(0) 2150BC I swap one tile in Veii, from one forest spices to another, so that when our worker completes his road we will snag an extra gold piece. Not much to change, I notice with interest that despite our early struggles with barbs and disease we are only down one tech (Mysticism). If we get Writing first, we'll be in great shape.
(1) 2110BC Whoa! I turn the animation back on. My computer does the auto-moves so fast that I can't even follow them. Our bowman kills that irritating barb Jag near Rome.
(2) 2070BC Rome produces settler, moves down towards the south to steal that wheat tile away from Greece. Jag in the north reveals some nice terrain up there for future expansion. In addition to Mysticism, The Wheel has been discovered and traded around.
(3) 2030BC I notice that the lux rate can be dialed back from 40 to 10% since Rome produced a settler (+2gpt). Brokering time! We send 24g + 4gpt to India for Horseback Riding, then trade Horseback Riding + 1gpt to Brennus for Mysticism + 9g. We lost most of our gpt but are again at tech parity. A good deal overall. And Thermoplyae, the Greek city to our south, did in fact steal horses as well.
(4) 1990BC Alex extorts 14g; noting our very weak position, I have to give in. We spot iron in the mountains to the north, easily within range!
(6) 1910BC Rome produces hoplite, starts work on settler, due in 5. Spices are now hooked up, allowing me to set luxury rate to 0% (going from +2gpt to +7gpt!)
(7) 1870BC Antium founded in the south, in a location one tile off the river but on the coast and in a position that does not overlap with our other cities. It also secures silks for us, though we won't have them hooked up for quite some time. Might tick off Greece in the long run, but we'll deal with that later.
(8) 1830BC I notice this turn that India has Writing. Nothing for us to do but wait out the last 12 turns on our min science move and see if anyone else is lacking it then.
(10) 1750BC Rome produces settler, Veii produces hoplite. I set Rome to produce another hoplite for our next city and Veii to produce another worker - which we desperately need more of. Our Jag in the north has revealed horses and iron in the north, which we can get with a single city placement. It would probably be better to get them with two cities however, since the land up there is very poor; all desert and mountains. I also discovered that India is to our north by the way - isolated from the other civs, India might make a good first targer for us down the road. But for now we need to secure more cities and lock down sources of iron and horses.
RBP4 1750BC
) there's certainly no need to rush this thing at the moment. Take the turn if you want, but don't worry about it if you can't.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
[dance] I had just enough time after the game to go see the big peach drop in downtown Atlanta at midnight. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining trip. I hope your New Year's evening went as well. 
