Lets get this ball rolling again!
Preturn
I take a look at the cities to refresh myself with the game again.
Ulundi is looking good. It's gonna need a couple more cottages soon though.
Umung has got a farm cooking which is good as the extra food is needed here.
Plus that spot will irrigate the corn later.
Nobamba is getting a mine...I think I will send the second worker here back to Ulundi to make those cottages.
Bula needs to grow to size 4 before comfortably working the goldmine.
That shouldn't take too long.
Kwa is 6 turns away from blowing up with its fishies!
Tech I will switch to Construction...it will let us build cats sooner.
Plus we have lousy trade routes as it is...getting more right now doesn't help.
My goal for the set is to finish the swordsman quest, raze the barb city of Bactrian (we don't need the maintenance right now...plus I think 1S is a slightly better location anyways) and to found the ironfish city.
I have to turn down science to 30%...construction in 24 turns.
(1) 395 BC
I shuffle some workers around and finish building the workboat at Kwa.
(2) 380 BC
Kwa granary>ik
Christianity spreads in Nobamba.
(3)365 BC
Umgu sword>sword
Plus they get a border pop.
I think we should have enough to take down Bactrian so the forces are on their way.
(4) 350 BC
Asoka completes the Oracle.
Ulundi sword>settler for ironfish.
21 freakin turns though.
I notice that Wang has Construction now.
That means he can field Hwachas.
BOO!!!
(5) 335 BC
Not bad...third most powerful nation.
I can live with that.
Wang is sixth...he probably can't live much longer with that!
(6) 320 BC
Kwa pops its borders so the fishing boat finally hooks it up.
Umung sword>sword
(7) 305 BC
Great Scientist due in 7 turns.
I'm not sure what the best play for him is right now.
Lets wait until we see what he can bulb for us before thinking too hard about it.
Bulwalyo finally grows into its gold mine.
I can safely bump up research to 40% and construction now due in 12 turns!
I whip the library in Nobabma so we can hopefully work another scientist spec here.
Plus we can start in on the ikhanda here.
(8) 290 BC
Nothing much to say...
(9) 275 BC
Same story, different day...
(10) 260 BC
I whip out the Ik at Nobamba...with 5

in maintenance here this should help alot!
(11) 245 BC
Nobamba puts its overflow from the Ik into a worker (5 turns)
Sury gets a great scientist.
(12) 230 BC
Willem gets declared upon my Sury.
Willem wants help from the civ furthest away from his enemy.
Maybe if you didn't spam nothing but missionaries you might have an army to defend yourself.
Sury is most likely to be our competition in this game methinks.
If he can acquire Willems Christian shrine he will become a powerhouse!
Umung builds sword #7 and gets started on sword #8!
My troops are waiting outside of Bactrian to wipe it out.
However, I think I will wait until we have completed the sword quest before attacking.
This way I don't lose any swords prolonging our quest.
Secondly, the quest will provide us with CRI. I would be wasting promos until that happens.
Only three more turns.
(13) 215 BC
As I predicted...Willem has no army to defend himself.
Utrecht falls to the Khmer empire...
Surys culture allowed him to move right next to the city upon declaring.
Asoka wants us to cancel deals with Mao...no deal!
You are number two on our hit list buddy!
(14) 200 BC
Mao joins the war against Sury.
Bulwalyo library>worker
Okay so we get our great scientist...here is my plan.
It probably isn't the most optimal play but I did put good thought into it so if it is a bad play don't be too mad.
Construction is due in probably 4 turns (actually 5 but just barely)
I say we sit on the GP until we finish Construction.
Then we trade it to someone for Alphabet. 3 civs currently don't know it and everyone else has Alpha to trade.
We also should try and backfill as much as possible.
This will make the scientist bulb something else.
According to a list I found the scientist should buld Aesethetics now.
I say that we do that.
No one currently knows about Aesthetics (monopolies are always good) so we have a trade piece if we need it.
That would also let us tech Literature next (assuming we can backfill Poly) and get Ulundi started on the Great Library. It would only take 12 turns at current rates. Not to mention Lit opens up the Heroic Epic that we want to build in Umung. We can't unlock it yet but we should be pretty close!
If I have wasted 4 turns of extra research then so be it...I hope that won't be the case!
I whip out the Ikhanda in Kwa...we don't want to whip this city below size two.
We always want to work the fish and gems tiles here. Thats why I waited until it was 1 turn shy of size 4.
(15) 185 BC
Umung sword #8>impi for stack protection
Wang is running around a couple of chariots.
Kwa ik>library
Jules gets a great scientist.
We complete the swordman quest and taking Bactrian will be cake!
I promote one of our swords to CRII and he has 98% odds to win!
We win handily...and I notice the first new aspect of version 3.19
You can now inspect a city before choosing to keep or raze it!
Excellent feature! Now you should never accidentaly raze a city with 4 GGs or wonders ever again!
We only get 67 gold from the pillage of the city but thats enough to bump science to speed up Construction by a turn. I do so.
The three victories by our swordsmen will allow them to become CR III!
I think it behooves us to take three more swords and train them on the barb city to our west, Harappan. It is on a hill so it might not be quite as easy but we should still have good odds in our favor. Worth at least checking it out!
65.4% odds with a CR II sword...not great but not too bad either.
What does the group think?
(16) 170 BC
Nobamba worker>worker
I think we should switch to cats when construction comes in. Whip out the cats and put the overflows into the worker.
(17) 155 BC
A turn of silly requests...
No we will open the borders in our own special way very soon Wang!
No we do not cave to the demands of the weakest civ on the planet!
(18) 140 BC
Construction arrives...I queue up Currency but I think if my plan works out like I think it should then we can go for Lit.
Umung impi>impi
Well lets see who we can trade Construction with.
Sury will give us Alpha and Archery for Construction and Mysticism.
Sounds good to me.
Alright now I can backfill Sailing, Meditation and Poly with Asoka.
But first I want to bulb Aesthetics with our GS.
Getting sailing will make him bulb Compass and we don't want that!
I bulb Aesthetics.
Lets now go to Asoka and get us some backfill techs...
That is a great stopping point!
Wrapup
I think this is going to work out perfectly.
Ulundi will finish its settler in 7 turns.
Lit will be done in 8 turns...we can probably micro it to finish in 7 turns I bet.
Then it can start in on the Great Library.
We probably will want to fire the two scientist temporarily to speed up the process.
We have 3 good forests that are ready to chop too.
Plus we have no competition for it so we should win the GL race with no worries.
I think we should try and raze Harappan and train a few more of our swords.
5 or 6 CR III swords and a good number of cats should plow through even protective archers no problem!
I have a worker getting everything roaded up for Ironfish.
Roster
Grandad1982 --->on deck
CharlesLi --->???
Pigswill ---> lurking
Sirloin ---> cool pink center
Sturick ---> just played
Cripp7 ---> up next