Turn 115
My favourite exercise: Looping through all our cities to take off scientists I don't want to keep for GS generation in order to avoid beaker waste as much as possible. We also should have spent two turns a while ago to research sailing and optics because now we can't scale down our research enough to not waste a lot of beakers when we research them. I will do that when we hit the Renaissance.
I look at the field and notice an Egyptian settler to the south. Since we have eternal open borders with Egypt (that's why I never accept open borders unless I really need them to go through my land) he could move somewhere in-between our cities and then Ramesses will probably attack us because we settled close to him. However there are no really good spots available so I hope he'll go somewhere else.
When talking to him Napoleon says "The time has come to put down our arms" but when asked to define on what terms he says that no such deal is possible. Monty has a lot of spears but spears are usually dead meat against knights. Let's hope he doesn't upgrade them to pikes.
More concerning is Ram with his phantomphants. The river is a great asset there, though. I would really like to buy a catapult in Neapolis to destroy Ram but it's a puppet and even though there's a view city option now, it doesn't allow me to do that. Our next city is Edirne so I buy one there and move the one from Cumae to the east. If Napoleon attacks we'll have a turn or two of warning. I also shift a knight to Japan as one of those elephants can take down a city of ours with little trouble.
Turn 116
I notice Monty has Longswordsmen. These are a bit more troubling. Looks like Helsinki will fall in a turn or two. I was able to threaten away Ram from Genoa.
Education is finished so I bulb Banking. I will let Istanbul finish it's Catapult, research Sailing and then go for Secularism.
I think I identified the spot where Ramesses' settler is heading. He's already hostile so he won't react well to me telling him off, though. I really hate the open borders bug.
With no good tactical options available against Siam I go for a bit of hit and run, take out the pike and the archer and retreat from the elephant which has +50% against my knights.
Turn 117
Helsinki is still alive but barely so. France moves on Monaco and a catapult towards Cumae which I plan take out with an old horseman. Ram retreated behing our border river for the time being so I will also move the catapult back. We now have two catapults in Istanbul, one of which will be positioned behind the river. Together, they will wipe out Monty's spearman army. The catapult I bought moves further south to guard against Elephants.
Sailing is finished within the turn. Istanbul starts on the Forbidden Palace. I take Secularism, ETA for the next policy is 13 turns and for the FP 25ish (20 in the golden age, 27 before it). I really want Machinery to upgrade my archers and Physics to upgrade my Trebs. Nevertheless, I have a GA now and want to keep my citizens working tiles instead of spending their days in the library so I pick up Optics to avoid beaker wastage. I'll also buy a Colosseum in Istanbul because we're unhappy.
Napoleon just wants 52 gold per turn and two luxuries for peace. Nice but no, thanks.
Turn 118
Montezuma entered the Renaissance. His riflemen are likely close so let's hope he wastes his spears before he can upgrade them to deadly +100% against mounted unit riflemen.
Tokyo finishes another Colosseum, Kyoto is due in 1 turn. This will provide us with a bit of a happiness buffer for expansion. Since the zone of control mechanic is so utterly weak in this game, this knight can attack the archer and still retreat to safety. This weak ZoC is, by the way, the second reason why formations and such are useless - the first is the -33% bonus for defending on open ground.
Napoleon had the good grace to move his catapult even closer to my horseman to save him a bit of time. I think the reason why the AI so often pulls off crap like this is because they define a target area for their units and then auto-move them there with utter disregard for enemy positions. This is a very good explanation for the archer screw-up of Oda in my first turnset, too. The obvious exploit here is to take cities in likely paths of units, which will totally screw up the AI.
Helsinki is still completely surrounded but wasn't attacked much last turn. I finish Optics and will now research Engineering, then Machinery. Engineering should arrive in two turns. Edirne is re-styled as a production city (I really need at least one city putting out units) and is consequently granted some more food allotment.
I move down a worker to build some strategic roads in the stretch of hills on our border with Siam. When moving on roads, catapults can move a tile, set up and shoot.
Turn 119
Ram offers peace for just... well, half of our cities. At least he's willing to talk, right? Napoleon seems on the move so I might want to bolster Monaco's defenses a bit. Our peace treaty with Alex is over, costing us two luxuries.
Three settlers are finished this turn, which I decide to send to strategically useful positions (one against Monty, two against Ram). Neapolis is just building crap so I'll start to raze it next turn and re-settle better spots.
MLP starts on a Cat, the other two cities will continue churning out settlers.
Turn 120
Helsinki is dead. This does cost us incense and puts us at unhappy, so I might as well raze Neapolis now. The production governor starts starving our cities, which is annoying because I have to manually re-assign the tiles to prevent that. I start researching Machinery, ETA turn 122.
Turn 121
Montezuma offers us a lot of money for peace. Looks like he just wanted Helsinki. I'm thinking but we need the second Maritime ally, so let me free them first. Nappy also asks for peace but still wants a lot of money, which I'm not willing to give him just yet.
Alex might be preparing another attack on us. I'll put a Knight on garrison detail just to be safe.
Diyarbakir is founded to the north-west of Istanbul and immediately starts pounding Montezuma. Aggressive settling is one of my favourite pastimes during war-time.
Turn 122
The golden age is over, the FP is at 22 turns.
I miscalculate how much damage I can do to that Elephant, which leaves one of the cats open to attack. I don't think he got an insta-heal, though, so he might decide it safer to retreat. Since we have enough workers anyways, I offer one to Ram to maybe distract the elephant.
Turn 123
Unfortunately, Ram doesn't take the bait and takes out a catapult. The elephant is dead now but the cost was considerable. I settle Izmir to the south.
Since France is coming, I buy another cat in Istanbul to defend Constantinople. I will upgrade the archer there to a crossbowman in the next turn.
Here's what our economy looks like
The demographics tell me that Ramkhamhaeng is really pushing the envelope. He's going strong, real strong. The second in place is probably Nappy. Our own numbers suffer a bit from the constant warfare on multiple fronts. I see that Monty has Musketmen now and only offers a white peace. I should probably have accepted his offer a few turns earlier.
Machinery is finished, I will go for Metal Casting now, to be finished in two turns.
Turn 124
I kill a Siamese Pikeman and two archers, which nets me a new Great General. This is nice, I need some help against Monty/Nappy in the west. It would be possible to spend him on a golden age to speed the FP by another turn or two but I don't think it's worth it.
Turn 125
Metal Casting is finished. I click on Physics. We have a lot of catas so Trebs will be extra nice. Should be done in three turns. Napoleon and Monty are converging on Brussels but I can't do anything much to help them without spreading our forces dangerously thin. Ramesses founded Akhetaten in the most annoying of places and with no reason to pull him there, either.
Our empire is pretty much the same as when I took over. We can't expand a lot due to the high military demands on our treasury. Due to settling a few more of our own cities, the next policy will only become available in 11 or 12 turns.
Some notes for uberfish:
I wanted to found a city on the spices near Neapolis but Akhetaten makes that impossible. You might want to settle it where Neapolis is instead. The next wave should probably wait until we get some happiness from Freedom.
Brussels is totally surrounded by both Monty and Nappy. They both have Musketmen/Musketeers now so we might want to sign a white peace with Monty but that is up to discussion. I should have taken the deal where he offered me 1500 gold for peace in turn 122 or whenever that was
Peacing out with Monty would free some of our units to the north to move towards Siam or France. We need some serious defense against Napoleon's Musketeers.
Siam looks a bit toothless from our side at the moment, he seems to want Genoa but doesn't actually have enough to take it, especially if you manage to take out that elephant before it can instant heal.
MLP and Ayshe's Vineyard are on GS duty. Seeing our tech rate compared to spawn rate at the moment it looks like we'll only have one for Dynamite, though, and hard-research the rest. I think we want Chemistry before Metallurgy and Rifling because the Janissaries are quite good and we can upgrade our siege army to Cannons while we can only build lancers. I kept a bit of money in the treasury, enough to buy a unit somewhere when we hit Gunpowder, but you might want to add a little to that to buy two.