Ah, it feels good to be back in the saddle again. My last SGs ended over a month ago, and I haven't played a game opening since Epic 36 in August. The opening plays of a Civ 3 game are still a thrill.
Naturally the worker moved to the wheat, and the scout found more wheat. The starting tile looked good enough, and a four-turn settler farm will certainly help us climb out of this ditch.
We start with Pottery. Still planning to head for Republic as fast as possible, I set research to the minimum on Alphabet, and just pray I somehow get some tech (Warrior Code or Bronze Working) to deal with the raging barbarians.
Then this happened:
What was that about better to be lucky...?
With a second city so soon, I can push far up the growth curve while still putting together some sort of barbarian defense. Salamanca immediately switched to a granary and built that before anything else. Niagara put out one scout in addition to the starting one - it doesn't appear we have a whole lot of land to explore - and then started on a barracks. Veteran warriors will make for cheap and reliable barbarian defense even if I don't get some military technology, and I should be able to get some out before the barbarians start arriving.
Of course, this whole plan was aided by plenty of micromanagement as usual.
In this picture, the worker is about to finish his irrigation this turn, so 8 food for growth can be reached in 2 turns by Salamanca. The other wheat tile can be very helpfully shared between the two cities as needed. Without Niagara there, I would've mined the second wheat tile to hit the +5 surplus food threshold for the capital, but since Niagara can take the extra food whenever Salamanca doesn't need it, irrigation is the way to go.
The next hut gives me maps. Some may remember the last time I got maps from a hut this early...
... but the gods of fate are certainly with me this day. I also got maps from another hut. (Did Sirian put all those huts there?)
The granary completes in 3100 BC, about as early as I've ever done so.
By this time I've explored the entire continent, and determined that we're alone. It's obvious that Sirian broke up the continent down there by the cattle; the map generator doesn't make water gaps like that. He probably added that grassland down south of the desert, too. You can see a border visible over the water down there, but I actually missed it while taking and saving the screenshot.
OK, not the entire continent; there was one hut I missed...
Less useful than Niagara, sure, but still quite helpful.
After the granary, Salamanca built a worker, then a settler. No military would come from this city until the middle ages, thanks to Niagara Point Military Academy over there.
