Htadus
A and L's dad
When I thanked DS for giving us builders a chance to go Wonder Happy, I had no idea how kind he was being. Thank you DS. 
I played several test games to see if CS sling is possible and it turned out if I keep 2 golds to work it is possible. So it was either settling in place or 1W since 1E would waste a perfectly good cottage plot. Moving west seems the best since it will add 4 more river tiles.
The Start
Settled 1W on turn 0 and went for Myst and Poly hoping for an early religion. In my tests only once I founded a religion but I did have 3 spiritual civs in them. Well the darn English founded Hinduism without colonizing India. During this time the warrior went NE and followed the cost line south. Gil's warrior found us and our warrior went to snoop in his terrain and find one warrior and a sweet city site. Churchill salivate and make new plan to rush. By this time the worker was done and start building warriors, six in all. I am not as brave as some of my fellow civfanatics. The worker mined the pigs and one gold and roaded toward Sumaria. The second warrior was scouting west at the time and I recall him to join the stack. 3 turn warriors at 2 pop were nice. On or before turn 60 we attack and capture Gil's cap. One of the warriors in the stack was badly injured a turn earlier by a lion and I intended him to capture the worker, but I forgot to separate him from the stack and watch Gil's worker run out of site IBT
. Next turn there was a lion on that tile licking his chops. Oh well.
Settlements and End Game plan
During the testing I realized that my wonder habit goes better with a culture game than Science ( but not the fastest culture game). So I figured I will go for a culture game. So the capital's first non warrior built was a settler since I was not going to build the SH. But after 3 turns I switched to SH and chopped one forest to complete it. Next the English completed a settler each in cap and Gil's place. In the mean time England founded Judaism, learned Agg, AH, Mason, Mono, BW and Priesthood. (Completely forgot Medi for monasteries) With four cities we headed toward CS sling learning writing, CoL (Confusionism) and Math. York was founded west of Sumeria with Pigs, corn and many forest and the fourth claimed copper, pigs, marble and corn east of Sumeria.
After the Oracle -> CS sling, England adopted Burac, Cast Sys and OR. Next it was a race to build the Mids and ToA. So the fifth city was in the deep west claiming a pig and the stone. Marble city built ToA with one chop and York built Mids with 3 chops. It would go on to build the HG later. By this time the English founded two more religions with a GP (Christianity) and a GS (Tao). An unwanted GM is hanging around to activate a GA in the middle of the 10th century and build all the Chapels and Mandiras. (I am so tempted to settle him in the Capital for the free food and gold.)
Current Situation
As 500 AD came around, 2 other cities were established as missionary factories near the capital. Each's build order is a Grainary, CourtH, 2 Monasteries and then Missionaries with temples as needed. Each will work on two different religion first and then two others next. Churchill is about to finish drama and have already completed music. So the free artist is just hanging around not knowing what to do. Science is at about 50% and about to dive down since we are going to found 4 new cities, 2 of them will run about 4-5 artists as soon as possible and one of them can run about 7-9 eventually. Other city will be a cottage and production city near the ivory (odd combo). Once these Cities are at pop 4, I intend to switch to Pacifism. With 5 religions, I intend to build as many Monastaries and special religious buildings in each city while shutting down science and building gold for a while for buying buildings. I plan to make the switch to US in the 10th century during the GA.
Next I am going to head toward Liberalism to get Nationalism. I was planning to go get Democracy from Liberalism but going to try something different.
Help
BTW, I have a problem and need a bit of help. The Capital makes over 40cpt and two others make over 25 cpt and all three are heavily cottaged. Then there is Gil's Place, which gave me 2 GS's and now working on GA's and is about to complete the Parthenon. It too has a few cottages and built a lib, market, CH, a monastery and a temple. I do not know which I want to use as my two other culture city's. The other two are about to complete the needed CH so I can build the FP nearby or in the ToA city and then they are going to build more WW and Monasteries. I need to figure out which of these three I am going to build a theater in since I still need to build many temples. Since I intend to have over 12 cities, I was going to build temples in the three culture cities only if needed. (Temples have the worst hammers per cpt ratio.) How would any of you do it? I am leaning toward going for 4 culture cities at the moment
. Thanks for any comments.
I played several test games to see if CS sling is possible and it turned out if I keep 2 golds to work it is possible. So it was either settling in place or 1W since 1E would waste a perfectly good cottage plot. Moving west seems the best since it will add 4 more river tiles.
The Start
Settled 1W on turn 0 and went for Myst and Poly hoping for an early religion. In my tests only once I founded a religion but I did have 3 spiritual civs in them. Well the darn English founded Hinduism without colonizing India. During this time the warrior went NE and followed the cost line south. Gil's warrior found us and our warrior went to snoop in his terrain and find one warrior and a sweet city site. Churchill salivate and make new plan to rush. By this time the worker was done and start building warriors, six in all. I am not as brave as some of my fellow civfanatics. The worker mined the pigs and one gold and roaded toward Sumaria. The second warrior was scouting west at the time and I recall him to join the stack. 3 turn warriors at 2 pop were nice. On or before turn 60 we attack and capture Gil's cap. One of the warriors in the stack was badly injured a turn earlier by a lion and I intended him to capture the worker, but I forgot to separate him from the stack and watch Gil's worker run out of site IBT
. Next turn there was a lion on that tile licking his chops. Oh well.Settlements and End Game plan
During the testing I realized that my wonder habit goes better with a culture game than Science ( but not the fastest culture game). So I figured I will go for a culture game. So the capital's first non warrior built was a settler since I was not going to build the SH. But after 3 turns I switched to SH and chopped one forest to complete it. Next the English completed a settler each in cap and Gil's place. In the mean time England founded Judaism, learned Agg, AH, Mason, Mono, BW and Priesthood. (Completely forgot Medi for monasteries) With four cities we headed toward CS sling learning writing, CoL (Confusionism) and Math. York was founded west of Sumeria with Pigs, corn and many forest and the fourth claimed copper, pigs, marble and corn east of Sumeria.
After the Oracle -> CS sling, England adopted Burac, Cast Sys and OR. Next it was a race to build the Mids and ToA. So the fifth city was in the deep west claiming a pig and the stone. Marble city built ToA with one chop and York built Mids with 3 chops. It would go on to build the HG later. By this time the English founded two more religions with a GP (Christianity) and a GS (Tao). An unwanted GM is hanging around to activate a GA in the middle of the 10th century and build all the Chapels and Mandiras. (I am so tempted to settle him in the Capital for the free food and gold.)
Current Situation
As 500 AD came around, 2 other cities were established as missionary factories near the capital. Each's build order is a Grainary, CourtH, 2 Monasteries and then Missionaries with temples as needed. Each will work on two different religion first and then two others next. Churchill is about to finish drama and have already completed music. So the free artist is just hanging around not knowing what to do. Science is at about 50% and about to dive down since we are going to found 4 new cities, 2 of them will run about 4-5 artists as soon as possible and one of them can run about 7-9 eventually. Other city will be a cottage and production city near the ivory (odd combo). Once these Cities are at pop 4, I intend to switch to Pacifism. With 5 religions, I intend to build as many Monastaries and special religious buildings in each city while shutting down science and building gold for a while for buying buildings. I plan to make the switch to US in the 10th century during the GA.
Next I am going to head toward Liberalism to get Nationalism. I was planning to go get Democracy from Liberalism but going to try something different.
Help
BTW, I have a problem and need a bit of help. The Capital makes over 40cpt and two others make over 25 cpt and all three are heavily cottaged. Then there is Gil's Place, which gave me 2 GS's and now working on GA's and is about to complete the Parthenon. It too has a few cottages and built a lib, market, CH, a monastery and a temple. I do not know which I want to use as my two other culture city's. The other two are about to complete the needed CH so I can build the FP nearby or in the ToA city and then they are going to build more WW and Monasteries. I need to figure out which of these three I am going to build a theater in since I still need to build many temples. Since I intend to have over 12 cities, I was going to build temples in the three culture cities only if needed. (Temples have the worst hammers per cpt ratio.) How would any of you do it? I am leaning toward going for 4 culture cities at the moment
. Thanks for any comments.
I've been reading up on slingshots, lightbulbs, and just better tech performance in general, and I know I've got a lot to learn, but I'd still allowed myself to feel a bit smug about my tech path in this game -- until I saw your post. 
My astronomy won't arrive until a fair few years after 500 AD. Can I coax, flatter, cajole, or maybe bribe you into sharing your strategic wisdom on the subject? 
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