I played through rather quickly and only took pictures instead of notes, so the report isn't going to be very detailed.
Opened with fishing and completed 1st WB before worker. First GA-silliness came when Stonehenge dropped at 3160BC - Yikes!
First settler went here:
![[Image: 1-Orleans.jpg]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/adv%2035/1-Orleans.jpg)
Between Industrious and a lot of water tiles, early Metal Casting seemed like the best move and I Oracled it in 1960BC. Although hut map showed the way to India, Brennus was the first AI I actually met in 1600BC (he circumnavigated a couple of turns later). While this was in many ways a very good scenario design, I frankly didn't understand why we had 3 Spiritual AIs.
Beelined for Monarchy so I could abuse HR warriors (with none of its resources around, was an easy call to ignore hunting so I could still build the cheapest units), with some diversions for great lighthouse enabling techs (completed in 1300BC), then headed for CS. I took the locked-up Colossus once my borders had expanded to where I could get the copper, then just missed a very late shot at the Pyramids. I hadn't planned on them - with the GA, I thought that working tiles would generally pay off more - but wound up with Paris running out of things to build.
With a small amount of land, resource trades were very important:
![[Image: 2-ResouceTrades.jpg]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/adv%2035/2-ResouceTrades.jpg)
Several more were made over the course of the game; later I wound up paying handsome GPT for corporation resources.
Last of my 7 cities was plunked down in 360BC. Here you can see all the locations at 1AD:
![[Image: 3-Overview.jpg]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/adv%2035/3-Overview.jpg)
I chose "neither" in the stone vs. marble argument (nice touch there by the sponsor. I guess that it was good for my enjoyment of the game that I didn't learn that you could connect them with forts until reading haphazard's report). By the time I was going to put a city there I wasn't planning to build a lot more wonders with either resource, and founding in the location I did made better use of the terrain overall. What was odd is that I still needed 8 cities to build the FP, but with Paris centered I really didn't miss it.
Paris would eventually get Oxford and Nat'l Epic. Lyons would become by corporate HQ with Wall Street, which resulted in me having to put the IW in Tours, the 3rd-highest base production city
In the end it was not a big deal as research was still the bottleneck.
Early Great Prophet settled, 2nd and 3rd were Merchants that was cashed in Thebes (it had built ToA). 4th scientist built academy in Paris, 5th on Education I think. There were a very large number of great people over the course of the game, built multiple academies and lots of trade missions, think I settled some late GEs as nothing better to use them on.
Chased up the "idea" branch as usual and Lib'd Democracy in 440AD. Tech speed was frightful as I next beelined towards Sushi, managed a tech per turn for about 10 consecutive ones and only Biology and Medicine took more than one. I probably could have sustained the streak longer but wasn't sure if there was a cap on beaker overflow, so ran a lower slider at some points (Of course, I couldn't trade for any of the techs like Construction or Feudalism either). Sushi founded in 880AD. On a tiny map, the corp gave huge benefits (4x normal, so 2 food per resource!) but also was hideously costly, something like 40 GPT after courthouse. Still worth it, but very different from normal maps where the corp's maintenance is usually about zero net after all the gold multipliers have been built in the HQ. I was fortunate to get an Engineer soon to allow Mining as well a few turns later. Corporate costs could be largely offset by building Wealth once cities topped off their improvements and could keep research at max; I hit another string of 1 tech per turn from Rifling to Plastics after the Superconductors/Genetics beeline. I decided that I was going too fast for the internet to be of much use so did not head for Computers early. This tech screen near the end shows that this was probably the right call:
![[Image: 4-FinalTechs.jpg]](http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff82/timmy827/adv%2035/4-FinalTechs.jpg)
More good luck in 1530 as a merchant is born - exactly the one I need to run a trade mission (without this, would have had to dial down research due to most cities building parts). With some micro I can line up the last parts very well and launch in 1590; without the 2nd engine it takes 7 turns for 1655 win date (turn 156).
Opened with fishing and completed 1st WB before worker. First GA-silliness came when Stonehenge dropped at 3160BC - Yikes!
First settler went here:
Between Industrious and a lot of water tiles, early Metal Casting seemed like the best move and I Oracled it in 1960BC. Although hut map showed the way to India, Brennus was the first AI I actually met in 1600BC (he circumnavigated a couple of turns later). While this was in many ways a very good scenario design, I frankly didn't understand why we had 3 Spiritual AIs.
Beelined for Monarchy so I could abuse HR warriors (with none of its resources around, was an easy call to ignore hunting so I could still build the cheapest units), with some diversions for great lighthouse enabling techs (completed in 1300BC), then headed for CS. I took the locked-up Colossus once my borders had expanded to where I could get the copper, then just missed a very late shot at the Pyramids. I hadn't planned on them - with the GA, I thought that working tiles would generally pay off more - but wound up with Paris running out of things to build.
With a small amount of land, resource trades were very important:
Several more were made over the course of the game; later I wound up paying handsome GPT for corporation resources.
Last of my 7 cities was plunked down in 360BC. Here you can see all the locations at 1AD:
I chose "neither" in the stone vs. marble argument (nice touch there by the sponsor. I guess that it was good for my enjoyment of the game that I didn't learn that you could connect them with forts until reading haphazard's report). By the time I was going to put a city there I wasn't planning to build a lot more wonders with either resource, and founding in the location I did made better use of the terrain overall. What was odd is that I still needed 8 cities to build the FP, but with Paris centered I really didn't miss it.
Paris would eventually get Oxford and Nat'l Epic. Lyons would become by corporate HQ with Wall Street, which resulted in me having to put the IW in Tours, the 3rd-highest base production city
In the end it was not a big deal as research was still the bottleneck. Early Great Prophet settled, 2nd and 3rd were Merchants that was cashed in Thebes (it had built ToA). 4th scientist built academy in Paris, 5th on Education I think. There were a very large number of great people over the course of the game, built multiple academies and lots of trade missions, think I settled some late GEs as nothing better to use them on.
Chased up the "idea" branch as usual and Lib'd Democracy in 440AD. Tech speed was frightful as I next beelined towards Sushi, managed a tech per turn for about 10 consecutive ones and only Biology and Medicine took more than one. I probably could have sustained the streak longer but wasn't sure if there was a cap on beaker overflow, so ran a lower slider at some points (Of course, I couldn't trade for any of the techs like Construction or Feudalism either). Sushi founded in 880AD. On a tiny map, the corp gave huge benefits (4x normal, so 2 food per resource!) but also was hideously costly, something like 40 GPT after courthouse. Still worth it, but very different from normal maps where the corp's maintenance is usually about zero net after all the gold multipliers have been built in the HQ. I was fortunate to get an Engineer soon to allow Mining as well a few turns later. Corporate costs could be largely offset by building Wealth once cities topped off their improvements and could keep research at max; I hit another string of 1 tech per turn from Rifling to Plastics after the Superconductors/Genetics beeline. I decided that I was going too fast for the internet to be of much use so did not head for Computers early. This tech screen near the end shows that this was probably the right call:
More good luck in 1530 as a merchant is born - exactly the one I need to run a trade mission (without this, would have had to dial down research due to most cities building parts). With some micro I can line up the last parts very well and launch in 1590; without the 2nd engine it takes 7 turns for 1655 win date (turn 156).
