I had diamonds aplenty, or at least gold for that matter, and who wouldn't be pleased with either one? About the time that I took this picture in 1990BC, I began thinking of ways to turn my edge in gold and contacts into an edge in power and territory.
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At this point I had three good cities with long term potential. Unfortunately, I was already running out of space between the Romans to the west and especially the Japanese and Chinese to the east. York's spot wasted the chance to put a city on the coast and claim those nearby water tiles, but frankly York was such a strong location I didn't care. Now there's a location I would gladly do a OCC in! Nottingham was a different story; I should have put two cities in its area, one on the southern coast and another on the northern one. As it was, Nottingham was in such a location as to make putting cities there redundant, and so I wasted a lot of tiles near the capital. All in all, not a good location at all for a city. If I chose a site there in a succession game, I would deservedly be getting weed remarks from the other players.
From the mini-map you can see that I already have the homelands of most of the civs determined on the map, even before MapMaking was discovered. And having 377g this early in the game is just crazy; only 25g of that came from a hut and 0g came from sacking barb camps (didn't destroy a one). That was all home grown or taken from the other civs in trades. I bankrupted them nice and good, and ended up with a ton of cash.
Not much happened for the next few turns. I built settlers and claimed the remaining land that I could before the AI civs could reach it. That meant filling in holes near me, but more importantly getting those dyes to the east of York. I managed to claim two of them, but China got there a few turns earlier and grabbed the other two. Why they didn't just claim all four of them I'll never know, but I was glad to benefit from their altruism. I should mention that China was the biggest and most powerful civ in the game at this point; I initially assumed that they had received a goody hut settler at some point and used that to get ahead, but on the replay it doesn't appear that happened. The cause became apparent in 1275BC when MapMaking was discovered and I was able to see the whole world map (more rounds of fun trading).
I was surprised to find that several of the other civs had outstanding starting positions; in fact, China, America, and Zululand were all in unbelievably fertile land. I got robbed on the starting spot! No wonder the Chinese were able to do so well in the landgrab, with a wheat tile and several cattle all right around Beijing. Rome, Japan, and Babylon had decent starting spots rather similar to my own. Egypt just plain got screwed in this one, starting in the desert with little to work with. I feel sorry for those players who got stuck there! Should make for some interesting reads. On the other hand, I won't have any sympathy for those of you who got the "good" starting locations - you have no excuses! Just kidding. ;)
I made pretty good progress and had 5 cities by 1300BC. I could have squeezed in more cities on the coast (and would later do so), but it was time to start using my gold to my advantage. You can probably tell what was coming from looking at the picture that I'm providing here...
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Yep, London is building warriors. Veteran warriors, to be precise, at 10 shields a pop that could be produced one every single turn. And what can you do with veteran warriors? Well, for a small sum in gold (40g) they can be turned into veteran swordsmen. I had been planning a massive warrior -> swordsman upgrade for some time, and had been saving money practically from the beginning of the game for it. The only money I had spent had been for embassies with all civs, and to buy workers. Oh yes, I did buy workers. I checked with every civ every turn for about 40 turns to snap up any available ones. I got one from Japan, one from China, one from Rome, and a shocking FIVE from Bablyon. I should add that nothing cripples an AI civ more than losing workers early in the game (that is, outside of warfare); this can paralyze them as surely as if you were razing their cities. Babylon never got off the ground, so to speak. The Zulus started a war with them around 2000BC, which I watched in amusement with a scout over the next centuries as the Babylonians slowly were beaten back. They never stood a chance and never accomplished anything in this game. Let that be a lesson on the importance of holding on to your workers in the early game!
Well, by 1025BC I had 14 veteran warriors and that was pushing my accumulated gold so I hooked up my iron. I didn't time it exactly right, as I was unable to upgrade one warrior for lack of cash, but it was a nicely done operation all the same. A picture says a thousand words, so I will let these ones speak for themselves:
Before:
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After:
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Booyah! That's converting 140 shields into 420 shields in ONE turn through the use of 560 gold. This is a PERFECT use of the commercial trait: turning their bonus gold into a quantifiable advantage on the battlefield. I couldn't have done it so early without the commercial trait's bonus gold or the gold I had received as a result of being the contact broker with my expansionist scouts. Are the English civ traits useless? NO, not at all; it's just that they need to be used in more subtle ways than simply fighting everyone all the time like with a militaristic civ. Diamonds really are forever if you use them wisely; never underestimate what you can do with gold in the right place at the right time. Well, I had pulled a frightening army out of thin air thanks to my planning and gold so it was time to go out and hurt someone. Player 007, off on Her Majesty's Secret Service once again.
