THE FOGBUST
2800 BC As my Scout moves to my second city site I see that Justinian has built his second city to the north.
2725 BC Thucydides completes The Greatest Civilizations. If it was listed by actual greatness rather than power I'd obviously be #1.
2575 BC Vienne founded. The mountain gives me vision into Thessalonica which will give me plenty of warning if/when he starts massing troops there (only 1 Archer now). Vienne will work the forest plains hill to build a Monument until the worker gets the Pigs pastured.
2525 BC Animal Husbandry reveals 2 nearby Horses. I might have been able to pull off a Horse Archer rush, but with Justinian founding an early religion I would at least like to wait for him to shrine it for me.
2450 BC Bibs does a 2 pop whip on the second Settler, generating 47
overflow that goes into a second Worker. Also by dropping down to size 4 my Warrior can leave town and maintenance costs are reduced to -1 temporarily.
2375 BC Tolosa founded. It won't be much good for a while but once the borders pop I'll have sealed off the coast and I really don't want Justinian settling anything else in my direction.
Also, my Warrior finds an injured barb who had killed Shaka's Scout. If I can catch him on open ground it's an easy 2xp. He won't attack me if I stay in the forests.
2100 BC Bibs' borders pop. I've also lost tiles N of Vienne. Starting with Mysticism is actually paying off because both cities needed Monuments ASAP.
2075 BC Stonehenge is built somewhere else.
1975 BC Vienne gets a border pop. The plains forest N of town is still 54% Byzantine.
1875 BC I decided on Masonry next because I've got that stone so Great Wall and Pyramids would be good either to build or for failgold and I want Duns.
Then, one of my fogbusting Warriors finds a barb Warrior in flatland. The only way I could get him to attack me is if he had decent odds, like if I was injured or on a hill, so I tell him to go be a hero.
1825 BC Judaism founded on the other continent. Hopefully it went to a different team than the one who got Buddhism and I see some Great Generals popping up over there soon.
1800 BC I know you were all dying of suspense to see if Vienne IV won the battle or not.
1675 BC Masonry researched and the next turn GW is built somewhere else. Oh well.
1625 BC Tolosa gets a border pop and I win the plains forest back from the Byzantines 50% to 49%. Culture from all cities extends beyond their actual borders so all three of my cities are contributing to that cultural border war right now. Also I finish a Spearman as barb Archers show up in the hills.
1575 BC Both barbarian Archers are going for the Byzantines. He's still only got 1 Archer defending Thessalonica and his workers just finished mining his Iron (you can tell by looking at the tile yields). At the very least they should pillage it for me and maybe they'll even take his city. The dreaded Vedic Aryans event is unrelated somewhere else.
1550 BC Gergovia founded. While this will be a great little city I figured it could wait for Bibs' second border pop so I could pre-improve some stuff. Thought about farming the non shared FP but there is plenty of food once the borders pop and in the meantime Gergovia can just use Bibs's cottage if it needs to grow.
1475 BC Toynbee publishes a much better list. We're #1! We're #1!
1450 BC Justinian completes The Oracle, in Thessalonica of all places. He must have researched Priesthood right after Poly because I've had my espionage on him the whole time since then.
Also there is a nice barb city on a hill and an Ethiopian city right next to it. The AI is smart enough not to attack across the river but the barb city should hold out for a while so maybe I can snag it.
1375 BC Stone is connected so Vienne gets to work on my first Dun. Note the +1xp for melee, which gives the charismatic Celts 4xp melee units with a barracks. Another 4 from any combination of Vassalage, Theocracy and a GG means 8xp city raider III out of the box. A tiny little buff for the Celts which brings them to the level of Spanish Siege or Mongolian Mounted.
1325 BC An overview of the empire.
I just finished Writing so I'll switch to 0% research till I finish a library in Bibs. Nobody is anyone's enemy so I opened borders with them all. Zara is willing to be bribed against either of them but I have nothing to bribe him with.
Any comments, ideas or screenshot requests are welcome but I have questions, questions that need answering:
What do you think I should research next?
Which city do you think I should build next?