No barbarians means no animals, as well as no barbarian units or cities. Barbarian units can still pop from huts, but short of that, I knew I could settle with impunity. If we turned out to be alone on a small continent, military would be superfluous until we meet at least one rival.

I started with a worker and research in to Meditation. I sent my Quechua north, hugging the east coast at first, then turning westward. I popped a hut up there, got maps (showing out to sea to the east). Another hut gave me a hefty sum of gold.

I founded Buddhism but did -NOT- switch to it. I continued research in to religious tech, choosing Polytheism next. (I was not planning to win this game by warfare, and so the more access to religion I would have on hand, the better likelihood of success in chasing Culture, should diplomacy fail me.)

Well, that plan suffered a minor setback. (Perhaps I should have gone for Poly first, but I really didn't want to tie myself up in the three-tech race to HinJewIsm).

So we don't need military, but I'm building a second Quechua? What's that all about?

In a word: scouting. This "island" has turned out to be rather large. I'm thinking I need to know what's out there sooner rather than later, plus grab huts (since it seems likely another Civ must be around somewhere, with this much land on hand.) I can then use the units for city police duty, later.

Friendly locals:

Oh yeah.

As anticipated by my early explorations, we have a neighbor. Ooh, not good. The most aggressive of the three civs we're facing.

Now I'm hoping it's just us two. If a third civ is on this continent, it will be like playing a pangaea game!

Note that I've started on Stonehenge. I intend to pause on that to build a settler, but waiting for the city to grow a bit first.

My scouting indicates that Louis is not to the south (or the east, which is all ocean). He must therefore be west or north. Not sure which, yet, but I intend to settle toward him. (There's a lot of land out there!)

Popped a scout from a hut? Excellent. (I hunger for map intel!)

My free scout barely beats a French unit to the next hut in the west, giving us a third warrior unit. (Free stuff! Who doesn't like free stuff?)

Now for my strategy. Next up, the game plan.

| Next Page |

| Table of Contents | The Epics | Main Menu |