Inherited turn:
Whip the granary in Nippur (FP city). Swap Babylon to settler - Mysty is right that it's slow with 2 scientists but they can be fired in 2 turns once the GS is in. Swap D-K to a sword so it can be 2pop whipped when it grows unhappy. Open borders with Julius for relations and trade routes, I don't see any city sites that he is being blocked from.
Alex is willing to declare only on DeGaulle, but we do have enough tech to bribe him. Reason for not on JC is "we would have nothing to gain", will keep an eye on this as they should share a border soon.
T2 - Whip settler in Babylon, costly at 3 pop but we will regrow very fast and I really do not want to lose that site.
T3 - Meet Brennus, he's very backwards:
Worker completes in Akkad, scientists temporarily fired as it can grow 2 sizes. Enrico Fermi academizes Babylon (was a little ahead of D-K and will be further ahead once Bureacracy was in)
Hunting in (was running up gold surplus to start). As we are not going for any wonders I see no harm in breaking Aesthetics monopoly, esp since the other AI's cant broker it around yet (no alpha). So I set research to Masonry as to not blow WFYBATA so I can trade for Math and Construction (hopefully Calendar, but if I'm reading the AI files right only 2 knowing is not enough.
T5 - Good thing I waited to finish Masonry as DeGaulle breaks Alpha monopoly. Send Alpha to Alex for Math (he goes from Pleased to Cautious - ???). Roman city appears south of Nippur:
T6 - Argh, 3 AI's are not willing to trade Const, forgot that for some reason the monopoly setting is higher for this tech. Wang is willing to trade Calendar, but Alpha + Poly is not enough, he must be close to Alpha. I send him Aesthetics + Poly. Yes, both monopolies are broken but I think Calendar is critical and this is worth it.
Worst enemy is really random, Wang is worst enemy of Brennus, DeG, Alex. Brennus gets mad (-4) for this but that's ok as he's remote. DeG and Alex - nothing.
I switch to Buddhism as JC has converted as well. Tech Meditation as some missionaries would be helpful.
T7 - The Black Dot city is founded:
The barb city Mysty found is razed with loss of one axe.
T9 - Meet Izzy, she has only 3 cities:
Korea gets an "improved axeman" event - IIRC all axes now have Shock. Monument whipped in Sippar.
T10 - Izzy's GP bulbs Theo to found Christianity. We finish Meditation->Currency, capital starts on a monastery.
T12 - Alex has a conspicuous stack for this no-production map:
But he doesn't have enough on his hands. He's also Buddhist now
Borsippa is unhealthy, so I whip library->worker.
T14 - JC demands one of our Gems and I happily oblige.
T15 - I finally rehire one scientist in Babylon (both cities had much room to go with the religious conversion and Calendar resources. Akkad starts a settler. JC puts a city in a silly location:
Looks like those close borders were destined anyways. Recommend whipping the library when it grows next turn, as the extra culture + twice-as-soon next expansion might let us flip that city or at least keep control of all those cottages.
There's a barb city of interest here:
One axe won't cut it but we might poach it if an AI attacks and fails. No way it's going to grow above size 1 though so it will autoraze.
Techs:
We're about halfway to Currency and have a decent bankroll. Recommend Preisthood->CoL next (beaker discount from knowing Priesthood will at least make up the cost of researching it, and we can probably trade DeGaulle Aesthetics for Monarchy as well)
Settling suggestions:
Recommend the cow/stone first as the other two are completely safe (have some units fogbusting the desired sites). The other two signs have been left unchanged for many ages, I like the top one - it loses 3 tiles from off-the-edge of map but would also lose 3 tiles overlap with the southern site if it was moved 1S as was suggested a while back.
With the 3 nearest civs Buddhists it seems like peaceful approach direction good for now.
Scouts have mapped out much of Rome, France, and Greece. Also, road to France nearly done so we can benefit from more trade routes when Currency comes in.
One more thing - I purposely didn't build monument first in the city I founded partially because all its bonuses are first ring. Recommend capital sends a missionary there if we don't get a random spread.
I didn't expect it to be my turn again already..
cap again.
