My thoughts....
It would be (minorly) more efficient to fire two scientists in london (to grow immediately), then hire three scientists (so that you are stagnant at size 9), rather than growing slowly.
You have a prime city site that you are ignoring to the SE of Hastings (I think), next: a plains hill with gold and iron in the first ring, and immediately able to grow thanks to sharing the wheat with Hastings. For this reason, I think that chopping out another settler in Hastings is a better investment than a library in a city pulling 2 beakers per turn.
If you are going after Louis (and notice that he holds all of your current trade routes hostage), (1) you had better get him scouted out while you can, and (2) you had better think about what unit is going to be effective against him. He's hoarding literature, which probably means he intends to beat you to the Great Library. I'm sympathetic with the notion of taking that from him, I just don't see what units you are going to use to do it. Longbows? Axemen?
Note that generally, you gear up for war with production, not with specialists. Using that food power in hastings to whip catapults might be more effective than caste system.
You've got stone, you are philosophical, you one the race to Taoism, but you aren't trying to build the Angkor Wat to generate super priests? What on earth are you planning to do with those rocks? Load them into the catapults?
In addition to securing the gold, you could make a trade for calendar to plantation the incense for another cheap happy.
The lack of scouting is awful, especially with chariots idling in your lands. Use those wheels, man.
