shyuhe
Deity
I think I described my rough goals in my turn set description but here's some added details:
I was trying to shore up the economy, while grabbing the horse site. I did not really foresee any war taking place before elephants and catapults were available as Brennus already had iron at the start of the set. However, I later found out that Bismarck lacks iron, ivory, and horses (whereas our two southern neighbors have these resources). Thus, I tagged him as the potential target - plus he's building wonders that are ripe for capturing. I didn't start building any axes though, as I wanted to hold off until catapults and elephants (with axes only as stack protectors). Thus my smallish military. I did trade techs aggressively as I didn't really see myself going after the southern neighbors any time soon, so might as well take advantage of them for the time being.
Brennus is a cranky fellow but he's teching substantially slower than Cyrus is. Vienne is just south of Delhi but it has stonehenge = lots of culture (requiring catapults), and thus a very hard target. He also has two iron sources, one that we can easily pillage but the other is in the heart of his empire. Plus, there's still a lot more jungle clearing to be done before his land will be worth taking (if at all). On the other hand, Bismarck has some really good city sites that would probably be more than enough to cruise to a space victory. There's a lot of grass and hills to the north and plenty of space to reach 10-12 cities (more than enough for a space victory). Cyrus won't backstab us so as long as we are careful of Brennus, there isn't much to worry about.
So with all of these long-term goals in mind, I switched to the same religion as Cyrus and Brennus to secure the southern border (neither Cyrus or Brennus will backstab at pleased - not sure about a dogpile though). I thought about grabbing the stone with the new city but I didn't like the mountain tiles it would pick up, so I opted to grab horses instead. I didn't build further north into the jungle because I wanted to leave space for a filler city later. I doubt the AI will settle between cultural boundaries and I can always close borders if I see an AI settler heading into the space. It's all covered in jungle right now and my workers are already busy so I didn't want to settle the intermediate spot (it would strain my overworked workers).
Regarding Bangalore (I think - the gold city), I got lucky that the axe went after Munich instead so I just grew it to size 4 for double gold. I don't really see it growing much larger than that as I will probably have it working the hills for more production. It's going to grow slowly as it is and it's not very open for whipping so I thought it would make a good hammer city.
Bombay (on the east coast) is turning into a better city now that it has iron in its cross - there are lots of underdeveloped tiles but it has some decent potential. I will probably turn this into a whipping/hammer production city as there just isn't enough room for growth to warrant commerce production and I needed to prioritize hammer production for the upcoming war.
Delhi and the west coast city are turning into the commerce cities - I've forced some specialists for the time being as I wanted to build an academy soon and also pop philosophy (so 2 GS' needed). After that, I think the western city will be cottaged all around (except a few farms for growth) and Delhi will be cottaged as well.
Research wise, I took alphabet in hopes of trading for Brennus' IW. I got that trade and also picked up HBR as a bonus. I got math in exchange for HBR from Brennus. I haven't traded math to Bismarck yet as I want to keep him away from catapults as long as possible. I may also make a few HA just in case. Basically I've tried to keep Bismarck out of the loop so that I can attack him with minimal losses and diplomatic penalties. Once I close borders with the southern guys (after getting enough religious positives), I can settle the north at my leisure, setting up an easy space win after that.
So that's more or less what I was thinking while playing my set.
I was trying to shore up the economy, while grabbing the horse site. I did not really foresee any war taking place before elephants and catapults were available as Brennus already had iron at the start of the set. However, I later found out that Bismarck lacks iron, ivory, and horses (whereas our two southern neighbors have these resources). Thus, I tagged him as the potential target - plus he's building wonders that are ripe for capturing. I didn't start building any axes though, as I wanted to hold off until catapults and elephants (with axes only as stack protectors). Thus my smallish military. I did trade techs aggressively as I didn't really see myself going after the southern neighbors any time soon, so might as well take advantage of them for the time being.
Brennus is a cranky fellow but he's teching substantially slower than Cyrus is. Vienne is just south of Delhi but it has stonehenge = lots of culture (requiring catapults), and thus a very hard target. He also has two iron sources, one that we can easily pillage but the other is in the heart of his empire. Plus, there's still a lot more jungle clearing to be done before his land will be worth taking (if at all). On the other hand, Bismarck has some really good city sites that would probably be more than enough to cruise to a space victory. There's a lot of grass and hills to the north and plenty of space to reach 10-12 cities (more than enough for a space victory). Cyrus won't backstab us so as long as we are careful of Brennus, there isn't much to worry about.
So with all of these long-term goals in mind, I switched to the same religion as Cyrus and Brennus to secure the southern border (neither Cyrus or Brennus will backstab at pleased - not sure about a dogpile though). I thought about grabbing the stone with the new city but I didn't like the mountain tiles it would pick up, so I opted to grab horses instead. I didn't build further north into the jungle because I wanted to leave space for a filler city later. I doubt the AI will settle between cultural boundaries and I can always close borders if I see an AI settler heading into the space. It's all covered in jungle right now and my workers are already busy so I didn't want to settle the intermediate spot (it would strain my overworked workers).
Regarding Bangalore (I think - the gold city), I got lucky that the axe went after Munich instead so I just grew it to size 4 for double gold. I don't really see it growing much larger than that as I will probably have it working the hills for more production. It's going to grow slowly as it is and it's not very open for whipping so I thought it would make a good hammer city.
Bombay (on the east coast) is turning into a better city now that it has iron in its cross - there are lots of underdeveloped tiles but it has some decent potential. I will probably turn this into a whipping/hammer production city as there just isn't enough room for growth to warrant commerce production and I needed to prioritize hammer production for the upcoming war.
Delhi and the west coast city are turning into the commerce cities - I've forced some specialists for the time being as I wanted to build an academy soon and also pop philosophy (so 2 GS' needed). After that, I think the western city will be cottaged all around (except a few farms for growth) and Delhi will be cottaged as well.
Research wise, I took alphabet in hopes of trading for Brennus' IW. I got that trade and also picked up HBR as a bonus. I got math in exchange for HBR from Brennus. I haven't traded math to Bismarck yet as I want to keep him away from catapults as long as possible. I may also make a few HA just in case. Basically I've tried to keep Bismarck out of the loop so that I can attack him with minimal losses and diplomatic penalties. Once I close borders with the southern guys (after getting enough religious positives), I can settle the north at my leisure, setting up an easy space win after that.
So that's more or less what I was thinking while playing my set.
).
) the great library. having no marble, not being industrious and having no way to get a GE in time, I decided to get asap to litterature and to keep the techs for me. I succeeded in doing so (monopoly on litterature) at the price of trades.
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... it took me a moment to work out how the heck that happened! 
