Adv 20: My Workers Have No Shirts and No Sunscreen!

[Antoninus]

After downloading the game, I outlined my pre-game strategy:

"Dominate."

Ok, enough of the pregame thoughts, let’s get on with the game …

One blue circle to my east, one to my west. But moving east looked daft, since you would be
adding all those peaks to your BFC. I had wheat to my left (I guess that's the settler’s right …? I think …),
and sheep to my right. I didn’t want to move my settler just based upon silly blue circles, so I
settled in place.

If I was going to be limited to building banks and such only in the holy cities, I decided to found as
many religions as possible. So I researched the techs in order to found Budhism, Hinduism
and then Judaism.







The kind indigenous peoples to my south then taught me this:



This would give my worker the perfect thing to do while I ended up chasing religions.
Wow, that couldn’t have worked out better.

Discovered the gold oasis to the south (gold resource and three oases … maybe its "oasi"? ?)



Also discovered the “gold flood plains with cow,” to the southeast. Wow, there’s actually a long line of
floodplains tiles following the river moving directly south.



Looks like Napolean has claimed some of them.

Every once in a while you come across a cool combination of tile features:



Peaks usually stick up above the treeline, but not when it comes to jungles in the desert, apparently.
Those palm trees grow right up into and above the snowline.

I came across a warrior of Napolean’s, so I thought, what the heck. I called his leader an awfully
short man, and so we were at war. I’ve been practicing a little more aggression at my starts,
so we’ll see what this brings me.

Wow, another long line of floodplains following a different river to the west.



Is this the
Tigres and Euphrates? Interesting map. I like this.

My second city was located in the first set of floodplains, to the south of my capital



Holy cow. A third floodplains river running south, off farther to the east.



I guess we have the Tigres, Euphrates and the Mississippi.

I’ve got to settle that area eventually. It’s a little far south to be my third city location, but we’ll see.

My war with Napolean only lasted a few hundred years, and did not end in any city swapping by either party.
But I took out several of his units when he invaded, and basically knocked him down the score
chart a bit before agreeing to peace.

Once I found the marble to the southeast, I was determined to settle there for my third city.
Its not the best location, but marble would speed production of the Parthenon, which would
give me another 50% GP production boost for all cities. Nice combo when your civ is already Philosophical.

Confusionism in 575 BC.



Parthenon in 250 BC, then the Oracle in 150 BC. Marble helped me out with both.

Founded all of the religions, except Taoism, and I apparently haven’t even met the Taoist founder. Hmm.

So here’s how the religions panned out:

1. Mecca was the holy city for the first three (Budhism, Hinduism and Judaism).
2. Medina, just to the south of my capital, was the Christian holy city.
3. Damascus, to the east, founded Confusionism, and
4. Najran, to the east on the northern coast, was the holy city of Islam.

This meant that I had plenty of cities which were safe to build banks, grocers and such.
On the other hand, I discovered later that I can’t build Wallstreet. I have only 4 cities with
religions founded, which means I can only build 4 banks, and I need FIVE banks in order to
build Wallstreet. That was the downside of having Mecca end up with three of the religions.

By 820 AD I had the following 6 cities.



The only naval ships built were three frigates, and I used them to bombared Catherine’s coastal cities.
Once that was done, there was nothing else for them to do, so they were quickly mothballed
off the shores of Mecca.

I realize I’m fast forwarding here, but I tend to forget about screenshots and taking notes the
farther into the game I get.

Eventually I end up with a domination victory in 1983.



Not gonna win me any fastest finish awards,
but this game was great for me, because I’m not nearly as good at warmongering as building,
so I’m always looking for excuses to practice that aspect of the game.

Thanks, Sulla, for a great game.