OK the responses have slowed down, so I'll just take my own advice
People can tell me what they would have done differently after the fact. I played a huge round until 1 AD, and the situation is looking good. I hope to keep the writeup detailed but we'll see.
The round starts by trying to make some trades, but Mansa already was maybe one turn away from math, so I waited until the next turn so I could trade him and Willem Alpha for what I wanted, which was
Willem: alpha for meditation and sailing. (I thought that since I was bottom of score, this would not count for WFYABTA, but it appears both I and the trade partner need to be in bottom half)
Mansa: Alpha for IW (pop iron in capital BFC, pop boner, profit)
Good news: we pop a scientist. Before academy:
After
53-73! What a boner.
On turn 80, Hinduism spread to our lands, woo! It has not propagated around much, which I will try to remedy eventually, but I wanted the bonus relations mostly.
Then I notice Willem has marble for trade! Wonder whore time! I do this
I won't need the horse for a while, maybe until I send cavalry to deal with Qin's huge jowls. Also, I have a second horse resource east of Hari. Speaking of Hari, it keep chugging on the mids. Then this happens
I refuse because:
1)Mansa is easy to please
2)Want to keep that monopoly for a while
3)Don't want to give Mansa even more tech speed
I decide based on my CS is great logic to go for that even before I go for Calendar. My reasoning:
1)I only want to grow the cap really, everything else is making workers and settlers. So I build that temple in the cap after all.
2)Qin is researching Monarchy and I'd like to time the HR and BUR switch at one time.
I microed a little to make sure the growth and the temple came in at the same time
On turn 86, both Willem and Mansa get calendar, and so are willing to trade it. I tech a turn into it, and get it for CoL from Willem. This I think is really lucky, I find it hard to get calendar from the Imm AI this early. (Something like 775BC)
On 700 BC, THE TURN I CAN COMPLETE THE MIDS, they are built in a distant land. Qin is actually not so distant.
Don't worry I will get them some day. And man look at all that gold!
I had sunk a hammer or two into the ToA earlier, and it was still out there, so I went back to it. (At this point I had marble too). Sure enough:
Civ is all about the Benjamins, folks.
550 BC I venture into the jungles, which are now largely occupied.
Next, in 500BC (turn 95) disaster!
Man that feels early! I thought galleys show up typically 100BC to 1AD. In the IU 52 one showed up for me at 400BC so I gotta reset my clock. This would have been a good reason to go MC with oracle. Oh wells. Angkor Thom soon becomes a shadow of its former self due to whipping. I also had to whip a couple Galleys up north in my jungle city for insurance for those fish, too.
During these years there were really not many decisions to be made. One possible debate could have been over this:
My logic was
1) Baray was in to help this city with food, since it needs it.
2) Have stone, more fail gold ftw!
Soon after this, CS comes in. 450BC which is quite early for me. I know people who pull off the oracle slingshot get it much earlier but hey, what can you do. My usual benchmarks for IMM are CS and 120ish bpt (at 100%) if possible. This game was much faster on both counts. (woo gold).
I make these switches as planned:
My bpt shot up 30ish. Not to mention the hammers. Woo, cs ftw.
Next up, should I try to beat this settler, and get another iron resource? That settler settles in place, and leaves the iron open. I get the settler there, wait a few turns to get workers in place and roads etc. And then... decide against settling there. Many reasons, but maybe the best is that Willem is creative, and I don't want too many borders with him.
375 BC: looks like it was ok to delay currency for CS. Thanks, Mansa!
After that's in I start using the patented panhandler economy. I beg 40 gold from Qin when he walks by the subway station. Begging is way more effective in civ than irl.
Next up, I meet this guy:
He is uber backwards. No writing at 325BC!! So I gift it to him and then beg 10 gold. He accepts, so I basically traded writing for 10 gold and 10 turns of peace.
I seem not to have taken a pic, but I actually get the hanging gardens around this time. There was a little screw-up here because the settler wandering around up north did not get back down to the horse+fish site east in time to get a pop point. I didn't think I wanted to delay THG any. In retrospect, maybe the gold would have been better, but otoh, I needed to help Ankor Thom get back on its feet after the barbs came and chopped up my fishing nets.
Anyway right as that comes in, Willem cancels my marble deal. I was worried he would not give marble back to me (MoM is still building in Hari! I gave up and built a worker or two for a while) but then I can get this deal
How Lucky. I just finished my stone wonders, and now that we have marble for at least 10 turns, why not try for TGLib as well? I was really not planning on going this way, but it was worth a shot. Aes took 3 turns and Lit took 2. Unfortunately Mansa had aes, but I couldn't get a good deal on it (for CS? no thanks) so I had to self research both. I get monopoly on lit, and check how long it would take to build TGLib:
What. A. Capital. I don't mess around this time (damn mids!) and put every hammer I can into it. With two chops it finishes in in 150 BC (4 turns!) On the last turn I do this
Which was better than a pop whip imo. I know, I know, more tiles should have been improved but the workers had an awful lot of chopping to do elsewhere with all the wonder getting/failing.
Meanwhile, I do this; it was perhaps a mistake:
I had a turn into drama, too! I was somewhat worried about Mansa shooting off to space techs immediately, but I was already number 1 in GNP by quite a lot, so I figured he could keep up and help me tech even faster. Also, it got me music one turn earlier. I was pretty confident I would get the GA, and I did--Mansa went construction (iirc) and I think would have been slower on music anyway.
The GA will be for a GA>switch to caste+philo>starve citizens for the great people>maybe switch out of one or both.
Gilgamesh makes a demand for MC, which I give. I want to get him to bribable range and I still have a lot of techs on him. He is in WHEOOHRN anyway (right after the demand!) so that is probably a good thing. On another note, Willem was in WHEOOHRN for about 1k years during this round but then just went out of it w/ no war.
So, finally we get to 1AD with this tech situation:
And this diplo situation:
(my "glance" table doesn't have the actual numbers, only the faces. how do you get it to show +5, -2 etc?)
And these GP:
And this wonder situation:
I aim at failing the parthenon, since I am out of cash. But you never know, I might get it suuuper late.
Finally, this land situation:
There's a settler on the way to the Wine/Deer. Was a bit slow getting that city down. At least I will have 7 decent cities, and probably not too much trouble getting oxford up. I should remember to leave some trees near the more marginal cities, but most of them are not light on production. I have one cottage in my empire
which seems to happen a lot to me these days.
Plans for future
1) double bulb edu while teching philo>bulb lib?? (need compass to do this, and NOT machinery)
2) watch mansa closely while waiting on lib until I can get military tradition
or
2') get nationalism right away, so I can get the taj (1.5 time GAs!) and hope Willem keeps shipping me the marble?
Then probably march on Qin... wait for cavs or no?
thoughts anyone?
phew long post
The effect of Metal Casting is strengthened by the gold you have, anyway. While you do that, be sure to get a settler out to the corn and hills spot to block Qin, unless there's some superb city spot up north that I'm missing. Finally, be sure to road the tile NW of the gold to connect you and Qin together, unless you already have a trade route that I'm missing.
/ turn for a settler at size 4. In 5 turns, you can get to 60 hammers. Or rather just below if you switch Corn -> grass forest for a turn so you can get nice whip overflow (2nd library ? Then resume Chariot ?).
) for two reasons
