My progress was quite slow to start off the game. Even with the free settler, this was the extent of my territory in 1725BC:
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After producing the settler that founded Bapedi, I had gone back and built a granary in Zimbabwe. I probably should have built the granary before the first settler, but I was afraid that the Romans would grab all of the good land before I could get the first couple settlers out. In any case, I was able to pick up my landgrabbing once it completed. You can see I was nearly done my second settler when this shot was taken. The barbarian horsemen never went after Zimbabwe (which was good, because I couldn't stop them). Since they, like the AI civs, can see the map at all times, they knew that Ulundi was undefended and kept sacking it. That was the biggest benefit I receieved from the goody hut: safety from barbarians.
Look at the location of Neapolis too. Here we are barely 50 turns into the game and the Romans already have a city blocking my expansion less than two city-lengths away from my capital. Was that irritating or what? You can see where Veii was before the Aztecs razed it where the length of road is by the wines in the south. I had tried to set up a scout blockade on the penninsula where it is only 2 tiles wide, but barbarians came and forced my scouts to move or die, letting the Romans through. Maybe someone else will be able to block the penninsula off and settle it all in relative ease; my attempt to do so failed thanks to the barbs.
My next city, Hlobane, was founded in 1525BC straight to the north, to put an end to all those barb camps. Ulundi could never get past size 1 until I ended the barbarian camps, after all. In 1350BC I traded for the Aztec territory map and got a pretty good idea of what the continent looked like. The Aztecs were to the south, the English to the far west, I was in the northeast, and the Romans were squeezed between all of us. Not a good position for Caesar. Of course the Romans didn't give up their attempts to settle on my penninsula, and I had to run a small blockade to prevent them from seizing land that I would need just to survive in this Deity game. Here's a picture of the blockade:
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This particular shot is from 1275BC, but I ran it for some time before and after that. Notice that I didn't have enough units to form a complete blockade, so the Roman archer/settler pair kept running from one side of my line to the other and could never get through. Eventually I added another unit and they went home in disgust. A rather neat little job, I might add. I finally cleared out the last barb camp in my territory in 1250BC, though two warriors had to die doing it. Fortunately I had sent three up there to take care of it. I really hate Deity barbarians, by the way. In 1175BC I traded for Rome's world map and got my first concrete look at the entire continent. Here's the image from that turn:
Notice how I'm still running my blockade in this picture as well. Now a few notes on the map and what I was doing at the time. Hlobane was founded first to end the threat of barbs and secondly to become a fishing town. There was no way to ever get more than a handful of shields there, so it could do little except provide income. Isandhlwana was the same way, only it had desert tiles instead of tundra ones as its useless land. Rails could make it productive evetually, but that was so far down the line I couldn't even think about it. Intombe was a reach city, founded to control the only source of horses - and the only resource period - remotely close to the starting position. It was in serious danger of flipping to the Aztecs or Romans, but I figured I might need horses to survive. And Neapolis was going to have to go sooner or later anyway... You can see another settler heading to found a city southeast of Ulundi, and lock down that corner of the map. That was it for cities on my pennisula. I planned to squeeze in some more, a fishing village between Hlobane and Ulundi and another between Zimbabwe and Isandhlwana, but decided not to later since I had major overlap as it was.
Now as for my opponents... You can see that Rome is getting beaten pretty badly from this picture. They are down to only a few cities, there is tons of unclaimed land around them, and Rome itself has been whipped down to size 1! Clearly things were going downhill for them. Unfortunately I had no way to get over to that unclaimed land since I lacked the money to trade for MapMaking. It was a bit frustrating. I sold my world map around for some money in 1125BC (when others had the tech, not me) and used it to found an embassy with Rome. I discovered to my surprise that Rome was at war with not just Azteca, but England as well. It was clear that they were going down unless a peace treaty was signed soon. But there was no such luck for the Romans; in 925BC their capital fell to the Aztecs. That was the death-blow of course, and after that it was clear it was just a matter of time until Rome died. Unfortunately, when Rome and Cumae fell, the Roman capital jumped to Neapolis, right on my doorstep! This was unacceptible, for even if the Romans died it would mean a foreign city right on my borders. I resolved to capture Neapolis myself, which would be easy to do againt a paralyzed Rome.
It was a somewhat ambitious plan, but there was no way I could stand having an Aztec city that close to my capital. It would have to be mine. So I starting building the best offensive unit I had: archers! Wooo, oh yeah! *sigh* The lack of resources in this starting position didn't make the game any easier, I tell you. But of course I still had to deal with diplomacy and other events while building my forces. In 800BC, the Aztecs discovered Literature FOUR turns before my 40-turn min science strategy ended. Arrggg! That hurt, it really did. But when the tech was discovered in 710BC, I was still the second one to get it and was able to use it to get Code of Laws and Map Making. Now I could go get that open land... or rather I could I were allowed to change production. Most of my cities were locked down on temple builds, and I needed them badly enough that I wasn't going to start over. So Zimbabwe, Ulundi, and Bapedi (my only productive cities) trained archers and impis while the other cities built infrastructure at a painstakingly slow pace. I would just have to grab the land after settling with Neapolis.
In 490BC I was ready to attack. But I investigated Neapolis first to check and see what was in there. Lo and behold, they had two regular spears and were set to complete a settler on the next turn. What luck! So I waited and declared war on Rome in 470BC. Sure enough, their city dropped to size 1 and thus was unable to whip a defender. Not bad. I had 8 veteran archer defended by two impis, which I would attack with if things went really badly. Surely enough to take two regular spears in a size 1 city, right? Well 5 archers died but I did take the city:
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There's a reason why I don't like attacking with archers in this game. But I had met my goal, taken a city that I really needed to have, and hurt the Romans. There were down to just a city or two on the other side of the bay from me. I also captured a Roman settler, the one they had just produced when I took the city, giving me a free worker that I badly needed. I was able to get peace in 390BC from Rome, where they gave me communications with France and the Iroquois, Masonry, and their world map. Rome was destroyed in 330BC. So I had survived the first stage of the game, fought a war with an AI civ (if a crippled one), and secured the whole of my pennisula for myself. It was poor land, but it was mine. Now I set myself to grabbing as much land as possible across the bay from me in what should have been Roman territory, where I hoped to hammer out a second core of cities for myself.
