Epic 27 - Novice's unfinished business

[novice]

This was great fun but turned out to be too stressful and time consuming for me. I echo Krill that quick speed would have been better. Anyway, I beelined Pottery and Mathematics, seemed like the best use of early commerce.
This gave me a nice early expansion, and I expanded until my economy was crashed.

Situation when I stopped playing, west front:



My western front city has the Pyramids. This front is very secure. South front:

My southern front was a barbarian city and the placement isn't really optimal. A bit awkward to defend it against Egyptian War Chariots.



East front: I settled this city and quickly chopped out the Hanging Gardens. This front is hardest to defend, it is constantly assaulted by Mongolian Keshiks. In the screenshot, my 50-something XP Axeman was just killed.



North: Sees no action. I built the Great Lighthouse here to keep the economy in the black.



Some people may find my dotmap interesting - I placed my cities such that the Gems couldn't be worked. I prioritized defendability over commerce, and I wanted a port city towards Maya.

Plan ahead was to use Representation specialists to research Aesthetics and Literature and build some more wonders, while keeping the fronts. I've been waiting for ages for a second civ to research Horseback Riding, some War Elephants would really help against those Keshiks and War Chariots. I probably should have self-researched HR.

Other things worth mentioning? Can't remember, feel free to ask. Maya was probably slower off the bat than normal in my game, as I choked them with a single warrior on a forest hill, causing them to keep their first worker and settler at home until they had built six archers.

[Compromise]

It looks like you had pretty good expansion into all the territory that could be considered "rightly Japanese." I wonder how easily this would have translated into later victory.

[novice]

It looks like you had pretty good expansion into all the territory that could be considered "rightly Japanese." I wonder how easily this would have translated into later victory.

Yeah, I wonder too... I actually feel slightly overexpanded, not sure if the extra territory is helpful. My eastern city was grabbed more for the choppable forests than for the territory.