Turn0 (1450AD)
Trying to specialize cities and create some more production cities; hope this matches what everyone else had in mind:
- Yaroslav'l for hammers / military production
- Rostov for hammers / military production (Heroic Epic)
- St. Petersburg for gold (holy city)
- Novgorod for science by specialists
- Moscow as monster everything-producing city
Diplomacy
- Rome/Egypt are a a Jewish alliance.
- Incas/Arabs are friends, which could be tricky because Incas are the most powerful yet Saladin will be the next to be conquered.
- Traded some resources to Mao. We don't really need happiness resources in return, so I asked for gpt instead (6).
- I noticed that Louis had a pile of gold so I sold him Music to get it. This should build up some cash for upgrades / deficit research spending. In retrospect, maybe I should have traded him a map for the cash instead.
Turn1 (1460AD)
- Got Paper, next research is Education for the path to Liberalism and Economics. 11 turns at our existing research rate. Slight deficit of -14 gpt. Didn't trade for maps yet because the AIs don't have much to offer in return, and we don't need that knowledge immediately.
Turn2 (1470AD)
- Louis came looking for open borders, declined
- Novgorod popped a Great Artist, probably its last before Moscow pulls ahead for good. We can get ~1000 beakers toward Divine Right, create a Great work, or create a super specialist (3 beakers from Rep, 3 commerce, 12 culture). We hold onto him to create a Great Work during future wars.
- Renegotiated deals with Huayna: existing deal was our ivory for his deer, and renegotiated ivory for deer+10 gpt! Clearly some resources are valued higher than others.
Turn3 (1480AD)
- Declined open borders with Julius Caesar because no value to us (in retrospect was a mistake, would have improved relations).
- Started building our first knight in Yaroslav'l
Turn 4 (1490AD)
- Declined Mao's offer of his wine for our ivory. We don't need happiness, and our relations with him already are at +4 for good trading.
- Raised spending to 60% science, -15/turn deficit, 233 gold left
- Huayna Capac and Mao both have knights
Turn 5 (1500AD)
Turn 6 (1505AD)
- We are alone with Saladin on this continent. If we can conquer the continent, we'll be unassailable until everyone else gets Astronomy
- Zhang Heng, the Great Engineer, is born in Moscow. He can research Engineering, but instead I chose to switch Moscow to producing Notre Dame (550 hammers), hurried it with Zhang Heng, and then plan to switch back to Angkor Wat (250 hammers left to go). This will give us the happiness bonus, which should be useful for our high-population strategy, and also more GP production in Moscow. It seemed a waste to spend the Engineer on only 250 hammers to finish Angkor Wat ...
Turn 7 (1510AD)
- Courthouses finish in Yakutsk, Smolensk. City maintenance has dropped from 47 to 39 and our 60% research now nets us 243 beakers per turn.
- Somehow we just got a giant pile of cash. Courthouses should just decrease burn rate, not award us gold. Nuts - just realized why: China beat us to Angkor Wat (we still had six turns to go). Raised research rate to 80% with the cash from Angkor Wat.
- Louis lacks Code of Laws - traded it to him for cash and his map, which showed us the Eastern Continent he shares with Rome and Egypt. Our map is now good enough that Mao will give us his world map + 40 gold for it. This gives us the details of the big Southern Continent (China and Inca). Traded map to Saladin to take his 140 gold. Is the AI smart enough to use the information on the world map in war?

- Upgraded several Axemen to Macemen
Turn 8 (1515 AD)
- We are neck-and-neck with the Incas for score lead. In terms of power, we are not doing very well, and Saladin's definitely ahead of us. I think the AIs are starting to realize this because Caesar demanded a world map, and Louis demanded 170 gold. I gave Caesar the map because it could be useful to have him as Cautious instead of Annoyed. I declined Louis' request because gold is too valuable to give up.
- Barbarian horse archer from the northern tundra came down and killed a worker near Orenberg. Attacked with a maceman (90% odds) and died! Finished off the horse archer with a swordsman.
- Turned down research, accumulating gold in anticipation of upcoming war. Since we now have a pretty good world map, started pulling back caravels for coast guard / pillaging duty on our own continent
Turn 9 (1520 AD)
Turn 10 (1525 AD)
- Saladin has two macemen
- HC completes the Hagia Sophia
Closing notes
- Some cities still don't have Confucianism as I forgot to build missionaries.
- Is Pacifism really advantageous? Seems like the +100%GP production only benefits one or two cities.
- We still have Open Borders with Egypt but this isn't doing much for us and I think we should abandon it as soon as HC or someone else asks. Egypt is really weak (thanks to some early wars with Rome) and we can afford to tick her off. In fact, Hatty would probably make a good next target after Saladin.
- We're second last in power. Only Saladin can attack us, but it does mean that the other AIs are getting all up in our faces:

- Looking forward to Astronomy to unlock some of the trading potential.