(0)650BC: Preflight check. Everything is looking decent, although I start to withdraw the Archer from Alex's lands to help defend ours.
Found St. Petersburg. I immediately dial up barracks. I would do a worker, but it would hurt the growth of the city, and I think that's what's important right now. Get a worker after the barracks is done.
Why did we build a road through the desert? Leningrad and Moscow are linked via the river already. We could've gone on the other side of the forest and had that ivory already hooked up and making nice hammers and cash. Send the worker that way...
I take a calculated risk and send the archer out to meet the barb warrior. I really, really don't want that farm pillaged. He can't attack him because of the river, but he moves onto the path.
IBT, the warrior, instead of pillaging, does as I thought and attacks the archer and dies. Yay, I saved a farm. Barbs begin to move in on Moscow. Let's move out on them too.
(1)625BC: Axeman done in Moscow. Start another Axeman (nothing else to build). Send Axeman south to deal with the barb warrior.
(2)600BC: Rax finishes in Leningrad. Start on an Axe.
It appears that the barb warrior attacked Mao's warrior which just happened to be wandering by. Boo. Less experience.
Alex founded a 3rd city southeast of Sparta. Gonna check it out. Can only see some cultural borders right now.
(3)575BC: Alex has yet another Settler moving out... I find the new Greek City of Thermopylae. It's somewhat well defended...
IBT, another Barb Warrior dashes his brains out on the archer at Leningrad. More barbs from all directions.
(4)550BC: Axe done. Settler in 7. We need to claim some horses to the southwest of Moscow. I suggest that be our next city site. Although we could just found on that river close to the jungles and let the culture close the gap, but I don't like wasting space much.
Axeman guarding the ivory vapourizes some stupid barb archer.
(5)525BC: What are we playing with raging barbs or something (forgive me if we are, I had no idea)? More barbs coming from everywhere, including a barb Axeman. Great...
Leningrad grew to the happy limit this turn, so I stagnent it.
Hmm... Let's do something drastic

. I whip the settler in Moscow. This is to bring down that pesky population, so when the whipping unhappy is gone, we won't be feeding freeloaders anymore.
(6)500BC: Settler is done, so an axe is up. More military seems to be a good idea with so many barbs. We'll need the axes (and pults) against Alex soon anyways.
Axe also done in Leningrad. Start on a library.
Eh. That was unlucky. 75% chance to kill the barb axe and failed. Oh well. Backup axe finished the job.
I see a spot for the settler already. It'll nab 2 food resources, and 2 happy resource, so it's all good. Alex is moving his latest settler towards us. So that's not good.
(7)475BC: Alphabet is done. I provisionally put the research on Compass. Lemme trade first.
Axe done in Moscow. Another Axe!
lol guys. The trades are gonna be real bad in our direction, because all the techs we need are in a straight line! So we can't grab them all in one trade. Oh well. We still need the techs. Trade Mathematics to Mao for Sailing and Mysticism.
Ok. This is freaking stupid. I have to wait until next turn before the dumb game will allow me to get Poly and Meditation, due to some bug that says we still don't "have" Mysticism. Great.
Kill a barb archer that was endangering our iron mine.
Now that we have sailing, I switch research over to Calendar.
(8)450BC: Math to Mansa for Med and Poly.
(9)425BC: Settler's escort of Axes kills a barb warrior. Keep moving.
(10)400BC: Pyramids built in a faraway land. Found Novgorod. Barracks.
Alex has founded Corinth in an attempt to steal our rice. Not happening Alex. I think we should either flip it, or sack it. Next player's choice.
I switched Leningrad and Moscow to build Obelisks. They'll be obsolete once Calendar is done, but will still provide valuable culture that might help in flipping Corinth.
Mao is building the Oracle. I don't know for SURE. but he doesn't want to trade us Priesthood, while Mansa and Fredrick are quite willing to do so.
I have not acquired Priesthood or Mono yet (can get that from Mansa) because frankly, those two techs are rather worthless next to Alphabet. And since we're not into religions anyways, it's not really a big deal.
Turn Synopsis. I think we're well on the way of developing a very tyrannical society

. Alex is pretty much backwards, and we can probably beat him pretty hard in the near future. Disposing of him will be a good workout though, as he has axes to match our axes. We will have horses soon though, so we should be ok. The key will be unhooking the copper that is beside Sparta. Sparta itself isn't a very defendable city. It rests on a tundra beside two hills, so attacking it should be relatively easy.
Mao is getting the upper hand on us, but he's our "ally" so I don't know what to say to that.
All in all, I think we simply need to continue expansion. We may need to knock research down to 80% to pay for it, but the land will make itself valuable.
What the heck is with all the barbs? I'm pumping up military to deal with THEM. Alex is not as much a concern as damn barbs are.
Some important cartography on our empire...
The 4 resources around Novgorod will soon be in it's cultural borders.
A closer look at Corinth.
It's already missing part of it's city radius, so it shouldn't be a problem. Borders at Moscow and Leningrad should expand in the next turnset, putting immense pressure on Corinth (assuming we don't just attack and raze it, seeing as it's not in the best of locations).