McCIV-01 Prince McShuffle

[Xtream_Rockstar]

okay if u read the title we are like at the bottom of most powerful civs (look at screenie) but heres how it went on my turn

turn1: nothing
turn2: Beaker goes down to 80%
turn3: axeman gets PWNED Moses is born (and judesim asnt even been founded )
turn5: named a worker who wasnt named POOHEAd started to get him connecting the capital with Rostov by land
turn6: started on libary where settler was built
turn10: Light house built in moscow started on Great light house in moscow
Turn12: Yarsavl is founded sry no pic
turn13 list of most powerful civs and we are at bottom now i want to invade somebody

14 Drama is compleated started on mysticim
17 mysticim compleated started on buddism
Last turn budism founded

[/IMG]

We need to invade soon or we will go into a great depression

 

[armstrong]

I'm really confused - how many turns did you play? We're down to 10 a piece now.

Also, I see two posts, but I can't see the save anywhere. Am I just missing it, or did you forget to post it?

In any case, it looks like we have a decision what to research now. I'll be able to do some light posting and a "got it" when I find the save tomorrow, but I won't be able to play until Sunday sometime.

 

[Thrar]

Ok, there are a couple of things I'm uncomfortably with.

First of all there's the great lighthouse. We never talked about starting that one! I don't mean that's necessarily a bad thing, but before starting something that ties up *that* many shields, we should discuss it!

You say our economy sucks and we need to take over some more cities to help with this. Well, first I see the research slider at 70% with a surplus. Looks pretty healthy to me. Second, going out to conquer stuff doesn't make the econ better, it makes it worse!

Finally, language. I'd prefer if you could elaborate your posts a little more, and express things a bit more well-mannered. For me, it makes for a more pleasant reading. Oh, if that worker still has the same name when I get the save, I'll probably rename him myself.


Ok, so much for the rant...some things about the game now:

- I guess I mentioned the lighthouse thing...I don't know how far it's done now, so maybe it's already late to change it. Also I don't know about production alternatives. When the save's available I suggest discussing that first, before the next player continues.

- in St. Petersburg, in my turns I kept it working the cottage with no growth, because we were running two scientists there, so not a good moment to whip I thought. Now that we have the scientist (or don't we?), feel free to change that if you want.

- I don't know where that new city, Yaroslavl, is, but anyway we'd need another settler for the western spot (the B) we've left out so far. Is there already one being built? Otherwise, I think this should be done relatively soon, certainly before we start a war.

- If we want to go to war, not only should we be sure that we win it, but also that we have something to gain from it! Right now, for example, what would be our benefit? We still have our own cities to develop.
The day will come when we'll want some more land, but now, building military will come at the expense of city development, and later - given we win the war - we'll end up with lots of barely developed, expensive, land.

 

[armstrong]

Hey all,

Still waiting on the save Xtream... I'll be busy tonight. Once I do get it, I'll probably play a turn to see where things stand, and then post back for suggestions (i.e., regarding progress on the Great Lighthouse, city specializations, next tech, etc.)

 

[McLMan]

Thanks for the rant Thrar, I agree completely.

As far as an early war goes though, I thought we were going to go after at least one luxury. Happiness (or lack of) is my biggest concern in this game right now.

 

[armstrong]

As far as an early war goes though, I thought we were going to go after at least one luxury. Happiness (or lack of) is my biggest concern in this game right now.

I'm not sure if it's that big of a concern - our cities should be growing quite well now that we have theatres & soon to have a religion. As for acquiring one via war, we can get Spices from Cyrus in his nearest city, though we'd need Calendar to take advantage of it. Qin had Calendar at the end of Thrar's turns, so he more likely than not has a Silk we can trade for. We have incense now, so that just leaves gems (in the hands of Huayna and possibly Qin) for us to grab. We can probably make a trade for that as well.

And Xtream, you forgot to post a game in both your SG's!

 

[McLMan]

Sounds good armstrong. I need to sharpen my trading skills.

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

here is the save i have a bad membory of uploading them View attachment 125955 and if i overplayed im also sry i thought it was 20

 

[armstrong]

Okay, I have it, and I just played up until I hit enter... I'll play tomorrow night, after we have a little discussion. Some quick comments:

1) Xtream, did you know that roads don't help with tile production? Both this turn and last turn I've found workers building roads that seem to have no purpose... right now, there's a worker building a road on an unimproved tile that Rostov is working!

2) Novgorod was at population 2 with avoid population growth on! And it hasn't been whipped in at least 15 turns. That's why I don't like using it unless it's an absolute necessity.

3) The Great Lighthouse is due in 12 (13 when Moscow is reconfigured to grow.) It's down to a 7 population whip, also. I think it's definitely worth trying for at this point - it will give us, minimally, 8 commerce/turn. The only other useful build option for Moscow is a theatre (which it will need eventually, of course.)

4) Yaroslav' was founded on the fish site. There's no 6th settler in the works.

5) Use Merit Ptah to research Philosphy, founding Taoism was founded in Novgorod. I think that means Nov should be our Oxford/Wall Street city. That means either St. Pete's or Rostov could be the GPF. I'm leaning a bit towards Rostov atm, since St. Pete's already has some developed cottages.

6) I trade Meditation to Huayna for Priesthood.

7) "Poohead" is renamed "Albert"

I'm ready to press enter, but I'd like to get everyone's thoughts first.

My current plan is:

1) Get theatres/temples/Taoism up in our cities, and grow, grow, grow!
2) Keep working on the Great Lighthouse, finishing it off with a whip and using the spillover on a theatre.
3) Start working on our 6th (last?) settler.
4) Get a worker down to Novgorod to make that city productive.
5) Get hooked up Qin's trade network - we're only one road away.
6) Finally explore that one patch of land north of us!

Research: What should I research? I plan to put at least one turn into Construction, to keep the bunsens warm, but should that be our next tech?
Options include: Code of Laws, Currency, Monarchy, Construction, Iron Working, Calendar, Polytheism->Literature for Great Library, Metal Casting, Music, Archery.

Qin has Calendar, Cyrus has Iron Working, and Huayna has Polytheism, but they won't trade due to holding a monopoly on them. We have Alphabet, Drama, and Philosphy over everyone, and Mysticism over Cyrus. They all have Archery. Note that Cyrus is minimally 4 techs away from Longbowmen: Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Monarchy, Feudalism.

Where should our missionary be sent?

 

[Thrar]

I don't know if I'll have time today to take a look at the save, maybe not, or it might take til late evening (GMT+2). So, my comments are entirely based on armstrong's post here.
On my first turn, I whipped Novgorod while it still was unhappy, for 27 turns total. So those have passed during the last few turns, and Novgorod is ready to grow again. This is from the post about my turnset:

Notes for the next player:
Whip that granary in Rostov as soon as you can. I'm not sure what to build there next, if in doubt, axers, apparently you guys like them.
The forest chop at Novgorod will be done next turn. Don't start another one, it won't be done in time to speed up the settler. After the chop, we'll have 3 forests there, so later we can chop 1 more without health loss.
When the cottage at Moscow is done, I suggest working that one instead of the forest plains.
Several cities are on "no growth". Better leave that on, so they don't grow accidentally. This has nothing to do with the governor, they also don't grow if you manage them yourself, then.
After the settler, Novgorod should soon be ready to grow 1 more. Monitor carefully.

Have any of those things been done? Maybe have a look how the situation is now, in case some of it still applies.

I'd say stick with the lighthouse, whip it as soon as possible. However, I don't see the point in building a theatre in Moscow. Since they probably have nothing else to do, I suggest either axers or send the missionary there and build a monastery to go convert some more.
Starting on the last settler is about time, I think. Maybe in Moscow, if the rest of the cities is busy, or wherever it fits in.

I don't know about research, can you post your save, now after that 0th turn? I don't think there's anything incredibly important though.

Go up north, check out that tile, finally! And get the workers to do what they're paid for. Then we can grow, once we have that final city and some decent infrastructure in place, we can go see what Cyrus has to offer.

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

1) Xtream, did you know that roads don't help with tile production? Both this turn and last turn I've found workers building roads that seem to have no purpose... right now, there's a worker building a road on an unimproved tile that Rostov is working!

yes but they improve movement so that way if we are invaded we can quickly go to the area of the invation

7) "Poohead" is renamed "Albert"

oh come on Poohead is an awesome name

 

[armstrong]

Edit: Full Report is up.

Here's the executive summary:

1) There's an island north of us It's not big, but it has a plains hill and two fishes. I have a galley built I used to explore in the vicinity, so we can send a settler up there.

2) We built lots of infrastructure, but due to a heavy our population isn't much higher than where we started. However, our big four cities all have theatres & Taoism, so happiness caps are between 8-10 in them if we run 20% culture.

3) A settler is started in Rostov, with a chop coming to help it out (though Moscow might steal it ) Qin's sending a settler towards our spot, but unless he builds it really close to use, we have a back up spot 1n1w that might even be better. And, I'm not worried about him stealing tiles -Catherine with early theatres is not to be trifled with

4) Our entire continent, and most if not all of our cities are Taoist now.

5) Oh, we built the Great Lighthouse. It helped our economy a wee bit. That was a good call, Xtream.

And Cyrus built the Pyramids the same turn, for us to capture, of course

Here's the save.

 

[armstrong]

Okay, the goals are to finish the Great Lighthouse, start on a 6th settler, build infrastructure, and grow like mad. In general, all were accomplished except the last one...

Preturn

Trade Meditation to Huayna for Priesthood. Use Merit Ptah to found Taoism in Novgorod. The missionary is sent to St. Petersburg (so they can get some great prophet points in our second GP - it's a long shot, but it can't hurt.)

Yaroslav' changes production from a lighthouse to a work boat.

Novgorod changes production from library to theatre, but on second thought back to a library since the library will be a bigger whip. But ack, the library's only a 1 person whip, too, so I put the theatre back on again.

Cities are optimized for fast growth (while still working resourced/strong tiles).

Xtream Jr. stops building a cottage in St. Pete's so he can go down to Yaroslavl'. I marked the partially completed tile with a sign.

We're now #1 in food, #2 in commerce, and #6 in production. Not bad!

Press Enter.

Turn 1 - 100 BC

Taoism spreads to St. Pete's.

St. Pete's Axeman -> Temple.

I convert to Taoism, so we're now in anarchy.

New axemen in St. Pete's heads down into the jungle to burn some fog and keep an eye on Cyrus.

Xtream, Jr. moves to Yaro, while Willy starts a connecting road to Qin.

Our Axeman from Rostov scouts out the area. There's no usable tile, but there is... new land!!!!! Rostov switchs production to a galley.

I have no idea what all is up there, but since we can see a fish, there's at least one good city spot up there. Note that it's unreachable by any of our opponents if we close borders to them, so if we see a galley+settler heading that way, we can just kick them out of our territory. Some fur up there would be very nice, though

Albert goes to chop a forest at Moscow to help the lighthouse (and eventually build a plains river cottage on it.)

Papa Serf begins work on a cottage.

Turn 2 - 85 BC

We come out of anarchy (yeah!)

Taoism has spread to Pasagardae, and Cyrus converts; note that Cyrus has a spearman in Pasargardae, but no copper to trade, so he must have some iron.

The axeman who spotted the land in north decides to take a little walk to our west, through Vlad's Desert, to see if Qin's settled any closer, and work his way south eventually. He's renamed "Lewis the Explorer."

We invest 10% of our commerce in playwrights and poets, and our people are happy.

Rostov uses slave labor to construct a theatre.

I decide to put research towards Currency for the extra trade route, and so we can build markets (and more GP, too, since we'll be in slavery a long time I think, and our cities will be able to run more that 4 specialists.) Looking back, it might not have been the best move, but we should be able to trade it for some good technologies.

Turn 3 - 70 BC

We're now connected to Qin now, but it won't be official until next turn.

Slaves are used to build Rostov's galley.

Otherwise...

Turn 4 - 55 BC

Rostov: Galley -> Theatre

Taoism spreads to Rostov and Qin's lands (that was fast!)

The road to Qin's lands also hooks us up to Cyrus's land routes - we get a nice boost to our economy, shaving a few turns off of Currency. I really hope we get that Great Lighthouse!

Willy goes to chop a forest for Novgorod's library.

Here we go boys! Our galley rolls out towards new land - we christen (Tao-name?) it the "SS Tango."

St. Petersburg whips in it's Taoist temple.

Turn 5 - 40 BC

St. Petersburg: Temple -> Theatre
Rostov: Theatre -> Library (though I intend to start a settler here when it grows.)

Everyone but us now has Calendar, but we have nothing to trade for it except Alphabet, and I don't really want to break our monopoly on that. Hopefully, when Currency comes in we can get Ironworking and Calendar for it.

 

[armstrong]

Turn 6 - 25 BC

It looks to be a small, 3 tile (and mountain) island to our north. So far, the only resource I see is the fish. It has a plains hill, though, which is nice as it makes it a bit stronger than your average fishing village.

The chop comes in at Moscow and we whip the Great Lighthouse. Configure Moscow for maximum growth to recover.

The culture slider goes back down to 0% since we don't need it anymore.

Turn 7 - 10 BC

We've just become quite the seafarer's now, haven't we?

The boost to the economy is significant... we're pulling in a lean 26 (!) commerce from trade routes now.

Moscow: Great Lighthouse -> Theatre
Yaroslavl': Workboat -> Lighthouse

I considered building a granary, but the lighthouse will give it useful tiles to work until we can clear out the jungle/forests.

Taoism spreads in Moscow, too. What a glorious decade it's been!

Cyrus celebrates, too, by building the Pyramids! Oh, it will be fun capturing those! Thanks, friend.

Ironworking is now available for trade. Currency should be a useful trade.

Our northern island has a second fish. Very nice. Here's a look at it:

Turn 8 - 5 AD

Moscow: Theatre -> Taoist Temple (I consider a Settler, but Moscow really needs to recover from it's growth.)

Huayna converts to Taoism - we've hoodwinked 'em all.

Novgorod begins working on a settler. Papa Serf moves to help chop it in place.

We're in the AD's... but Anno what? Anno Doma, of course, after the Great Rusian Light "House"!

Turn 9 - 20 AD

Qin's sending a settler out. I probably should have started working on it earlier :angry: We could whip Rostov right after the chop, but I don't think he'll settle close enough to ruin our spot. Looking at the map:

Unless he settles exactly 1w of the incense, we can settle our city as planned (and he's not going to like being that close to a Catherine with theatres.) Even if he does, we can settle 1n1w of our planned spot - it picks up some tiles (including that one mine we won't be able to use), it's not really a whole lot worse. Actually, it might be better as it gets 4 grassland hills.

Turn 10 - 35 AD

Novgorod: Library -> Taoist Temple

We might want to consider building a settler in Novgorod, too - I'll leave it up to the next player.

Willy moves to the forest next to St. Pete's to finish up the partial cottage.

Qin will trade us Polytheism now, we might want to see if we can get that for Currency in addition to Ironworking.

Cyrus has a city by the Stone south of Yaroslavl'. I send our patrolling axeman down to take a peek:

Post-Turn Wrap-up

(1) Well, I didn't grow the cities that much In fact, the might have even lost folks due to the whip - but they're all recovery nicely and much happier!

(2) I put a sign where we could put our backup city, but looking at it, I think it might be a better position! It has a good deal of overlap, but misses out on two desert and a peak the other city would get. Also, it can work 4 grassland hills, giving us some much-needed production.

(3) Because of growth, there's no specialists being run. St. Pete is halfway to it's second, so it should start running them soon. After it finishes that one, though, we should decide if it, or Rostov, will be the GPF.

(4) The current Temple builds in Moscow and Novgorod are mostly filler - they'll need that one happiness eventually, but it's still a ways off.

(5) Settling the North Island before our continental city spot might be a good idea. My reasoning: Qin will beat us to it no matter what, if he goes straight for it. If he builds in a place where we still have room to build, he won't squeeze another city in there. Meanwhile, a new city will be coastal (3 trade routes) and need less worker turns to get set up. In fact, it only needs to build two improvements. Plus, with 2 fish it will grow very quickly.

(6) I'm wondering if the back-up spot I mentioned might be a stronger city overall, even if Qin doesn't push us back.

(7) As for our next technology, should we get Polytheism (trade) -> Literature for the Great Library? I'd like to not waste our marble resource.

(8) The save is up in the Executive Summary, two posts above.

 

[Thrar]

Finally, I have some Civ time!
I took a look at the save, and wrote down some comments:


Trade Meditation->Archery with Cyrus immediately.
Upon discovery of Currency, we can trade it for Calendar with Cyrus, and for Poly+IW with Qin (if nothing changes).

Watch out for growth in St. Peter! We don't have the happiness right now! I suggest taking away the pigs and using a priest. Alternatively, turn up culture to 10%.
Also, uncontrolled growth in Novgorod. Culture slider to take care of both, or take away both food tiles and work quarry and mine.
Since that's two cities already, probably we're better off with the slider (it's only 3gpt difference).
Rostov doesn't need a library soon (it's only +2 beakers), better build the temple first I think.
Get some workers down to Yaro. After lighthouse, build a granary there.

Whip the settler in Rostov as soon as you can. I also prefer the backup city over the original suggestion.
In time, make another settler for the northern island.

Next research goal: Construction. Get catapults, axemen, and go expand southwards. By the way, between Yaro and Pasargadae we can fit in another city. Anyway, we might as well have Cyrus settle that spot, the backup city and northern island have priority imo.
Any city that doesn't know what to do builds axers, or, once available, catapults.


I guess it's not written very politely, take those as suggestions, not as orders, of course!

 

[armstrong]

Trade Meditation->Archery with Cyrus immediately.
Upon discovery of Currency, we can trade it for Calendar with Cyrus, and for Poly+IW with Qin (if nothing changes).

Yep, that was the goal with Currency - it helps the economy, and we needed something to trade that's not going to advance their military techs.

Do we even need Archery though? I don't see us making Horse Archers/Longbowmen any time soon, and it brings Cyrus one tech closer to Feudalism. Regular archers are fine for garrisons, but Axemen do the trick just as well, and are more generally useful (for 40% more hammers.)

Watch out for growth in St. Peter! We don't have the happiness right now! I suggest taking away the pigs and using a priest. Alternatively, turn up culture to 10%.
Also, uncontrolled growth in Novgorod. Culture slider to take care of both, or take away both food tiles and work quarry and mine.
Since that's two cities already, probably we're better off with the slider (it's only 3gpt difference).

That's why I put the theatres in - size 9 cities instead of size 5 is easily worth 20% of our commerce. Note that St. Pete's theatre isn't in yet, but it will be before we'd need to turn the slider up to 20% with the current allotment. We probably don't want to turn it up any higher than that, though.

Rostov doesn't need a library soon (it's only +2 beakers), better build the temple first I think.

Yep, you're probably right on that. Or, alternatively, barracks + military?

Get some workers down to Yaro. After lighthouse, build a granary there.

There's one down there already, chopping a forest for the lighthouse. It doesn't need too much worker love, at least right away, as it has plenty of 2F3C coastal tiles to work, though getting that grassland hill mined is a priority - the current worker was clearcutting a path in that direction.

Whip the settler in Rostov as soon as you can. I also prefer the backup city over the original suggestion.
In time, make another settler for the northern island.

It's funny how none of us saw that backup site initially - I wouldn't have noticed except for the fact I was looking for a "suboptimal" one in case Qin crowded us out.

Next research goal: Construction. Get catapults, axemen, and go expand southwards. By the way, between Yaro and Pasargadae we can fit in another city. Anyway, we might as well have Cyrus settle that spot, the backup city and northern island have priority imo.
Any city that doesn't know what to do builds axers, or, once available, catapults.

That sounds like a good plan, especially with what the Lighthouse did for our commerce. Cyrus's new stone city is, unfortunately, built 1 tile from the coast, so we'll need to raze + build a settler to take that one out

Also, there's been one negative consequence of Taoism - now Huayna is Pleased with Cyrus, so we'll take a -1 diplomacy hit for declaring war on his friend. Of course, he's a bit of a religious nut, so I don't think it matters.

I guess it's not written very politely, take those as suggestions, not as orders, of course!

*trembles in fear* Yes Master Thrar, yes! Please, no more !

Oh, one more thing: when Currency comes in, we can trade our excess resources for gold. We might find some good ones, as so far the AI's have nothing to trade themselves.

 

[McLMan]

I guess it's not written very politely, take those as suggestions, not as orders, of course! :wink:

Thank you for the suggestions, I'll take all the help I can get.

Got it, will play tomorrow.

 

[Paulsy]

We seem to have sorted our short term aims (settle at backup location then north island, keep population growing and whip when necessary, look at trading for useful techs, discover construction), so I was wondering What are our more medium term aims are. Say in 30-40-50 turns? Are we looking at a war with cyrus so we can claim the pyramids? or hitting Qin as they seem to be weaker

 

[McLMan]

Pre-turn
With my notes of Thrar's demands, er... I mean suggestions ingrained in my head I begin this turnset. Immediately trade Meditation to Cyrus for Archery. Otherwise looks pretty good. Can hold off on adjusting lux slider for a couple of turns.

Turn 1) 50 AD
Direct Willy to finish building cottage at St. Pete
With one gold in the treasury, and running at -3 I drop research to 80% and bring lux up to 10%. Breaking even now.

Turn 2) 65 AD
Poking around just inside Persian and Chinese borders.

IT
Taoism spreads in Yaroslavl'

Turn 3) 80 AD
Willy finishes cottage near St. Petersburg. Since it has a surplus of improved tiles, decide to road down to Yaroslavl. I'm not sure how you guys feel about it, but I like to road between cities to improve military movement if workers are caught up.

IT
Yaroslavl' completes Lighthouse -> Granary

Turn 4) 95 AD
Xtream Jr. begins building cottage on plains near Yaroslavl'
SS Tango spots a barb archer on our N coast.

Rostov chop is in, whip Settler.

IT
Cyrus comes to us with a trade proposal ...

No trades today. Wait a while Cyrus.

Turn 5) 110 AD
Settler moving to backup site
Move axe out of St. Petersburg to guard our soon to be founded town.

Turn 6) 125 AD
Whip Temple in Novgorod

IT
Currency is in. Set research to Construction (due in 8)
Novgorod: Temple -> Axe

Turn 7) 140 AD
Yekaterinberg is founded on the back-up spot. Set it to build a granary straight out of the gate.

Turn 8) 155 AD
Whip Settler in St. Petersburg
Set research down to 70% to keep from going bankrupt.

IT
Moscow: Temple -> Market
St. Petersburg: Settler -> Axe

Turn 9) 170 AD
Settler heading N to board galley and go to N island.

Turn 10) 185 AD
Nothing much this turn ... Oh my God!!! I forgot to trade after Currency came in. Luckily, the trades Thrar proposed are still available. And they're also acceptable. Trade Currency to Cyrus for Calander. And trade Currency to Qin for Polytheism & Iron Working.
We have iron near Rostov and Novgorod.

Post Turn
Almost screwed up the trades. Luckily they were still available. On the bright side, I got the hang of whipping.

*****The Save*****

We seem to have sorted our short term aims (settle at backup location then north island, keep population growing and whip when necessary, look at trading for useful techs, discover construction), so I was wondering What are our more medium term aims are. Say in 30-40-50 turns? Are we looking at a war with cyrus so we can claim the pyramids? or hitting Qin as they seem to be weaker

I think Cyrus should be the target. Pyramids would be nice to have. We're a ways off from a war though. Last time I looked we were 8th in military. I think we should get the N island town founded. Work on infrastructure in most of the cities, & pick our military production town and begin building up our forces in preparation.

 

[armstrong]

We seem to have sorted our short term aims (settle at backup location then north island, keep population growing and whip when necessary, look at trading for useful techs, discover construction), so I was wondering What are our more medium term aims are. Say in 30-40-50 turns? Are we looking at a war with cyrus so we can claim the pyramids? or hitting Qin as they seem to be weaker

Good point, Paulsy, this is something that could really use a lot of discussion I didn't have time to respond before McLMan's turns, but I think a war with Cyrus is best in the immediate future - Qin might be weaker, but he's much closer to Huayna... Cyrus should be everyone's worst enemy (but I don't know if they even have "worst enemies" in our Taoist lovefest.)

As for longer term goals, we should start thinking about how we intend to win (we do plan on at least that, right? ) Our choices are:

1. Diplomatic - this seems like it would be very difficult. We could get this entire continent to vote for us (either through diplomacy or war) but that wouldn't be enough. It will be tough to get "Friendly" allies unless we share their religion, and that's going to be quite hit or miss.

2. Cultural - actually, I think we can get it now. We have 3 solid coastal commerce cities (Moscow, St. Pete's, Yaroslavl' or Rostov) and three high food cities to pump out great artists, and a tech lead to get to liberalism->nationalism->military tradition (defend with lots of Cossacks) quickly. However, I don't think 10-15 turnsets of "Got the save... pressed enter 10x" is really going to be all that much fun. The main problem is the lack of religion, though two religions can be enough, and we could certainly found Islam. If I were doing this, I'd probably go to war just to grab Persepolis & the Pyramids for rush buying cathedrals (and maybe raze Cyrus to the ground so he doesn't get fresh later on.) But our 6 cities now (assuming we grab the northern island) are plenty. Cultural victories are actually my default victory (I wonder if that's true with any other Civ4 players?), though oftentimes I'll have "slow" ones instead of "fast" ones.
We have marble, too, which is just gravy - Sistine Chapel, Taj Mahal, National Epic, Hermitage all need that.

3. Space Race - if we have a couple wars of expansion, this should be quite possible. I'm starting to enjoy space races quite a bit, so I wouldn't mind this.

4. Conquest & Domination - lots of warfare. Take over our continent, grab land from two more civs, and away we go. If we can control this continent, we'd have the resources to take out anyone else, just by sheer size.

I think all of these lead to early war with Cyrus, but I could be wrong. What do you all think?