1575 (0): We trade Naval Guns to Carthage for Renaissance and 497 gold. I acknowledge Tusker's point about waiting for another mediaeval infantry to appear, but I'd rather grab Hannibal's gold while it's available.
We'll try to build as many banks as we can without compromising our military production. We switch six towns to banks now, most of them not big military producers.
Twenty-five Mongol Keshiks are moving around in a rather threatening way near Samarra. It's hard to see what they're heading for, except us, since we're playing without barbarians.
Uppsala town clock --> windmill, Assur (our first) bank --> arquebusier, Cathyton windmill --> castle, Malmö granary --> town centre, Samarra castle --> knight.
1580 (1): The more I think about it, the more concerned I become about the swarms of movement-three Riders the Chinese will have. Culture-bombing captured towns won't keep us from having to garrison them, in this case. So I may choose to let them come to us, and do the job of wearing down their field army on our soil, after we've built up and prepared the battlefield a little more.
The threatening movements of the Keshiks also incline me to wait a few turns.
Thirty-two Keshiks are now visible around Samarra, moving generally north.
Göteborg granary --> town centre.
The Canadians build Great Playhouse and Copernicus--two more relatively close Wonders for us to take.
1585 (2): The Keshiks move south this turn.
We renew our furs-for-incense deal with the Nubians, paying a premium of 12 gpt rather than 7 gpt this time.
Zyr windmill --> town centre.
The Israelites build Newton, which isn't at the end of the second-Age tech tree in CCM, but only two techs ahead of us.
1590 (3): The Mongols may be attracted to Lagash as an easier sneak-attack target than Samarra, since its one of our few cities in the area below size eleven. So we do what we can, rushing walls in Lagash and giving Genghis furs as a good-will gesture, though none of this will stop them if their minds are made up.
The thirty-two Keshiks move south again towards Lagash, now accompanied by nineteen older fast Mongol units.
Linköping town centre --> town clock, Smolensk aqueduct --> town centre, Lagash walls --> granary.
1595 (4): We discover the primitive Portuguese, still struggling to learn Religion. We know the feeling.
We get Ellipi set up for one-turn knight production.
We move our main mobile force into the area between Samarra and Uruk, so those units will be well positioned to respond to a Mongol stab, although its irritating to be moving them away from our intended front with China.
The Mongols move adjacent to Lagash, so it looks as though the stab is coming. We rush a castle in the town.
Nineveh bank --> knight, Cathyton castle --> town centre, Nippur town clock --> mosque, Lagash castle --> granary.
1600 (5): We get Babylon set up for one-turn knight production.
If the Mongol units were on good tiles to attack, wed give them a boot order and trigger the war ourselves; but theyre almost all on hills or in forest, so well absorb their attack first.
We put four arqs, a pikeman, a knight, and an Enk into Lagash. With walls and a castle in the town, the attack will be at terrible odds if the Mongols choose to make it.
As expected:
The Chinese, OTOH, have good cities that will be a tremendous, hardly corrupt addition to our strength, once we've eliminated China and can develop them normally.
