one of the neighbours will be ruled out in this variant.
I must admit that I really lacked a strategy for this particular game. I mostly wanted just to play well and keep as many options open as possible. In my mind though, I was leaning towards either space victory or domination victory. One thing I decided from the start however, was to aim for many cities. To be exact, that was a mini objective. Oh, and I would have fun as well, but that goes without saying.
I opened the save file and found out that my civilization was Egypt. I was quite pleased with this roll of the dice, since I had not played as Egypt for a while. The one negative aspect was Egypt's unique unit, the war chariot. This is an extremely useful unit if you have horses nearby and plan an early crusade against your neighbours. However, the rules for this specific game (no declarations before 1000 BC) reduced the usefulness of my war chariots significantly. They are extremely good against barbarians though, so I would make quite a few.
Another happy surprise with the opening was the extra warrior I had been blessed with. Two warriors on scouting duty should definitely improve my odds of finding tribal villages.
I spent a long time thinking about whether to settle on the spot or to move my settler elsewhere. Obviously, I was not using my brain to its maximum capacity, cause in the end I decided to move my settler 1 tile SE and settle on the northernmost spice resource. The reason for this move, was to place my capital on the coast. After I had done so and when the settlement was concluded I realized that the water was not an ocean but instead a fresh water lake. Play the ball as it lies even if you only have yourself to blame for its position, is an ancient rule of golf and I decided that that rule works well in CIV too. I was quite mad at myself for not checking the coastline before settling though. A decent consolation was that my move brought Bananas into Thebes second ring.
I started construction of a worker in Thebes and set my research to mining and thus was my journey started.
There were three tribal villages very close to Thebes. two of them gave me gold, but the third gifted me the technology of Fishing. This made my freshwater tiles somewhat useful after all, in the early research. A fourth tribal village south of Thebes popped a hostile barbarian (which my warrior survived) and a fifth village, east of Thebes, blessed me with a scout.
After mining, I started research on animal husbandry, to be able to build a pasture on my cows and see if there were any horses nearby.
My scouting party bumped into Saladin in 3580 BC, Elizabeth in 3520 BC and Mansa Musa in 3460 BC.
I took the above picture in 3400 BC. Thebes was settled somewhere in the tropics (plenty of jungle around). I had Mansa to my northeast, Elizabeth to my east and Saladin to my southeast. I had not yet found a shoreline west of Thebes so I had to assume that my starting location would be pretty much dead centre on the Pangaea, with enemy fronts on all sides. Sigh.... I had hoped for a nice peninsula start in isolation but reality dumped me in a hornets nest. Play the ball as it lies....
When my worker was constructed, I made him mine a hill while waiting for animal husbandry.
I discovered animal husbandry in 3160 and a horse resource popped up inside Thebes second ring. Hmm, maybe my city placement wasn't all that bad after all. :-)
In 3100, my scout entered a tribal village and was blessed with the discovery of Pottery. Two technologies from huts!!
My pottery popping scout entered another tribal village and wouldn't you know..... Three technologies popped from huts before 300o BC!!
None of the early religions had been founded yet and the discovery of Mysticism gave me hopes of landing one. I set research to polytheism and crossed my fingers.
My scouts found Tokugawa in 2950 BC, Julius Caesar in 2920 BC and Mao Zedong in 2770 BC. All three of them were west of Thebes, so my initial assessment about a central placement was correct.
In 2500 I discovered polytheism and founded Hinduism. I did not convert to Hindi although. My central position would make me a prime target for anyone in a religious war, so I decided to stay pagan until more of the chessboard was revealed.
The above picture is from 2500 BC. I still had quite a few turns left before bronze working, but I needed to plan out possible location for my future cities. My central location made it very tough to choke off any pieces of lands to deny them to my opponents. This was extremely evident west of Thebes, where my front line against China and Rome was longer than the great wall of China. I really wanted a city in the marble-gold-dyes region west of Thebes, but that was really close to Mao's capital so the odds were quite high for a hostile solution of that piece of land.
If the western opponents were tricky to deal with through creative city placements, the eastern where somewhat easier. The shape of the land really worked in my favour. The red dot above is not only a super location for a science city, with its food resources and grasslands for cottages. Together with the yellow dot and the two isthmuses marked with the blue arrow, England, Mali and Arabia would be sealed to their respective starting regions.
Of course, the revelations of the whereabouts of copper could turn my plans upside down.
My scouts found the missing jigsaw piece in the lands west of Rome, when they bumped into Roosevelt in 2410 BC. A few years later, I also found his capital. Look at that. A lone archer guarding the capital of America... Roosevelt must have known the special variants of this game.. You can also see that the second religion fell quite late in this game. It turned out that Saladin was the founder when he converted just after the above picture was taken.
I discovered bronze working in 2050 BC, immediately adapted Slavery and found the only copper resources in my neighbourhood in the above places. "yellow dot" would not only seal of Saladin, it would also claim copper. Another solution would be to aim for two cities in the region. First claim the northernmost copper resource and later, the southernmost. Copper makes excellent, highly valued trading material, so two resources would be great.
I founded my second city, Memphis, in 1780 BC. As you can see, I did not go for one of the copper resources. The reason for this was that Mansa Musa had already started to venture south (you can see his colours surrounding the wine resource). I really had to put a lock here or I would be in serious problems. Normally at this stage, I would have secured this area with the use of War chariots instead of settlers. Thebes was producing yet another Settler for my third city. I have also directed my research towards Writing. It is a bit late into the game, but I had decided to go for the Oracle anyway. With Marble nearby, I figured my chances were pretty ok.
As I said, Mansa was really pushing southwards. The locations of Memphis and Thebes, plus me being creative would put any Malinese city in that spot under severe cultural pressure. 1000 BC was also coming closer, which would give me another alternative to deal with Mansa......
I settled my third city, Heliopolis, in 1420 BC. Once again, I did not go for any of the copper resources but rather Marble and Gold. I was also researching Masonry to be able to hook up the Marble as soon as my workers had made their way to Heliopolis.
Thebes completed the Oracle in 985 BC and I picked Metal Casting as my free technology. I was really scared that another civilization would steal the Oracle, so in the end I whipped it (before my workers hooked up the marble). You can also see that I was researching code of laws. I planned to have a lot of cities in this game and courthouses would be crucial to my economy. A second religion would not hurt either. The above picture also shows other interesting things (if you look really closely). Saladin had planted a city SE of Thebes, which would claim the copper resource with a border pop. I really needed to settle a city down there fast. As I predicted, the Malinese city of Kumbi Saleh is already under cultural pressure from Thebes.
Look at that picture!!
Four civilizations contending for the fertile, copper rich lands south of Thebes. Elizabeth had somehow managed to sneak a settler into Arabian lands and settled south of Medina. To further spice up the English - Arabian intermingling, Elizabeth converted to Judaism on this particular turn... If these lands will stay peaceful until game's end, I am a donkey.
To top this off, the barbarians had apparently decided that a floodplains (aarghh) two tiles south of my original yellow dot was the perfect spot to annoy the civ's.
Thebes was producing a settler at this point. My aim was to settle the plains hill, two tiles south of the copper resource. If I could do that and also conquer the barbarian town, England and Arabia would be caught and I could focus on the notorious backstabber Mao Zedong.
A couple of turns after the above picture was taken, Mao converted to Buddhism. That convinced me that my decision to NOT convert to Hinduism was a good one.
In 685 BC, phase one of my southern campaign was concluded as I settled Elephantine. The location may look a bit "hammer heavy" however, there were four farmable grassland tiles (after civil service) and one flood plains in its surroundings to go with the Copper and Marble resources. I would be forced to build plenty of culture in the city though, to battle my neighbours.
I discovered Code of laws in 595 BC and founded Confucianism in Memphis. This was great, since it further enhanced my cultural pressure on Mansa's cities. As can be seen on the above picture, Mansa really was fighting an uphill, cultural battle. My decision to focus on this area with my first settlement proved to be a really wise one, since it forced Mansa to stay put in his arctic starting position. It will be really interesting to see if someone else, playing as Egypt, will choose a different path.
In 430 BC, the people of Kumbi Saleh had come to the conclusion that Egypt was a much more promising land than Mali. One more happiness resource (Ivory) came with the deal :-)
Gao hurriedly followed in Kumbi Saleh's footsteps. The same turn, my southern campaign also concluded, when the Egyptian War chariots captured the barbarian stronghold Visigoth. Seven Egyptian cities at 415 BC. That imposed some rather harsh years financially, and I had to focus on building courthouses almost everywhere.
This announcement popped up in 355 BC and just like clockwork, the following announcement popped up the turn after:
I discovered the Alphabet in 175 BC and immediately started a round of trading to bring the Egyptian scholars up to speed with their neighbours. code of Laws proved to be a really good trading material which single-handedly brought me: Meditation, Sailing, Hunting, Monarchy, Mathematics, Archery and Iron Working. One civ I, intentionally, did not do a very good bargain with, was Rome. I had decided at the time, that I would do my utmost to befriend Julius Caesar. From earlier experience, I have noticed that JC is the perfect ally. He typically builds great armies, but is not prone on backstabbing, so he is quite reliable. I also decided to flood his lands with missionaries to hopefully share a religion.
After getting Monarchy (from Mansa Musa) I immediately switched to hereditary rule to bring some happiness into Egypt. My research was set to civil service but since my economy really was down in the drains (-3 gpt at 30% science) it would take me 138 turns to conclude. Better get those courthouses up soon....
Knowledge of iron working revealed that one of non usable tiles at Memphis was a true jackpot. The one thing Memphis lacked was hammer output and an iron tile was a real blessing.
At the year 100 BC, the total population of Egypt surpassed the 500 000 mark.
With that message ends Part I, please move on to the next page.
