The big decision for the round was deciding if I should purse the Oracle, the Great Lighthouse, or neither. After reviewing the literature, in this case previous games, I decided that on Immortal the Oracle usually went somewhere between turns 60 and 70 while the Great Lighthouse went somewhere between turns 90 and 100. Obviously there are exceptions to both, but in general I think those are probably about the 95% bounds. That being said I decided I could not complete the Oracle in time, and would instead try to build the Great Lighthouse. I chose a tech path to reflect that decision.
Fishing came first to let my third city, the red city, build a workboat. Then sailing to build a lighthouse and then Masonry for the great version.
I two-pop whipped the settler in the capital and sent him down to the red city. You can also see a worker is already getting ready to chop that forest so the red city can get a monument up as soon as possible. I remembered the Bismarck game when I didn't make the city useful quickly enough and as a result missed TGL by just a few turns, I didn't want it to happen again.
The red city was settled and renamed Vienna. It started on a monument right away.
Next up was a workboat. Notice that the workboat takes ten turns to finish and the borders take ten turns to pop. I'll remedy this problem later.
Luckily I made the right decision about which wonder to pursue.
The Oracle was finished on turn 59. I think this is early even for Immortal. But luckily I didn't try to build it because I would not have been close and probably would have put myself out of running for the Great Lighthouse. You can also see my axe about to tell that barb archer what's what.
That single axe continued to control the wilderness area. I made sure that he was the one doing all the barb defense and attacking so that hopefully I can get a 10 XP unit. This is very useful as it unlocks the Heroic Epic. In isolation it's especially useful to get a level four unit because otherwise, if you decide to war, you have to prepare for your first war with the HE, which is a pain.
Our valiant defender also discovered this.
An excellent little site to set up shop. It's got two seafood, a hill, and four grassland tiles. Not superb, but certainly not abysmal, like most of my other city sites.
Back in Vienna I finished the grassland mine just in time.
This way the workboat could be finished the turn before the borders pop. It can move over to the fish so that then when the borders do pop I can build a fishing net right away.
With the Great Lighthouse techs in I went for a very useful technology.
Libraries and scientists are huge always. But when isolated and therefore unable to trade, self-teching improvements are even more important. It might have been a mistake leaving it this late, but TGL is a worthy pursuit.
Just to keep you in the loop on the other cities. Aachen was working on the Pyramids. I was not going for them intently and was saving all my trees for other things, but failure gold is nice.
Prague had reached full size and was working cottages furiously. Unfortunately I have no happy. It's a real shame since that city has some excellent other tiles to work, but I just don't have the good will from the citizens.
Vienna whipped in a second workboat.
I waited until I could whip and then grow the same turn.
This way I could whip again!
(Don't mind the sea tile being worked. That was a misclick right before the screenshot.) So Vienna would be starting TGL on turn 77. It was going to be close.
Now I probably should have stopped the round here and worked out specific micro for Vienna and gotten your advice on what to do next. But sometimes I get a little into my civ. So I picked the next tech myself and picked a questionable one.
Aesthetics, Polytheism, and Literature. Remember I have marble. These techs will let me go for the Parthenon for Philosophical-lite and the Great Library. Two wonders I like very much in isolation, especially when I have marble,
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I love failure gold.
It seems to becoming something I do in every ALC game and I do it on purpose which I didn't used to do. But gold is so nice. Paris had nothing else to build (I put a library in right away when Writing finished) so I had it build a wonder -> wealth. And the 84 gold I got gave me another 9 turns at full research which is enough for an entire tech! Well worth it. If I had had stone it would have been even better, but no matter.
Vienna grew to size 4.
I spent one turn working on a granary and then two-pop whipped it overflowing into the Great Lighthouse. I then ran into happiness problems and at size 3 I worked the fish and the two hills. Perhaps I should have been more aggressive. Or not done two one-pop whips...
I'd get 150 gold for it. Which isn't bad, but it's not what I wanted. So I'm disappointed, but I'll get over it. I think a good exercise for us all would be to take over from the last save and see if you can build TGL in time. If you'd like to try I encourage you to do so and post your results, and the micro you used, here. I'm sure we'd all learn something. I would at any rate.
Here ends the round. Let's take a tour of the empire.
Aachen can't really make up it's mind about what it's trying to do. It's working specialists and kind of building wonders. You'll notice I'm one turn from Literature and have four forests pre-chopped. So the next turn I'll go all out for the Great Library and get my two free citizens. I'll be shocked if I lose it to be honest. Then I'll also try to finish the Parthenon. It's looking like Aachen is going to be my GP farm for a while and might also get the National Epic. I'm undecided at this point.
Prague's cottages are maturing nicely. It's going to be an excellent commerce center and after this worker finishes I think I will move the palace here. The scientist will also build an academy here. And when I get Civil Service and Oxford this city will be one of the best foodless cities I've ever had.
The citizens of Vienna are in disgrace, but they're seeing therapists and should be better soon. The city will be my Moai site and provide even more hammers to a hammer rich empire. The fish will also allow the city to run two scientists and not starve.
The newest city, Nuremburg, was just settled and is going to get some farms and some mines. It also has no food, but it should be fairly decent once it gets some infrastructure in place.
And finally the tech picture.
I've got a lot of options at this point. Music (Golden Age Great Artist), Maths -> Currency -> Code of Laws -> Civil Service, Optics beeline, Theocracy beeline for the AP (AP cheese win anybody?).
My current idea is to go for Music right away and get the Golden Age and build the Sistine Chapel (which will slow down the AI culture wins and give me a chance in this game, remember I have marble) and then beeline Compass hopefully in time to trade around Music and Optics and fill in the middle of the tech tree. This is nearly the opposite of what I usually do, and I think what everyone usually does, but it might be best here.
Have any questions, advice, criticisms, songs of praise? Leave them here.
That's an awful start for food. Civil Service may be a useful tech to have early, I think.
No. He just selected them all to light up the turns needed to research each one. building The Pyramids since you say you target to expand in the whole continent as soon as possible (and by the way, if your Research Tech Tree is confirmed, with Monarchy as first target, I also guess that in your game style an early Representation it is not one of the priorities).
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. I was just showing what everything costs.
/T 1
. You still not late for Music btw, since Mathematics is a common requisite of both the Technologies.
: no. The built 
Victory it is the target. If it is, an Early Great Artist is a handy boost (as well as an earlier Sistine Chapel, of course), otherwise I'll pick up the Code of Laws path.
