Pre-Turn:
Turn our one specialist to a scientist on a min run to banking, just for the kicks.
IT
Lizabeth wants an alliance vs the mayas and tosses in a RoP - decline.
T1.
Open the funnel to distract the celts from their defensive position.
And then I think I make a mistake here, but we'll see how it goes.
I could've gotten a town from the arabs instead, which would probably have been much better, but then it was either the town under siege from the celts or some island town the portuguese would've made short work of.
The war goes smoothly, we get pillaged 2 roads but they weren't used: the roads leading SE from our capital to the desert celtic towns.
We do get a
MGL and I thought about keeping it for a crusader army but we needed the army sooner than that.
By turn 6, the army is filled and is getting some action.
This is how it looks at that point: lots of troops engaging Iron City.
The defensive goes well, however, even if we lose the pike by the end of the skirmish:
The leader rushes HE.
So we manage to push our luck, and what you see is a bunch of retreating fellows.
We can buy contacts with France (China is cheaper), but no horses since we have no trade routes. We'll have to fight our way through to horses, which we're more than capable of at this point.
We're a bit scattered all over but a troops focus in Curovernum is near at hand and from there we can start really winning cities. Soon, we'll have enough for a second army. I'm for a war until we get significant land grabs. Secondary towns should pull pikes while the capital is on full time maces. We've got this one in the pocket.
With the Holidays almost upon us, a leisurely pace sounds fine to me.
whackage 
I felt I couldn't get involved in university and didn't want to spend unit gold on research just yet.
