(0) 1675AD: Pre-turn
[Train of thought]
Hmmm... I'm running out of room. I can probably settle 3 more towns, but Ur just has to go. If I can get rid of that town it opens up the whole map. What are all those units doing on our northern borders? Nothing much. If I put one of those units into Shanghai I can get lux down. I'll do that with the warrior as it will get there quickest.
We have wines and incense local but not connected. I'll squeeze a town in between us and the Babs to make sure we can hook up the incense. Not a huge priority, but both will need hooking up if I decide to jump to Republic which is my usual play.
Since this is the first time I've looked at the game, I need to go through all the motions I guess, once every ten turns is about all I can bear in the ancient age except for the settler factory. So first lets cycle through the cities.
Beijing.
Town can produce +5 food easily, so I take the citizen off the forest and put him on the irrigated game tile. Make a mental note to check Beijing every growth turn.
Shanghai.
For the first 150 - 200 turns each of my towns will be assigned a role. The improvements it gets depends on what I want it to do. Shanghai will pump units as it can make a lot of shields. It needs a rax and nothing else. It will then build offensive units only. Because of the game in its radius, we will also be able to afford the luxury of peeling off the odd settler or worker, since we can get the town to +4 food.
Shanghai is building a spear. We already have too many spears. Change production to horse. Town desperately needs the BG to the south mined and worked to get to 5 shields. 5 divides into 30 (a horse) exactly. This becomes my worker priority. Although the town will get another shield from growth in four turns time I want as many shields for as low a pop as I can get in despotism as it will keep the lux slider down. I prefer to make 5 shields at pop 3 than at pop 4, and I can then afford to peel off a worker from this town.
Canton.
Is building a horse at 3 spt. Slow, but not wasteful. That's fine.
Now Lets go through the Screens.
F1.
Science is at 20% with maths in 29. This is min research. I can move the slider to 10% and still research it in 29 and gain 2gpt.
Lux is also at 20% and with the extra MP in a couple of turns this will drop again.
F2.
Shows nothing useful at this stage.
F3.
Shows we need more towns to support more units, otherwise we start paying upkeep. We have only one worker. Normally when I play, I build an MP unit (warrior), then a worker and then a barracks for military towns or a granary in settler and worker pumps. At this stage I would have two fewer spears and a couple more workers. Our UU upgrades from chariots so building horses is definitely the way to go. Where can I get a worker from?
Let's see if there is one for sale. I hit the diplomacy screens. Noone has any workers, but a couple of civs have maths. Absolutely no point in spending the next 30 turns researching it then. I have 2 choices. Choose another tech, or turn off research completely. Am I going to win a 40 turn gambit at this stage? Nah.
Science switched to 0%. Net income now 6gpt.
Because I have switched off research I make a mental note to check diplomacy every turn to take advantage of an 2fers that crop up.
The other screens are not interesting yet, except that Babylon is building the pyramids. I invest 35 gold in an embassy to discover that they will be completed in X turns. Perfect. War with Babylon will start in X turns. I will let them build the pyramids, and then take them. If they are beaten to it (which I gauge as unlikely) then I hope they will cascade to the Great Library.
OK I'm done.
IBT:
Aztechs start Oracle
Forest chop goes to settler
(1) 1650BC:
Move worker to Shanghai game and start chop. If I don't do anything else shields will be wasted toward the horse. I need a worker, so I switch Shanghai to worker. I will get a worker and a horse in the same number of turns as a horse using the forest chop.
The slave moves to the BG south of Shanghai as advertised earlier.
Lux slider down to 0%. Making 9gpt.
Diplo is quiet but Romans have 0 iron for sale. In other words they have hooked up iron and are building Legionaires.
IBT:
No News
(2) 1625BC:
Settler is on a really bad tile IMO. I will move him onto the wine to the SW to get all the fish, and I can hook wines up to the rest of the empire quicker.
Beijing has grown. I need to do two things. Move the worker off the forest onto the BG to maintain +5 food, and increase the lux slider to 10% for one turn.
Canton will need an MP in a couple of turns, so I begin to move an archer in that direction.
IBT:
Germany and Babylon sign MA against Greece. This is Great!
Beijing Settler - Settler
Shanghai worker - horse
(3) 1600BC:
Worker goes to mine the game north of Beijing.
Settler goes 2 north to complete RCP3
Found Nanking. I MM to get warrior in 4 turns at +1 food. I will then build a worker and then a rax. The worker will connect the wines to the rest of the empire.
I have been (rather aggressively) sending the scouting warrior over the opponents land (westward). Now I have contact with France, and Joan is rather backward, lacking writing and HBR. She can't afford to buy them from us either.
Greece has a worker for sale. I buy him of course. I don't even bother to haggle. 30g is completely ridiculous. The wars will make workers available from time to time.
Lux slider back to zero. No new techs around.
IBT:
(4) 1575BC:
Found Tsingtao - warrior
Lux slider up to 20% because I didn't get MP to Canton in time.
IBT:
Joan asks us to leave. We will as we want to keep her sweet for now.
(5) 1550BC:
Nothing to do. No new techs.
(6)1525BC:
Some worker turns. I am prioritising plains tiles now since they can be got to 2 food and 1 shield quicker than grass.
The MP arrives in Canton and I can switch lux off again.
(7)1500BC:
Nanking warrior - worker and MM back to 2 food.
MM Beijing back to 5 food. Forgot to do it on the growth turn. Mentally slap wrist.
IBT:
Shanghai horse - horse
Canton horse - horse
(8) 1475BC:
I have Shanghai and Canton both at 5 uncorrupted spt now.
I can now mine the previously irrigated BG. I need the shield.
Beijing has grown, so MM and turn up lux
IBT:
Beijing Settler - Settler
Tsingtao warrior - worker
(9) 1450BC:
Settler heads for iron.
Lux back to 0%
(10) 1425BC:
Nothing happens.
Post turn thoughts.
I would try and squeeze in an RCP 6 ring. This might precipitate a war eventually with the babs, but that's OK. I am looking at war with the babs in 10 to 20 turns time max. They will have built the pyramids by this time.
Our vast army, which is weak compared to Babylon.
We love the ainwood day celebrated 
. Just plug in and recharge every now and then 
. I forgot to work on another mine for Beijing, cause I was thinking of making haste towards Ur with units currently building. Our little lost warrior scout finds the French. They have 5cities/28g and haven't discovered writing or horseback riding.
Thats exactly the way we need.
glorious team. I hope you can fill us up with informations and tricks. So we can 
SirPlebs and DaveMcWs in the next GOTM.
, guess I just misunderstood what you were saying.
