Those results seem perfectly acceptable to me, Charlie. Good job micromanaging our cities! And don't worry about not caving in to Germany's demand for Alphabet; we wanted war with him anyway so IMO it was the right call. About the only other thing we could have done with it was to trade it for a shortened research time on Iron Working, which we wouldn't have been able to do anyway if you gave it to him. Our best case was to refuse and find he was bluffing, but the outcome we got doesn't present a problem. 
Your losses at Hamburg were purely due to bad luck, not because you made any mistakes, and all came out well in the end anyway. About the only thing I would have done differently is build a couple more spears and a couple less archers since the latter dead-end in the Middle Ages while the former can go all the way to mech infantry.
That stack of troops should be able to give Berlin a serious hurting -- it's practically a mini-SOD for this era, so let's press on with the offensive (unless we need to stop and heal.) Plus, we can continue to have more reinforcements pouring out of Kyoto and Osaka as needed. That's our big advantage over Germany; their cities are so small that they can't reinforce, and their defensive troops are so spread out that they are weak everywhere and should be easy pickings. I bet those two archers are all they had available to throw at us as far as counter-attackers go
and you handled them exactly as you should have.
About getting Iron online, we can use the captured German worker for our colony. It's not like we don't plan to get more anyway...
I don't think we need a road on the actual iron square, as the colony should provide that automatically. We do need to build a road down through the desert, however, and the German worker should be able to help with that before he builds the colony.
What I'd like to see happen is we roll through Germany and, just before he's about to get extinguished, we call for 20 turns of peace in exchange for everything he's got that we might want -- primarily tech. To that end, my vote is that we leave Frankfurt alone! It's a hopeless little town that can't grow and can't build squat, so it's no threat to us, and it would just get autorazed anyway if we attack it. So, let 'em keep it for now, while we take out the rest of Germany -- trying to capture rather than raze cities, as trying to get settlers all the way over there at this stage of the game would be a pain. That applies to autorazes as well -- if you think delaying an attack might prevent an autoraze (by growth to size 2 for instance), consider whether to delay the assault. If so, keep a sharp eye on that city, 'cause Bizzy is almost certain to whip it back down if he gets a chance.
Keep an eye out for the balance of forces in the area. Once we have a substantial advantage (should be soon!) we ought to switch back into expansion/infrastructure mode in our cities, and only build reinforcements on an as-needed basis. We want to have granaries in place before we get construction, for instance, and there's wonders and other city improvements to consider coming up as well. We don't need defenders all over the place until we meet a civ that can hit us anywhere in our territory, and Biz ain't it.
What to research after mapmaking? I don't think we are going to be at war with anyone but Bizzy for the next while, as I suspect we are alone on this island with him, so that rules out Monarchy. Literature gets us the ability to build the Great Library, but we can always buy tech off the other civs once we contact all of them (to bring the price down) if we have a robust economy going; it also lets us build Libraries, but we probably won't be doing much of our own research anyway, since we need cash for unit maintenance and for rushing stuff. Construction won't help us much until after our initial expansion phase is over, but we should try to get it as soon as possible after that. We'll pick up currency around then as well since they both require mathematics. Republic is a fairly safe bet to head towards while we explore with triremes and find out how advanced/primitive everyone else is, as the commerce bonus can be used for either science or cash, and it gets rid of the despotism production penalty. So, right now I'm thinking of researching towards Mapmaking, then Republic, followed by Construction/Currency. Thoughts, anyone?
Your losses at Hamburg were purely due to bad luck, not because you made any mistakes, and all came out well in the end anyway. About the only thing I would have done differently is build a couple more spears and a couple less archers since the latter dead-end in the Middle Ages while the former can go all the way to mech infantry.That stack of troops should be able to give Berlin a serious hurting -- it's practically a mini-SOD for this era, so let's press on with the offensive (unless we need to stop and heal.) Plus, we can continue to have more reinforcements pouring out of Kyoto and Osaka as needed. That's our big advantage over Germany; their cities are so small that they can't reinforce, and their defensive troops are so spread out that they are weak everywhere and should be easy pickings. I bet those two archers are all they had available to throw at us as far as counter-attackers go
and you handled them exactly as you should have.About getting Iron online, we can use the captured German worker for our colony. It's not like we don't plan to get more anyway...
I don't think we need a road on the actual iron square, as the colony should provide that automatically. We do need to build a road down through the desert, however, and the German worker should be able to help with that before he builds the colony.What I'd like to see happen is we roll through Germany and, just before he's about to get extinguished, we call for 20 turns of peace in exchange for everything he's got that we might want -- primarily tech. To that end, my vote is that we leave Frankfurt alone! It's a hopeless little town that can't grow and can't build squat, so it's no threat to us, and it would just get autorazed anyway if we attack it. So, let 'em keep it for now, while we take out the rest of Germany -- trying to capture rather than raze cities, as trying to get settlers all the way over there at this stage of the game would be a pain. That applies to autorazes as well -- if you think delaying an attack might prevent an autoraze (by growth to size 2 for instance), consider whether to delay the assault. If so, keep a sharp eye on that city, 'cause Bizzy is almost certain to whip it back down if he gets a chance.
Keep an eye out for the balance of forces in the area. Once we have a substantial advantage (should be soon!) we ought to switch back into expansion/infrastructure mode in our cities, and only build reinforcements on an as-needed basis. We want to have granaries in place before we get construction, for instance, and there's wonders and other city improvements to consider coming up as well. We don't need defenders all over the place until we meet a civ that can hit us anywhere in our territory, and Biz ain't it.
What to research after mapmaking? I don't think we are going to be at war with anyone but Bizzy for the next while, as I suspect we are alone on this island with him, so that rules out Monarchy. Literature gets us the ability to build the Great Library, but we can always buy tech off the other civs once we contact all of them (to bring the price down) if we have a robust economy going; it also lets us build Libraries, but we probably won't be doing much of our own research anyway, since we need cash for unit maintenance and for rushing stuff. Construction won't help us much until after our initial expansion phase is over, but we should try to get it as soon as possible after that. We'll pick up currency around then as well since they both require mathematics. Republic is a fairly safe bet to head towards while we explore with triremes and find out how advanced/primitive everyone else is, as the commerce bonus can be used for either science or cash, and it gets rid of the despotism production penalty. So, right now I'm thinking of researching towards Mapmaking, then Republic, followed by Construction/Currency. Thoughts, anyone?
Worn out troops enter Berlin to heal, healthy troops head towards German border to keep an eye out for trouble. Osaka has grown, and will riot if not attended to. Confronted with a decision, growth or production, I go for the latter: starve it.
Foreign Advisor suggests that it be the Aztecs, altough we cannot contact them just yet. Kyoto builds Spearman. We have enough units in New Japan, so I assign him to garrison our capital. Our archer, ingenously named the Barbuster, defeats a pathetic barbarian warrior and advances towards their camp. You can always tell barbarians from real warriors by their not understanding the terrain defense opportunities the mountains offer... Oh yeah, they stink, too. Movement of troops. 
I thought I might be outclassed with the RBD folks, but who knows, after this I may join more!!
).
