My first PBEM, a standard map diety/pangea everything else random. I am Persia and anarres is china. I should have thought more about the advantage of a three move Knight in a PBEM game, but I’ll make due. Playing one turn at a time does take some getting used to.
My start position looks OK, and will be really nice later in the game. I’ve got a forest game over a grassland and my first move will be to clear that forest and irrigate the grassland. To make best use of the chop I am going to build one warrior for exploration and then build a granary (through a barracks prebuild). This means I need to do a max research run on Pottery. Here is an initial screen shot a few turns in.
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On the 15th turn of the game a barbarian appeared from the east. Crap. My single warrior had been exploring west, then south and was making his way back east (I like to plot out my first few cities as a top priority). He was then going to head directly south to try to make some contacts (based on the mini map South and West are my directions for contact), but I had to send him back home. You will note that I didn’t pop a hut I found, this is typical for me if not expansionist – too big a risk of barbs.
My warrior wouldn’t have made it in time to stop pillaging but the barb didn’t make a beeline to Persepolis so I was spared that setback. I had to slow my production a bit to get my ‘racks to finish the same turn as I discovered pottery, I then went to the advisors screen and swapped to a granary. I decided on a min run to IW just to save up cash for trades, thinking that getting any second tier tech in 40 turns would be fine – I have second guessed this decision a number of times.
The barbarian actually was scared off by my one warrior and went back into the fog. But every time I tried to go exploring a bit he would reappear so I just resigned myself to having an MP and no early contact. I finished my granary and am now building a warrior to hold back that barb who is still staying on my borders. I must have a pretty close neighbor to my SE to explain the barb so I am sending my warrior that way to make contact. I haven’t yet decided if I am going to build another warrior or a settler next. I need to look at what the best size cycle for me is (I assume it will be 7-5) and how to set that up. Here is the current situation.
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