Round 2: 2875 BC to 1075 BC (73 Turns)
This round was quite long and focused mainly on the war against Wang Kon.
At the start of the round, I figured out that Wang Kon already has horses hooked up.
You can use this simple technique to find out how militarily advanced your foes are, especially early on in the game. I was actually hoping that he would have some copper resource so he would produce more axemen, which my Immortals slaughter. But then again he could build spears...I guess horses weren't so bad anyway.
Anyway, for this round, I began researching The Wheel. This was an easy choice to make -- I didn't need Archery nor Iron Working so soon due to the nearby horses, and Mysticism wasn't needed at the moment since I did not plan on founding any more cities -- and I didn't -- this round. My horse city would not need a monument because horses would be in its first ring, but it would need roads to connect them. Not only that, but The Wheel enables the Immortal unit.
My capital, Persepolis, finished up its worker and built a warrior while timing it so the capital would grow to size 4 and complete its warrior at the same time. My two workers didn't have much to do, so I sent one to chop the spices resource and the other to chop the forest over the second hill.
As you can see in the following screenshot, my worker had 1 turn left to chop that hill, while the capital wasn't quite at size 4 yet. This would result in a warrior being made but the capital still at size 3, which I didn't want. The solution was to select "mine the hill" as the worker action. This is like prechopping, only I was pre-
mining, which did not chop the forest yet. Once the capital was one turn away from size 1, I canceled the mine order and decided to chop, since the capital would already be at size 4 the next turn and overflow from the warrior would go into a settler.
Soon, I finished researching The Wheel.
Up next -- Pottery! Time to take advantage of the Financial trait.
Meanwhile, other civs were not being slouches. One civ built Stonehenge in 2550 BC. After reading Obsolete's wonderspam games, this seems like a really early date for Stonehenge, and I'm guessing an industrious civ built it. It wasn't built by Wang or Elizabeth. Hopefully no one like Huayna Capac or Louis XIV is on the other continent, which would really be troublesome. Those two are probably the best AI industrious civs.
My first settler was soon built with the aid of forest chops and was sent to the horse site. Good thing I had already planted down roads and was even roading the horse at this point. The faster the horses are hooked up, the better.
I also switched to Slavery this turn, but the second city (Pasargade) wasn't founded until the next turn, which meant its builds weren't affected by the turn of anarchy. The build order in that city would be a Barracks followed by Immortal after Immortal. A monument was built late this round, though the borders of the city had yet to expand by turn 117.
Potter was soon researched, and I went on to Writing. I was considering BurN's suggestion of researching Iron Working quicker, but I figured that Writing needed to come first so I could scout out Wang's cities. No point attacking if he has 8 protective archers in each city. That HAS happened to me once with Charlemagne in another Immortal game. Painful, indeed.
And I was even playing as Rome!
Horses were finally connected in 2300 BC, and after both cities finished their Barracks builds, they went on to pump out Immortals nonstop throughout the rest of the round. I think I managed to produce nearly 20 immortals, though I didn't end up with that many at the end of the round because of casualties in war.
Writing was researched, and I then selected Mysticism as my next technology, followed by Iron Working.
My scout wasn't slacking off either. He scouted out all of Wang's territory, which now constituted a total of 3 cities.
Nice! A non-hill capital with only two archers in it. 8 Immortals should defintely be enough, and it's unlikely Wang can grow this city much due to the AI's weakness in growing capitals that are infested with forests.
Speaking of forests, I chopped the vast majority of forests around both cities in order to get those Immortals out sooner. I also used the whip:
I am wary about whipping the capital, but nonetheless, I whipped the capital 2 or 3 times this round.
Sometime later in the round, when I was still building up my army, Stonehenge was built in 1975 BC on the other continent. Also, Judaism was founded on the other continent as well, their first religion. I know this since Elizabeth was researching Monotheism after Judaism was founded (I could see her research because I put all espionage points on her -- no point investing any points into Wang).
And lest I forget -- barbarians were starting to be troublesome this round. Thankfully, immortals are THE BEST barbarian counters, apart from War Chariots. The immortals, with their two movement points, completely eliminated the barbarian threat with ease. I even sent a few immortals out for free experience before the war.
While I was building up immortals, Wang quickly expanded to five cities. Troublesome, yes, but the poor fool expanded to the tundra and snow! Those cities will do him little good.
Elizabeth, by the way, only had two cities even when I was ready to declare on Wang. She must have some expansionistphobia or whatever you'd like to call it.
Or maybe she didn't have a fear for expanding. In 1600 BC, the Oracle was built -- by none other than Elizabeth! And on this same date, Christianity was founded! Guess who?
What's more, as you can see in the next screenshot, Elizabeth was finishing up Code of Laws and founded Confucianism. There's currently only one other religion on the other continent, and I'm worried that Elizabeth will be hogging them all.
Soon, I finished researching Iron Working.
I do have several sources of Iron close to me, although none in my cultural borders. I promptly set a worker to mine the much-needed gems.
I decided to research Mathematics next, but after a few turns invested in it, I changed my mind and decided to go with Polytheism instead. I really need to go up the Priesthood -> Code of Laws path. Don't worry, though, I will invest a turn in Mathematics every ten turns so beakers don't decay.
On that same date I researched Iron Working (1400 BC), it was time.
[To be continued in next post]
on that one. City 3 is very very bad for an early city. Would go for city 2. Farm the corn and whip a cultural building. 
(well at least in terms of number of cities 
) But I'm a bit worried about my economy. Elizabeth apparently has Theology, Code of Laws, and is about to learn Monarchy already while I'm still researching Polytheism. I'm aiming for a CoL beeline then going back to Mathematics. From then on, I'm not really sure.
