Well Cull asked for a summary, so I'll give a rough summary of the game we played. Twinkletoes might have more to add later.
We did a 3 player AW FFA - myself, Twinkletoes, and Cull. Played on a tiny Team Battleground map, and rolled all random unrestricted civs. I rolled Zara of Ethiopia (go figure), TT rolled Native Americans (not sure of the leader), and Cull ... I'm drawing a blank. A light blue civ. We were layed out roughly like this:
TT ------------scooter
------middle---------
-----------Cull-------
Anyways, Twinkletoes almost pulled a Mortius as my scouting warrior found his capital undefended, but he whipped, and out popped a dog soldier, so that ended that threat in a hurry. We all got second cities fairly quickly, I think I was last by a turn or two. I founded to the east in a spot with pigs up against the east edge of the map, TT founded SE on a nice spot with Floodplains + gold (right?), and Cull founded north on the middle floodplains towards me. I popped out a couple chariots pretty quickly (for fear of a dog soldier rush), and I sent one to see what Cull had for defenses on his forward city, and I found a single warrior. I razed the city at ~ 75% odds, and since we were playing 2 city elim, he had one left. I pressed towards his capital, but didn't quite have enough to take him out (had a bad diceroll that otherwise probably could've been the end for him). I choked for a bit with a couple chariots and a couple warriors, and he eventually broke the choke. I started scouting out his territory with a chariot (he didn't quite have metal hooked up), and found a small city of his in the far southeast corner of the map with a single archer in it. I only had one chariot, and was only getting about 25% odds... I rolled the dice, got lucky, and razed the city. So Cull got KO's pretty early on, which basically turned the game into a duel.
So after Cull left, I had a big problem, which I don't think TT was aware of. I had no metal at all... I did have elephants, so if I could survive til Construction I would be okay, but if TT spammed spears I was in trouble. I saw a spear or two of his, and then one of my northern cities borders popped and I saw there was an iron at the very top of the map in the middle of a bunch of ice. It was a
terrible city, but I rushed a settler up there and founded on the iron. That city was awful, it produced a Granary, a Barracks, and a single Catapult for the duration of the game, but it got me iron just as TT sent a few spears my way. I whipped a couple axes and killed them, so that ended that threat. Our scores were about equal, but I decided to push down to the south use some of Cull's (very nice) land to pop out a few cities. Cull, I didn't found on your capital (felt too exposed), but I founded 1E of the southern corn, which was 1W of the fish. with 2 corn and a fish, I whipped it pretty heavily. I also founded directly on the ruins of your iron city in the southeast.
I ended up with 8 cities, though one was only founded for iron. I felt I could win on points, as I started to tech a bit better, and I think I had slightly better land since I basically took Cull's land for myself. Things were slow for awhile, but I stockpiled some jumbos and cats for defensive purposes. I had a chariot down south that wasn't doing anything, so I started exploring along the south edge of the map, mostly hoping to get lucky and stumble on an empty city and/or steal a worker... First city had an archer on a hill with 40% culture, so 1% odds. I walked past it and found another city on flatlands defended by... a dog soldier. TT's comment was something to the effect of "last time I watch television while playing MP civ"
. I razed it at around 75% odds, which set TT back a good chunk. It definitely didn't put him out of the game, but it did make it so it was going to be nearly impossible for him to win on points.
I sort of sat back and teched at this point, and got a decent points cushion. I kept building elephants, but I didn't emphasize it really heavily. I finally figured I would just end it... I sent some catapults and war elephants at a border city, razed it, and that was that. The turning point was my lucky 25% dice roll on Cull. I think Cull was already in a lot of trouble in that point (losing a city + being choked), but this hurt TT because I got to Cull's land first. I think TT probably could've pushed to settle some of it (I definitely could not have challenged him militarily), but he didn't.
All in all it was a really fun game, thanks TT and Cull
... Also, am I the only one that struggles with the turn timer? We had it on fast (not blazing), and even then I used up the whole clock on a lot of turns... Mostly managing workers seems to be the thing that makes me struggle to finish on time. I was fine for the bulk of the game, but after about 75 turns or so (6-8 cities, probably a dozen workers), it really got challenging.
