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The first decision about the game was one I made even before I loaded the game to see what the start looked like: I am going to try to win by conquest. Since this is a competition for fastest finish regardless of victory type, I figure Conquest will probably be one of the fastest. Domination is impossible since we're only allowed six cities. Time victories won't be the fastest. Cultural might work, but it'll be tough without land routes for religions to spread (though maybe with the Colossus...?) Space race is going to take a while with only Prince AIs and no tech trading. Diplomatic is probably a good candidate for fastest finish too. I'll be curious to see how many choose each path.
Archipelago maps are challenging because it's often difficult to get good production. Capitals of the various AIs are going to be the best sites for my cities (though of course I'll have to raze them since I have to found all my cities using my own settlers). So, maybe there will be a few AI capital locations close by that I can utilize.
I figure that of my 6 allowed cities, 4 will focus on production and 2 on finances to try to support the rest.
I'm going to just have to get by without one. Since I'm starting without mysticism and with many other AIs, I won't get any early religions. Since I'm going to be concentrating on conquest, I'm not going to get any late religions. Since I can't control any AI-founded cities, I'm going to be razing holy cities. So, it will be a low/no-religion game for me.
Some of the variant rules (Walls as first improvements and no wonders in the capital) seem to rule out many of the slingshot-type uberstrategies that have been under discussion of late. The only one really not ruled out is early aggression. So, I expect that will get a lot of use in this Adventure.
Without being able to use the capital to build wonders, with production likely to be low, and without being able to take over existing AI wonder-cities, I'll be surprised if I build/use any wonders at all.
With only a few cities allowed, and with resources likely to be scattered widely on an archipelago map, this is probably going to be a strongly limiting factor for my cities. Happiness you can overcome with hereditary rule, but for health, there's likely few fresh water sites, not many resources (even by trade), and we're not expansive.
Found the capital in a highly productive spot. Get the circumnavigation bonus. Meet the neighbors. Build up troops and their galley transports. Conquer the world.
We started on the plains hill northeast of where I ended up founding Athens. Though it took 3 turns to finally settle--I went E/SW, then S/NW with the settler before finally being able to settle--I decided this was the spot nearest the start that gave the best mine/workshop production.
My starting research was Mining->Bronze(for whipping)->Agriculture(for wheat)->Animal Husbandry(because horses are production). I knew I wanted to take advantage of whipping all that good food into early production in the capital. The build order was Workboat, Workboat (till size 2), Worker, complete 2nd workboat (sent off to explore, circumnavigate), 3rd workboat to go in opposite direction.
Usually, you can find your way around the world on an archipelago map without caravels. Since I knew I'd be spending a lot of time off the starting island, I made circumnavigation a high priority.
The starting site turned all the sweeter when Copper was discovered within our big fat cross. Though I'm sure no one moved far enough away to not have it, I'll be curious to see how many people settled initially on the site that turned out to have Copper.
As expected, the early route-scouting was pretty inefficient. I did take advantage of a little trick I learned in our RB SGOTM2 game: zoom out and use the culture indicator to see if you've detected the border of some other civ's culture. You can see the border if you zoom in close, but this is an easier way to get the same info.
You can see here that I've finally decided that the north end of this continent is worth settling. (The starting scout is up there on barb-suppression duties.
Speaking of them, I don't think I ever saw a barbarian in this game. Not even an early animal, as I recall.
On an archipelago map, I always notice the east-west wrap because you can see shadows of the unknown world depending on where you've explored. Weird. It usually ends up saving me a few turns on the circumnavigation time. Here, I think I conclude that there's no way to get too much further west before hitting ocean. You can see in the minimap that my other workboat is doing a bit better in finding a more direct path, though eventually, I got stopped by Mansa's borders and had to go around while I waited for Writing so I could sign open borders.
Also, after AH, I researched Masonry (so my cities could build something other than unit) and Mysticism (so they could expand). Actually, in looking back, I interrupted Mysticism with just a few turns to go so that I could get Writing and sign open borders with Mansa. Having to build walls before an obelisk meant that Sparta was bored for a long time. I chose a long-term spot for Sparta, but it needed an obelisk before I could work any nearly productive tile. When choosing city sites for this one, I really looked long-term. I'll be curious to see if that's what others did too.
A note on the rules: I never started any building (including wonders) before starting and completing the walls of my cities. I suppose there is room for interpretation such that "can't build" could be interpreted as "can't complete the building of", but I interpreted it as "can't build any part of". The only real temptation I had was that of starting wonders in the capital so I could get cash infusions when the AI finished them. But I restrained myself. In the earlygoing, I felt like I didn't have much to build.
In fact, often in the early-going, I felt like I was just a step or two behind. I don't know if I can give too many examples, but I kept feeling like I was waiting for something: Masonry to build walls, Writing so I could build libraries and sign open borders. Usually, things are timed pretty well, but here I just felt like my planning was a few turns behind and many things were too late. Probably because I waited too long to found my second city and had a production-heavy capital.
Just look at all that backtracking my western workboat had to do. And the eastern wasn't much better as it was here diverting north around Mansa's island while the scribes worked on a way to sign open borders with him.
Not much useful stuff to build in the capital. (I think I kept the copper disconnected because I wanted to build warriors for hereditary rule garrisons.) So I built a few settlers for later use.
Finally, in the year 1000BC, my two workboats had seen something at every latitude. One went on to net fish (which were pillaged at some point), while the other continued exploring for another couple thousand years before I decided I didn't need to know any more about the world and didn't want to keep hearing the sailors whine about scurvy.
End of Part 1--Laying the Groundwork. Continue on to Part 2.