OK, I took a look at the save. Stepping back from our tactical situation, I am not feeling good about our strategic position.
It seems to me that our master strategy should be to become a science powerhouse. Given the game victory condition, we need to be in a position where we can control the AIs, e.g. help them or smack them down as appropriate. This will require a tech lead.
Somewhere along the way, I suspect Kahn will need to go. He is too much of a nutcase to leave on our border. Besides, from what weve explored, he is sitting on much better land than us. Lots of floodplains for cottages, gold, gems. Im afraid he is going to run away from us (he already has four more cities than us). In fact, Im afraid he already has. He has several cottages underway, might be ahead of us on techs.
So, IMHO, the main strategic question is do we race for science right away, or do a detour and whack Kahn first. It looks to me like we have been indecisive on this topic. As a result, we are not setting ourselves up to do either. If we were trying to get a tech advantage, wed have cottages started, would have beelined to writing, and would have built libraries. If we were looking to whack Kahn early, wed be building axemen everywhere, probably would have skipped Pyramids altogether.
My guess is the window of opportunity to axe or sword rush Kahn is gone. With his advantage in cities, I dont think we can bull him over with numbers, for every axe we build, he will make two. We need to look ahead on the tech path for another place to get an advantage via a superior unit (berserkers or knights) before we go after him. Bad news is at our current tech pace, they are a long way away, he might get there first.
My advice:
- Need to get our science/commerce machine in order. Get cottages going, research alpha after math, followed by Lit.
- A possible alternative
since we are behind on cottaging, and have lots of food, we might head for CoL and use an SE for a while
take advantage of our pyramids. In the long run, Id prefer a CE, but we may need to go SE to get the tech jump we need to take on Kahn.
- If we arent going to rush him now, we should make nice with Kahn asap. Start with open borders (this will allow us to get our exploration going again, also assess his military). If we have any resources we can trade to him, do so (maybe our sole pig, we are OK on health). If he adopts a religion, we try to adopt the same one. Last thing we need is him deciding to rush us.
- I would consider placing the next city 1 N of the iron. Brings in the corn, but more important, allows cottages vs. wasted ocean tiles.
- I think we might get one more city in, maybe two, before Kahn boxes us. The land to the south has so much jungle, I'd be inclined to let Kahn have it and spend his resources chopping jungle. Maybe a city W,W, SW of the iron to claim the clams. I would be nervous about getting too close to Ghandi's cultural borders... he tends to build wonders and culture, probably will push our borders back. As a result, I think the peninsula with the warrior is lost.
Harbourboy, I agree with markh about holding off the next turnset. I think we need to make sure everyone is on board with a strategy for the next 100 turns or so. Feels to me like we are at a crossroads. Whether we decide to focus on war with Kahn or focus on research full speed ahead, we need to focus.