Sulking Sumerians
Pre Turn
Down Alpha, Wheel, CB
1 worker in Moscow afraid to show their face.
IBT
Bummer, the 2 settlers head back towards Moscow.
Turn 1 1475
Our settler is unescorted, so an archer & EW head back for escort duty.
Army is going to pillage Moscow. I wont be able to catch those 2 settlers before they get back to Moscow.
Kish is on flat lands with a lone regular EW as a garrison, so the worker gets switched to walls. Kish is 3 tiles from Ur in stead of the usual 2 tiles.

Sumer has to hire a tax man.
IBT
Sumer EW - worker
Lots of Ai units.
I can see 5 archers + 2 spears. Cathy is now placing settlers under the spears.
Turn 2 1450
St. Pete now has 2 content citizens, so I fire the scientist there.
Russia & us are both racing to the hill S of St Pete. Ill send an EW to save us a spot.
Elite archer kills archer.
EW built in Sumer goes to Ur to act as MP.
Avoid temptation to attack the spear with the 2 EW army to try for slaves. Losing the army would be way bad for us. We need to pillage the iron.
IBT
Russia founds SW of the incense, so we will get our hill.
Archers appear to be moving toward Kish.
Turn 3 1425
Move onto the iron, pillage next turn.
Lagash is in a crappy spot. Next to mountains the AI can attack from and 1 tile away, and it's not on the river.
IBT
Spot the first Russian sword leaving Moscow. Well pillage the iron this turn.
Turn 4 1400
Pillage Iron
IBT
Lagash walls barracks
Sumer worker EW
Turn 5 1375
I selected 2spt and 1 fpt in Lagash to grow & get barracks in 20.
Off Russian archer.
Found Umma -> walls on the hill S of St. Pete
Begin pillaging of Russia.
Begin the long road to the Dyes.
There is a stack of archers in the fog heading somewhere - Kish maybe?
IBT
Umma is in trouble. The Russian sword killed our Eilte spear fortified on a hill, and there is only an archer there now. No way to quickly reinforce it.
Turn 6 1350
Move EW towards Umma just in case it holds.
IBT
Good news the wounded Russian sword attacked the archer in Umma & lost.

Bad news three archers will attack the lone archer in Umma next turn.

Umma is in bad shape.
Ur granary EW ( No reason to build a settler yet since we have no escorts).
Zulu build Lighthouse.
Russia is up to 8 cities.
Turn 7 1325
Pillage
Ur has to temporarily hire a tax man since it is size 6. Crap, its pulling 9 spt, 1 short of 1 turn EWs. Bumping slider to get an EW in 1 turn at a cost of 3 gold. Seems like a deal.
IBT
Umma is razed by the Russians.

Sumer EW EW
Ur EW - settler
Turn 8 1300
Lower lux back to 20 & hire specialist in Ur.
Pillage
This is a pretty big landmass.
IBT
Alpha math
Elite spear @ St. Pete loses to sword.
Turn 9 1275
Elite archer kills wounded sword.
St. Pete grows and has to hire a specialist
Math in 17 +1gpt
The archer stack that razed Umma has disappeared into the fog. Ill bet they are going to the luxury @ Kish.
IBT
The archers appear near St. Pete.
Turn 10 1250
Russia is pretty well pillaged, so lets head back to check on the iron.
Russia now has 9 cities.
Three archers can attack St. Pete next turn. It appears St. pete is the target now. That will change when we hook up the luxury in Kish.
Notes:
These turns didnt go too well, and Russia is getting really strong with a bunch of archers roaming around. I think they could have taken out Umma even if it had 2 EWs instead of an EW & Archer.
St. Pete is a pit we are going to dump a lot of shields down. Its on grass, so no hill bonus, and the AI can attack from 7 different tiles and get a defensive bonus.
Better site would have been 1 tile due N? We would have a river on 3 sides, and could reinforce from either Ur or Lagash.
We need a city between Ur & Kish so we can chain units. The plains 1 NW of the fortified EW would work.
The pillaging should help some. Not much hope to go on offense until we get some cat support. Getting that ivory is going to take a huge stack of cats & archers.
The plan
We should explore up north with an EW on the off chance there is iron up there. Cats & swords might turn this around if we keep Russia pillaged. Until then, let's make sure we are well fortified. We'll soo be seeing Russia attacking with archer 6-packs.