Epic 15 - Timmy's Millenial Meltdown

[timmy827]

This was a real cool concept, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it as I had some vacation time overlapping along with forays into SGs and the Imperia. All of the time-sink of large island maps is compounded greatly by my computer's lack of performance. I probably could have finished the game at the cost of saving and restarting civ every few turns (and restarting my computer every 5 or so cycles) but instead decided to stop at 1000AD.

Executive summary - got all of the big 4 wonders for this map type - Stonehenge, TGL, Oracle (in order to get) Colossus. Expanded pretty well with an optics beeline; by 1000AD I had most of the world mapped out and was beginning to poach islands with carracks. Was planning for flavor to spin off colonies as I got each enlightenment "idea" tech but didn't get that far. Will post some pictures and details later this week when I have time.

[timmy827]

On water maps, the general strategy is something like
1)Build Great Lighthouse
2)Spam cities anywhere with at least one seafood
3)Profit

One key is a capital with good production as far as water maps go, and we've got a big-time one here. Just from the starting screenshot we see 4 grass hills and 2 ivories, and on the eastern edge we see what looks to be another hill and a Conspicously Un-Forested Tile - very likely a strategic resource (why wasn't that fixed in 3.17?).

So I settle in place and find that it was actually a grass Cow, also great! Let my borders pop the hut - get The Wheel!

Went worker first, researching hunting->bw->myst->ah->pottery. Stonehenge completed by 2475BC. Soon after I'm able to get warriors in place to nearly fogbust the entire island.

Get oracle and take the standard choice over doubts that Monarchy would be better.

Continue to expand slowly as capital builds Great Lighthouse and Colossus.

Trade Alpha for IW from Sulei and MC for Monarchy with Izzy.

I made some big mistakes. I didn't notice the visible coast tiles off the southern shore and if I had placed my western city 1S I would have been able to get there with galleys; I was victimized by the failure of culture to spread over ocean on the 3rd ring. The 1 tile island to my NW should have been settled much earlier also as it opened a path to gem island.

I had a fun chase, with a barb galley tracking a work boat for 30 turns or so. Here's the near end result.

I got lucky and the barb lost to my first galley.

In 355 AD I finally get a Buddhism spread and convert immediately. Notice that both AI's I've met have Calendar and can get it + gold from Sulei.

Soon after I've planted my flag on the western island after cultural borders of the 1-tile island city pop:


Meet the Dutch a few turns later. Excellent, Willem is Hindu but never minds different faith much.
Another key moment comes when borders pop at the city on the NE part of the home island giving me a much quicker route northward for my galleys.

Unfortunately I was hit in the south as the borders didn't pop across the ocean. Oh well, I'm closing in on Optics.

Once that comes in, I found a city on the island to the south. Willem learns Paper and I can buy his map, once I head east I find Vicky (stroke of luck, was at Napoleon's lands but saw her workboat) whos map I could also buy giving me a good outline of the settled world. There was still much to be found and poached via carracks. The map buy also got circumnavigation.

To 1000AD - Found Saladin, he's apparently isolated and woefully backwards. It will be an effort to poach some islands from him. My science slider has bottomed out around 30% and stayed steady. Sulei and Izzy are to Friendly and I was just able to get paper from Sulei by that mechanism. Each other pair of AI's is sitll separate. Here's the final map at the millenium: