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Even before playing, I decided I wanted to try this game without using slavery. If I lose, that's fine; I'm just curious to see how it is against emperor AIs without the production assistance of slavery.
I haven't played a Maze map before, but from reading the map info page description, it sounded like it would play like a snaky continents/archipelago map: You'd be meeting your close neighbors on land, but you'd probably need boats to get at the distant civs.
The start location seemed okay, but not too great. I moved the warrior southwest and saw the deer. With crabs and deer, there'd be plenty of food, so I decided to settle in place. Even without slavery, food gives you options and is a good thing.
The warrior popped a hut southwest of the capital for some 56 gold, and when the capital expanded its borders, it popped a hut which gave me a Scout. Cool.
Of course, this scout immediately found himself in some danger. From the location above, I moved him NE into the jungle. There, he successfully defended against the panther, and went north to pop the hut and yield...another Scout! I swear I get more scouts from huts.... (Why don't I ever get techs?!)
I met Julius up north in 3640BC, Napoleon in the wolf-infested south antarctic region in 3560BC, and Cyrus up in the northeast in 3160BC. Not the best of neighbors, these!
For those who keep track of tech path, I tried a little tech-micromanagement. I knew on a land-based map such as this that I'd likely meet someone. I also knew I wanted to get the deer into play asap. So, my first build was a worker, and my first tech was bronzeworking. But I watched the research time for hunting and the turns-remaining for the worker. I switched from bronze to hunting when the worker could be on the deer, ready to improve them, on the same turn hunting was finished. This way, I could put my research into a tech that the AI wasn't going to give me a bonus on (bronze first thing) and hope to meet new civs who would give me a known-tech bonus on a first-tier tech (hunting). I never actually checked to see if that helped much, but in these extremely early turns, I don't mind that type of micromanagement. Later on, I'd find that kind of thing unbearably tedious. So, I went Bronzeworking (incomplete) -> Hunting -> Bronzeworking while building worker first.
Often, I just use my scouts as fogbusters. Because I though the narrowness of the land strips would be a help in keeping barbs at bay, I decided to scout a little further afield. As you can see from the above, that decision exposed the troops to some risk. While this warrior survived, the scouts eventually found themselves killed by barb animals despite good odds. Sigh. Easy come, easy go.
The discovery of Bronzeworking was rather depressing: no copper *anywhere*. Despite my best scouting efforts--with two popped scouts and my starting warrior--there was no copper to be seen. So, I did the standard barbs-on plan B: look for horses. I'd need chariots pretty quickly too, since the scouts got killed on their way back for fogbusting duty.
More unpleasant news when Genghis' scout (GK founded Buddhism??!!) showed up in 2920BC. What kind of planet is this: prisonworld? I wondered if the Aggressive AI trait would make them hate each other more too, of if the aggression is just directed at the human player. Please let there be horses...please let there be horses...at least for me!
I'd identified this spot as one of the best for a production city, despite the proximity to Delhi. Jungle to the north and snow in the south made for slim pickings for city sites. I figured I'd need production asap, especially if no horses showed up and I was going to have to get by with archers. It's interesting how much difference there is in games with vs. without copper.
The discovery of AH was one of the sweetest moments in the game. Not only were there horses, but they were in range of both my capital and my production cities. Nice. As you can see from the builds, I'm planning to expand a bit more soon. I started to feel much better about the game at this point.
Of course, I already had a place picked out for the next production city and a warrior on a hill to protect it. He did pretty well, especially against the barb animals. You can also see that I'm going for fishing since both cities will want to work their seafood soon.
I must be getting spoiled (since most RB events are at or below Monarch level): I was quite surprised to see that Julius had already planted a city near where I wanted to be. Very near. But there really was no better place for me, so I went ahead with my plan and settled the city of Madras at the production sign. Irritatingly, that meant my early builds in that city had to be cultural rather than military. No plan survives contact with the (future) enemy.
Writing is good for many things: better research through libraries, better culture through libraries, better relations through Open Borders, but.... It doens't work when the most militant of your neighbors already hate you by the time you get it! Wow. I guess Aggressive AI makes a difference. Not that these two need it.... At least the closest neighbors--Julius and Cyrus--were more amenable.
With my chariots patrolling my roads, I felt confident that I could found one more city--a money-maker--before peaceful expansion would have to stop.(I've been learning from Sullla too: look! I've already got a workboat produced in Delhi and headed up to feed the new Bangalorian babies!)
A semi-routine flip through the diplomacy screen revealed that things were about to heat up. Both Genghis and Cyrus had already decided to go to war; it was just a matter of time. If I were an optimist, I'd figure they were going to go after each other. Having played a bit of Civ4, I knew I was likely to bear the brunt of their militant madness myself.
Although earlier, I'd made a mistake and put a turn of research into ironworking, instead of the pottery that I wanted, I now wondered if I should have looked for iron sooner. Well, there's no going back. Time to amass the chariots and pray for iron. But of course:
Wait...the only Iron I can see is deep in the heart of Rome?! Okay, that's gotta be a map edit. What kind of sadistic scenario designer would casually suggest that you play without slavery against aggressive AIs and give you no metal, but give Caesar his Praetorians right next to you??!!
Answer: exactly the kind you hope for. :)
So be it!
End of Part 1--Peaceful Expansion. Continue on to Part 2.