Initial Expansion

I had decided to go with a fairly aggressive settling campaign this game, to secure the natural chokepoints early (marked on the dotmap).  St. Pete started on a spear to grow to 3, then a settler, while Moscow built two more settlers (staying at size 3).  So, in rapid succession I founded Novgorod (1800), Rostov (1600), and Yaroslavl (1480), who each started on a worker (Workboat first in Rostov’s case).  By 1340 I began to see Barb warriors, but at least with these three chokepoints, I knew he would have to come to me, and spears or axes were easily able to defend.  This kept my workers and interior secure.

 On the tech front, I had decided after Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry that I would beeline for Alphabet, which I discovered in 1280BC.  I was disappointed to have only met 3 rivals by then, which limited my trading opportunities.  Sal and Qin were both up Agriculture, Pottery, Sailing, and Archery, and Sal also had Mysticism (but wouldn’t trade it).  Isabella had only Archery and Mysticism (she wouldn’t trade Myst either).  Sal lacked Writing, which I traded for Sailing, since I needed lighthouses.  I also needed farms pretty bad, so I traded Qun Masonry for Agriculture.  I wasn’t going to trade Alphabet, and I didn’t want to overpay for Archery, so that was it for this round.  I did revolt to Slavery (not sure why I didn’t earlier) to help whip some lighthouses.  St. Pete and Rostov were both food-rich and hammer poor, I would be whipping them often.  I was also starting to run into happiness limits.  While I had plenty of food resources around, I hadn’t found a single luxury near my territory.  Qin had several, and maybe I could get a city down there fast enough to poach some of the dye S of Yaroslavl.  Here’s my map in 1000BC:

Tech Path

In 975, Confucianism was founded (not sure by who), and Qin had Math (which I was working on).  I was getting nervous on the religion thing, I had hoped to get to Code of Laws and grab Confucianism, but I forgot and went for math instead.  (I’d have been beaten anyway, as it turned out).  I really wanted to found a religion, rather than being forced to adopt whatever appeared, because of the bonus points for having the shrine.  I did get Mathematics in 700BC, but still no decent trades.  I then researched Mysticism myself in 3 turns, which opened up some more options, and I was able to trade Sal Math for Polytheism and Pottery.  I was also able to complete the Great Lighthouse in 600BC to boost my trade.  (once again, I skipped the early religious wonders, I had already played this far by the time I was writing, and learning from, my ADV2 report.  Lack of prophets would haunt me later).

 I founded Yekaternburg in 475BC to grab the Ivory (my first happiness resource), and had another settler headed south to grab the dyes before Qin got there.  However, I noticed that Sal had Alphabet, so I decided to trade it to Qin while I still could, and got Iron Working.  There was a source of iron right next to my settler, NE of Qin’s Shanghai, and an evil grin crossed my face.  Rather than trying to squeeze a city in beside Qin, I’ll plant one right here (Yakutsk), build some swords (and Elephants and Cats, since I could research Construction before I would be ready to invade), and take the cities he already has!  Can’t forget the Soldier aspect of the three!