The first thing that I did when Griselda sent me the save files for Epic18 was to open them both up and examine the starting positions. Since I don't have pictures from the 4000BC date, I'll mention here that I founded on the starting tile in both games. I was highly disappointed to get the Greeks again so soon after playing them in Epic14, but the goal of Potluck is to play what you are given, so I wasn't going to complain or demand a different civ. The Greeks are a very strong civ when used in the right hands, and playing three full games with them in a short period of time was going to get me very familiar with their strengths and weaknesses - not entirely a bad thing for my later experience in RBE4 succession game, where we shared a relatively small island with a Beyond-Deity Greece civ that was not always peaceful!
The Greeks have the civ traits of Commercial and Scientific. By rules of this Epic, that meant I had to win a diplomatic (commercial) and spaceship (scientific) victory in each game in order to score the maximum points. After wanting to get some revenge on Emperor AIs for my defeat in Epic17, I end up getting the two peaceful victory types - how's that for irony? But keep in mind that a spaceship victory doesn't have to be a peaceful one, and I fully intended to have enough territory to ensure an early launch - which would almost surely mean war with someone else at some point. When I opened up the save files and looked at the starting positions, I tried to figure out which one would go best with each victory condition. Sirian stated that the "A" game was a pangea map while the "B" game was an archipelago map. Since Sirian customized these maps in the editor, I knew that meant we wouldn't get a fake pangea or an "archipelago" where all of the civs are on the same island. The "A" starting spot was on a river, which means more commerce = more science. The "B" game was on an archipelago, where it's much easier to avoid warfare. Based on these flimsy facts, I decided to go for a spaceship victory in the "A" game and a diplomatic victory in the "B" game. I would change that if necessary, but such was my philosophy going into the game, and I made all my decisions with those victory conditions in mind.
I decided to play the "A" game first (no reason not to) and founded on the starting spot, since I could see no reason to move to a different location. I started out with my favorite early building combination, two warriors for exploration that also would serve as early defense if needed, followed by a granary and then settlers. Max research on Pottery since Greece doesn't start with that tech. In 3000BC, my capital stood as it appears in the earlier screenshot, reprinted here for your convenience:
This image has been lost.
Those mined grasslands were bonus ones, the sort of balanced starting position I would expect a map that Sirian tinkered with to generate. Notice that although I have a game forest within range of my capital, I can't benefit from its extra food under despotism, where even chopping down the forest and irrigating the plains tile would give me 3 food -> 2 food under the starting government. So until I became a Republic or Monarchy, I wouldn't have any food bonuses in my capital - and by that time, the landgrab would be over. It certainly wasn't a bad position of course, as there were both wines and furs within easy reach of Athens (the furs are just to the west in this cropped screenshot). The land around me was quite fertile, and I quickly found that there was coast to my north and east. It seemed that my opponents would lie to the south and west.
I contacted the Iroquois first in 3400BC via one of their scouts. With no civ traits in common we had entirely different starting techs, and so I decided to exchange them. I traded Alphabet and Bronze Working for Ceremonial Burial, Warrior Code, and 10g. Ordinarily this would be a very stupid deal, as both of my techs cost many more beakers than the ones the Iroquois had. But I wanted to accelerate the tech pace as much as possible, and early trading of techs serves to do that. Kicking up the speed of tech research was a serious goal, and one that I would follow as long as it did not seriously injure my chances of winning (which of course this did not). I also decided that if the Iroquois were close to me and tried to make trouble, I would pillage them into the ground with my Hoplites like some players did in Epic14. Just try me Hiawatha! Pottery was discovered in 3350BC (you can research so fast when on a river and not paying the insane Deity tech costs!) and I began Writing at min science.
In 2950BC I spotted a Roman border to the west, formed by the founding of a city. Interesting - just how far away were my neighbors? Rome is NOT the civ I would want as my close neighbor, with their extremely irritating legions to play with; I would much rather deal with Iroquois Mounted Warriors which the AI badly misuses. As it turned out, Rome was considerably closer to me than the Iroquois, and it would only be a matter of time until Caesar started causing trouble. I met him for the first time in 2750BC, and noticed that the Iroquois had catapulted him ahead of me in tech. Good - it was a sign that the fast tech pace was working. I had no fears about falling behind in tech in an Emperor game.
My first settler wasn't produced until 2590BC; as usual, I start rather slowly by building the granary first in my capital. I sent it to the west, and Sparta was founded in a location that locked down both furs and silks for me. The game was pretty uneventful for the next few turns, as I worked on a temple in Athens, sacked a barb camp (long time since I had done much of that), and picked up some cheap techs like The Wheel at third civ prices. I opted for the temple (finshed 2110BC) over more settlers immediately to get the early jump on a cultural lead, which I planned never to relinquish, and to let Athens grow a bit so it could produce settlers without falling back to size 1. In 2070BC I noticed that Rome and the Iroquois had met the other three civs (Germany, Azteca, and Zululand) and exchanged techs around. They were all some 5 techs ahead of me and wanted an arm and a leg for contact. Now that I knew where they were (past Rome to the west somewhere), I headed a warrior off to meet them. The tech pace was moving along nicely: my strategy was working! A bit dangerous, true, but it was more interesting that way.
In 1950BC I built my second settler, at which time it looked like I was completely and utterly behind the AI civs. I took a picture at that time, which will be useful later for comparative purposes, as the early push for infrastructure began to pay off in the long run. Here was the sad state of affairs in 1950BC:
Note that I accidentally cropped off the minimap and status box from this picture when editing it; this is just NOT my day for working with pictures. That's the extent of my world at this date; the Iroquois are a fair distance to the south out of view. I thought if I could settle all of the land north and east of that river to the south, I would be in good shape. This third settler I decided to use for an aggressive settlement, sending it to go to the tile northeast of the horses near Antium. I had no idea if Rome had horses or not, so I thought that this could potentially deny them a source of that resource. It would turn out that Rome had horses anyway in the fog near their capital, but the city Thermopylae that was to go there wouldn't turn out to be a wasted city by any means.
My 40-turn research on Writing came due in 1750BC, by which time all of the other civs already had the tech of course. I had plenty of money to buy into tech parity, but was still waiting to contact the rest of the AI civs. Where were they? I found a Zulu warrior on a small chokepoint to the southwest of Rome in 1650BC. An embassy showed that they were located a very long distance to the southwest and were working on the Oracle (waste your shields away...) The next turn I found the Aztecs as well, who from my embassy were located near the Zulus but a bit closer to me. Now all that remained was to find the Germans... On the same turn (1625BC) I founded Corinth on the river to the south of Athens, a good distance away from the capital. And... shockingly I was 2nd in land area at the time! This was due to the fact that Athens had expanded its cultural borders to size 3; while the other civs had more cities, they had no culture as yet in them. To think that with only 4 cities at that stage in the game I could be #2 in territory was nothing short of amazing.
1575BC was the big brokering turn for me in this game. I noticed that the Aztecs were the only ones with Philosophy, so I bought it from them @2nd civ monopoly price for 101g and 6gpt. I was then able to send Philosophy to Rome for Contact with the Germans + TM + 7g. Philosophy then went to the Iroquois for Masonry + TM + 12g. Philosophy + WM + 5g went to old Bismarck (who was behind in science, ironically) for Iron Working. Finally, I sent Philosophy to the Zulus for Mysticism and 7g. Then I spent another 30g for the Aztec and Germans TMs, and had a good idea of what the world looked like for the first time. 4 techs for the price of one, even if it is at monopoly rate, is a very good deal. Here's how my world stood in 1575BC after making those deals:
My civ is small, its defenses weak for the most part; and yet you can see I have enormous potential for future growth here. All of the land is fertile, I have an abundance of luxuries at hand, both iron and horses are well within my grasp from this starting position, and Thermopylae in particular has potential production power the likes of which I have seen only in a very few games. Making good on that potential would turn into the theme for this game.
Delphi was founded in the south in 1325BC to claim a dyes luxury that happened to be sitting all by itself in a forest tile. Amusingly enough, that dyes luxury happened to be in the very small patch of fog that was unrevealed in my 1575BC map; let that be a lesson of why you should leave no fog tiles unbusted on the map! On the same turn I bought Code of Laws from the Aztecs for 63g + 4gpt. I then traded Code of Laws to the Iroquois for Mathematics + TM + 22g. Then Code of Laws to Shaka for Horseback Riding. Another 3 for 1 deal; on any level but Deity keeping up on tech is generally a non-issue. 1150BC saw the founding of Pharsolus at the mouth of that southern river where it flows into the ocean; it too had a ton of potential and was a very strong location. This raised a question: where were the Iroquois? As it turned out, they were settling land that existed in their backlands to the extreme south and thus allowed me to settle right up to their borders. If they had gone north with their settlers instead of south (which would have been very possible), things could have been more tricky for me. As it was, this was one of the easiest landgrabs I had run in some time.
The Aztecs declared war on the Zulus in 1000BC. Cool! Fight one another all you want. The only downside was a slower tech pace, but until I was fully established in my territory I wasn't entirely safe, and wars between the AI civs would almost certainly be to my benefit. I bought Construction from the Zulus this turn for WM + 97g + 8gpt and used that to get Map Making from the Iroquois and their WM. I then traded world maps around to both show me the entire world and turn a 50g profit. I was nearly caught up on tech now, and didn't expect to ever drop off the pace of the leaders again. By 900BC, the Germans and Iroquois had become caught up in the brewing war, although I doubt either side (especially Hiawatha) made much of a difference in the fight. I got Literature almost for free in 825BC, paying Shaka 79g for it and selling it in turn to the Iroquois for 51g. Hmmm, 38g for a tech that gives me half-cost libraries? That sounds like a pretty good deal! The game was well in hand at this point so long as I could stay out of an early war.
So long as I could stay out of an early war...
The Romans sneak-attacked me at Delphi in 775BC, attacking the defending regular warrior with their own regular warrior and winning. Delphi was the only city of mine without a hoplite for defense, and there was one on the way at the time. Seems the AI really does do a good job of taking advantage of cities with poor defense. Why Delphi? It had a dyes luxury, but the AI civs don't go after luxuries like that very often. No, this attack meant that Delphi had a future resource that Caesar wanted to claim (and sure enough, there was coal there later on). So I suddenly found myself down a city and at war with my closest neighbor, at a time when my landgrabbing was only about 70% complete. Considerations of the tech pace went out the window. Things were about to get "interesting"!
