I agree!
Chapter 2
If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him
Goals for This Round:
* Build a Stonehenge monument that is not in danger of being crushed by a dwarf
* "Sort out" the Tokugawa situation
* Shoot for The Oracle
* Scout the surrounding land in search of nice city sites
(As you can see, I decided to go for a trifecta here. 
My reasoning was simple and is best illustrated in this shot of the active civics screen I took just after war were declared:
Notice anything? Besides the identity of our other continental neighbor? Toku is the only one not running Slavery! That means two things:
1. Toku couldn't access metals even if he had them (he didn't), and
2. Toku couldn't whip out extra defenders!
I figured he'd shoot for Bronze Working at some point, but, well, you'll see. 
So three major goals! One sort of a foregone conclusion, one a calculated risk, and the other something of a gamble. Can we pull it off?)
Ramesses's behavior in Thebes was becoming something of a concern. The closest friends and advisers of the king were suddenly shut off from entering the royal tent. In the mornings, the circles and patterns drawn in the dirt would grow ever more intricate as Ramesses's hierarchy of the heavens unfolded.
One morning, the people of Thebes awoke to find a strange circle of stones near the outskirts of town.
(With a chop, it took three turns, and I immediately put the overflow into a Barracks. Not too shabby, and the first part of our strategy is in place.)
Near the outskirts of the circle, Ramesses himself stood, his eyes wild and bloodshot. It was clear he had not slept in many, many days.
"WE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!" he roared before stomping off to the newly constructed Barracks of Thebes.
Privately, Ramesses had meditated on the matter for some time, and he saw that Tokugawa was a pretender. No man
boasted when granted the yoke of enlightenment, as the Japanese daimyo had done. Tokugawa had taken the work of his own wise men and claimed it as his own. For that, he would pay.
But Tokugawa was fully unaware of Ramesses's machinations. In fact, he seemed just as interested in expanding his sphere of influence as the Egyptian king was.
As Thebes began using its new military training camps to build potent chariots to outfit fresh soldiers, an emissary from the distant south approached the city. Ramesses greeted the man and his king, a man of proud bearing. He spoke of an enlightened faith centered around the Christ, and his stories of modesty, humility, and sacrifice intrigued Ramesses.
(Oooh, another neighbor! This made a move against Tokugawa that much more inviting, of course.)
In the sciences, meanwhile, Ramesses expanded his newfound interest in faith, educating himself in the Meditative ways of the West before moving towards codifying a proper Priest caste. Even as these enlightened teachings sought to uplift the Egyptians of the East, they would not so easily find wisdom in the West.
The forests of Thebes had been cut, their trunks made into sturdy War Chariots. It was time to inform Tokugawa that his days as a puppet on the throne had come to an abrupt end.
(More Chariots were on the way behind this, but Tokyo was garrisoned by only two archers, one of whom had taken Drill 2. It helped. No, really. )
The raid against Tokyo was swift, with a pair of casualties as Tokugawa's steadfast Archers made their stand. However, the Egyptian chariots had been trained to move quickly against the fast strikes of the garrisons.
Tokyo fell quickly into Egyptian hands...
...and Ramesses, in his mercy, spared the people.
(I love you, War Chariots, let's have babies. 
Seriously, this is a pretty nice site, with rice up north and moocows already available. It'd probably be a backfill site normally, but I thought it was good enough to spare me a settler and give me a forward base against Toku.)
The War Chariots, fresh off of a few days bandaging their wounds, descended on Kyoto, where they found a beautiful little town ripe for the taking.
As with Tokyo, the strike was quick and efficient, with only minor casualties.
(Kyoto came with a Granary as well. No shrine, obviously, but we can remedy that if we want in short order.)
While the War Chariots wheeled past Kyoto and to the south, attention in Thebes suddenly changed. While the brutal policies of Ramesses had previously led to a sudden creation of a military class, now, all at once, these policies turned to the creation of a new structure. If Tokugawa could steal the wisdom of the immortals from his wise man, then surely someone who was truly touched by divinity could do far, far greater with an Oracle of his own.
All at once, Ramesses's brutal campaign against the Japanese came to a bloody end in the fishing village of Osaka.
Tokugawa--who had felt fit to remind the world of his favor with the spirits all those years ago--suddenly found himself sniveling and pleading for his life as the charioteers closed in on his hut. Without a word, they barricaded the entryway and set the entire structure ablaze.
(It might need refounding later; it's one of the only sites that can work the fish. Right now, though, we have better options on the table, and no one's going to get there before we do.)
With the supposed enlightened Buddha roasted alive in his own vacation home, the conquered Japanese suddenly found themselves shiftless and without a leader. The land was thrown into chaos, and Ramesses's War Chariots dispersed to quell the violence.
When peace was at last restored, it came with the crack of the whip, as the slaves of Thebes completed the sacred structure by which Ramesses could hear the whispers of the gods.
There, inscribed in the center of the temple, sat two tablets of filigreed limestone. In the midst of the chaos, they had somehow emerged for the Egyptian chief to find.
And, amidst the new rule of law created from the brutalization of the Egyptian slaves... a new religion was born in Tokyo.
(...sorry, I couldn't resist.
So that's the round! We took a little bit to finish up Pottery so we could get some workers cottaging up Memphis. We'll need more of them for sure, and they're on the way.
I figured Code of Laws was the best use of the Oracle for a number of reasons. Pacal, I know, WILL wonder-spam if we let him. Code of Laws--our best path into Philosophy--was set to take a ton and a half of turns, and without Pottery our treasury was bound to run out beforehand. So I went with the less ambitious option. Angkor Wat will be nice, but it's not in any danger, and we have a strong economic tech now to fuel expansion.
We have a tech choice:
So far, the religious path has done nicely for us, so with CoL in hand I'm inclined to continue down that route, making our next major target the AP. Monotheism's religion has already gone [I think it was Taoism, which I'm pretty sure suggests China is on the map unless Pacal took it], but Organized Religion will be a powerful means of kicking our religious economy into high gear.
We've got Judaism's free missionary as well; I'm sending him down south to bring Churchill into the fold. Pacal--I suspect--is even further south, so having a handy shield will help.
Here's Egypt as she now stands:
Four cities with a lot of potential. I think our goal next round should be to increase that number.
Scouting in the north:
I'm thinking that double gold city should be ours soon, and another one right between the cows and jumbos [north of the square where I met Toku] will be on the docket as well.
The south:
Lots of good land, but without IW it's sort of a crap shoot. 1NE of the cows is solid, though; maybe that turns into a priority so Winny can't get it?
Demographics:
We're doing pretty well, and we'll do better once our cottages come online.
Assets:
Workers are coming!
Micro in Thebes:
I pulled the worker off the mine and onto the priest to speed along our first GP. We need to figure out what to do with him.
Memphis:
That FP is being cottaged as we speak. I'm letting it work out some whip angst on that Worker build. I've been trying to make a point to whip a lot more often this game since it's one of my weak points. And as Egypt, it just feels right, doesn't it?
Tokyo:
Needs a worker down there. The axe has been building for a while to free up the WC to go raise some Cain, but that was before it became the Jewish holy city. I'll probably finish up that build, whip it out, and then parlay the overflow into a religious building.
Kyoto:
Just finished two-pop-whipping that temple since it was over the happy cap. In other news, look at all those trees! This is a very, very nice capital that can do a lot for us. I'm thinking about chopping out some workers and putting them on a combination of mine duty and additional chopping and making a run at Chichen Itza. I hardly ever build that stupid thing, but it is on our list of acceptable wonders, we do have a head start, and it'll give additional GPP to our most obvious priest-heavy site.
So that brings us to the housekeeping.
Phase 1 of our priest economy is going swimmingly, with four good cities, the two earliest Prophet-fueling wonders, and two holy cities in our hot little hands. Our first great person is due in just a few turns, and another should follow out of Kyoto not long after that.
Short-term, we need to figure out what to do with our first Great Prophet. My immediate inclination is to have him build one of our two shrines. Both are decent options, I feel. Shrining Buddhism will give Kyoto two more priest slots, putting it up to five. That'll be nice, but it might be a little excessive.
Judaism, on the other hand, is most likely going to end up our state religion if we spread the faith down to Churchill. He'll likely adopt immediately (as the AI usually does), and he may stay in it a while. If he doesn't, having at least one Jewish city in his empire means that we can exert control with the AP, which will be--I think--a whole ton of fun.
Which brings me to another possibility: we have the War Chariots, and we have the production to build more. We COULD just keep right on rolling, aiming to wipe Churchill out before he knows what's what. The obvious downside is that we'll likely be alone on the continent with Pacal [I can see four AIs on one continent on Hemispheres, but not five], who has already founded Christianity. Buddying up to Pacal might not be hard--I did it in the Sitting Bull game--but I'd really like to have someone else helping me keep him in check. He's not dangerous, but he's usually a good techer. With an early religion and an opportunity to grab some choice wonders, he can be a bigger problem.
So my inclination is to leave Churchill be for now and shoot for manipulating him to work in our favor. That, to me, will make for a DRASTICALLY different game than I'm used to. And it sounds pretty fun.
So our short-term goals are to tech towards Theology [probably bulbing it with our second or third prophet] and build the AP. After that, trade for backfill, tech toward Philosophy, and see where we go from there.
Thoughts? Save is attached!)
. Well, in my game anyway 
. It's a shame our games are so different already. Kyoto had no religion in my playthrough, vastly nerfing any desire to actually take it so early.
to grow made it super easy to get big sizes early too since we have all 3 grains for +6 :health on granary.
)
) Oh, and a trade mission of sorts helped too the English sent a GM on a trade mission to my empire and then offered me 1150 gold for Liberalism 
