Kodii: I'm assuming you want a skip so I've put Archduke up next. If you want to play the next set, let us know and Archduke can go on deck.
Ruff_hi: good to have you still involved!
Thoughts:
York: I've left our core very poorly defended, so I think our first priority is to get some military trained there. Until the road to London is complete, York can only train chariots. While in the future there are some grasslands there that can get cottages, I think it's best in the short term (next couple turnsets) for it to just pump military at size three while working cows, horses and hill mine.
London: I'd have this pump military too. In an emergency, we've got the population for two whipped axes. But I'd rather have a barracks first. (I think I postponed the barracks for the granary.)
Core defense: I'd be happy with 5 or 6 units (plus "virtual units" meaning high population in London) playing zone defense between London and York.
Very-near-term builds: Once we get a credible defense around the core, let's consider whether/how to acquire Iron.
Tech route: I think Construction is next. I'd go Writing, Math, Masonry, Construction. If we just click on Construction, Math will be delayed for Masonry.
Next turnset:
If we're agreed on the immediate builds and tech choice (I say Writing and military builds in both cities), I wouldn't mind a two-part turnset. Within just a few turns, we'll know if we can deny Alex his copper and probably what Hannibal's capital looks like. Use the culture to determine where the Carthaginian capital is and don't end the warrior's turn near it! Otherwise, he'll probably suffer the same fate as our copper-finding warrior near Athens.
Edit: Longer term strategy
I think there are three very different paths we can take from here. One is the early aggression route. Variations are either a pure axe rush on Alex (or maybe Mansa) or an iron grab and a straight sword assault. We'd need to have a few units (at least potentials) at our core to handle the assaults which will probably start soon.
The other route is a kind of turtle: beeline to Construction asap. This means working gold and cottages. It may even mean founding a city SE of London to work the other gold mine (fed by rice). Workers would be setting up roads toward the enemy. By the time Construction is discovered, we would have in place a city (founded or captured) to connect ivory. This delays our assault a bit because of the need to tech to Construction, but then we'll be attacking with Cats and Elephants. This combination is probably unstoppable.
Obviously, we're heading for cats and elephants anyway, but the question is whether that's a priority.
I'm curious...is this something we want to try to run some test games on? I'm willing, but it will probably result in a 1-2 week delay in the actual game.
And good to see that the good can be lucky with that Coppersquat nailing that archer!
Alex will have horses online at Sparta soon, so we should train a spear before too long, and maybe squat on those horses.
