Turn 0: peace between Bis and Gilg for Theo + 250 gold.
I did the same, but I have plans of attacking Bismarck later, so I bribed him back into the war, along with bribing Monte, so that they'd both drag their reputations through the mud with the other 3 AIs, since the others like Gilgamesh.
I think that I did the same thing again with Bismarck a couple of turns later when he was about to beat me to Gilgamesh's southern City of Zimbir--bribing Bismarck out of war (so that his troops would be teleported outside of Gilgamesh's Culture) and then bribing him back in, to drag his name through the mud again.
Trade optics+70Gold+WM from Maya for paper+drama.
I did the same thing but I forgot to do it for a turn, so I think that I only got 50 Gold in the bargain.
Move 2 galleys from Philo to LA, forgot about them completely.
Since my plan is to go after Bismarck as my next target, I sent one Galley around the continent to defend my future Fish in Zimbir and left one near Philly, to defend the Fish there.
Galleys don't make for great naval defenders, but the hope is that the AI will be less inclined to "walk in and pillage" our Seafood Resources if there is at least a military unit that needs to be engaged before they can pillage. Let's hope, anyway.
NY starts Caravell 9 turns, Grrr, I need more production!
Oops! I forgot to do that... although I regularly traded for World Maps, I later lost the Circumnavigation bonus to one of the AIs.
I need Slavery-OR to whip all these buildings, galleys and units
Well, it's too bad that you picked the Civics that you picked, since, well, we're playing from your game!
Also, it seems that you already used up a Golden Age, so no easy way out--for me, I'm just going to stick it out in Pacifism and Caste System and make the best of it, building a few more Workshops and (for once) playing my mid-game with very little whipping. As long as you're always working improved squares, this approach can work out well in the medium to long run, although no Slavery does mean no whipping "immediately desired" items like your Caravel.
Worker starts chopping near Washington to speed NE up.
I did the same. Actually, I'm planning on clear-cutting all of our Forests. Normally, I would prefer to be in Organized Religion when doing so, but since it seems like we'll be stuck in Pacifism, I figured that the immediate benefit of Forests without the Org Rel bonus was better than later Forests still without the Org Rel bonus.
We have sufficient Workers to do this kind of clear-cutting and sufficient Resources in trade to not worry about the loss of Health, so, hopefully, getting Forges and a couple of other buildings up from chopping can get me focused on Military Unit production that much sooner.
edu in 5, I can pull it in 3 but want gold for upgrades.
For me, I wanted Gold for trading purposes. I actually delayed researching Education for a long time, collecting about 1000 Gold.
The unit upgrades, in my opinion, are currently of little use. Axemen, Chariots, and a Catapult to Bombard (actually, Bismarck did all of my Bombarding, gotta love that guy) are more than sufficient to wipe out Gilgamesh. I'd suggest saving your Gold, since Bismarck is too huge to go up against anytime soon. Upgrade later, use the Gold for trading now.
Louis was first to Nationalism, so I threw a turn of research into it, finished off Education, and traded Education plus about 350 Gold to him for Nationalism.
Nationalism + Education let me pick up another trade or two.
Note that Huayna can also be bribed into Hinduism for less than 400 Gold, which is another use that I had for my saved-up Gold. I'm pretty sure that I got Printing Press off of him, using Nationalism + Education, thanks to having first paid the Gold to get him to Friendly as a fellow Hindu.
Yes, we risk the AIs liking each other more and trading even more actively, but Huayna was already Friendly with Louis, so it doesn't make THAT big of a difference, while it gives us one more advanced trading partner.
Workers move to improve Uruk. What a wonderful city! If I go attack Bis, I will move capital here.
That's a pretty good idea. I'd already started to Cottage it in my game, so I may just do so. But, I'll wait until I have some momentum against Bismarck and start capturing Cities before doing so.
On City-specialisation, Eridu looks like the best spot for our Heroic Epic.
I also Farmed-over our Cottages in Washington (not the Flood Plains one that New York can steal). I don't like to make the capital a Great Person Farm, but now that we're committed, we might as well go all-out, right?
We capture Zimbir with no losses( 4 workers?! What would I do with these
).
Start chopping!
Pacal created colony from what he got in our continent! Additional trade partner.
Pacal did the same in my game. Except, he spawned Elizabeth, an AI that everyone else hates. So, I don't dare trade with her, for fear of offending others for trading with their Worst Enemy.
Lui now ready to DoW Pacal! I guess its because of the drop in his score/power.
Louis will declare on someone he is only Pleased with.
Louis' attitude towards Pacal will be the average Attitude (rounded down) of how Louis feels about Pacal and how Louis feels about Pacal's Vassal.
So, if Louis is Cautious with Pacal's Vassal and Louis is Friendly with Pacal, then Louis, in terms of the War Declaration determination, is the average of those two (rounded down). This fact means that Louis will actually be Pleased with Pacal plus Pacal's Vassal until Louis is Friendly with each of them separately, and only then will he be Friendly towards their "team"--and Louis' attitude towards that "team" is all that matters for bribing Louis into war.
Therefore, it was a huge strategic error on Pacal's part to found a Colony (create a Vassal), since, until Louis is Friendly with that Vassal, Louis will treat the Pacal + Vassal relationship as Pleased (or lower), which is sufficient for us to be able to bribe Louis into a war with Pacal.
I don't think that I will make such a bribe, as I am not yet ready to take sides in such a war, but we'll see how things play out.
Yes we have cheap harbors but I do I need trebs instead?
I decided to build the Harbours, since they are cheap. It's my compromise--I'll build Forges everywhere, a couple of Courthouses (but not many), several Harbours, then try and STOP my builder tendencies cold in their tracks and just pump out Barracks + Units everywhere.
It's probably better just to skip the Harbours unless you have a City that can use the Health. For example, I stopped building the Aqueduct in New York on Turn 0 and will just put a Forge + Harbour there, then move onto military units. Harbours only act on the BASE Trade route value, so you really are only adding 0.5 * 1.0 (or 0.5 * 1.1 in a bigger-sized City) per Trade Route (so, roughly 0.5 + 0.5 = 1.0 extra Commerce, since we only have two Trade Routes). +1 Commerce per turn in the City is nothing to write home about.
The inner-Builder in me went a little Harbour-crazy, but enough is enough, Military Units after that--forget Markets, additional Courthouses, additional Libraries, and I'm not even going to build a single University, until the war with Bismarck is on and I actually start to win it.
Backstab Bis and liberate our continent?
That's my plan. But not with our current miserably-sized army. We need troops--a lot more troops--and that means skipping infrastructure.
Either that or keep your nose clean, stay out of further wars, and just build infrastructure.
A peaceful path is likely going to be a weaker approach than normal, since we don't have a set of well-matured Cottages in a Bureaucratic capital, meaning that rushing to Oxford University won't have as big of a payoff as it would have in the games where we matured a lot of Cottages in Washington and built the National Epic elsewhere.
Yes, Lui ready to DoW Pacal.
I would only pull that trigger if you plan to join in on one side of the war. If you won't do so, then you'll likely end up being asked to stop trading and to join the war by both sides, ending up with -1 to -3 negative Diplo points from both sides before their war is over. That drop in relations may lose you your Friendly status with one or both of those AIs. If they aren't Friendly towards you, you will lose your ability to keep trading with them beyond the WFYABTA limit.
Also I can bribe Bis into war with HC, Get Guilds from Pericles for edu and get banking for edu from Pacal next turn.
To each their own. I'd rather put a turn or two of research into techs like Nationalism and Printing Press and trade THOSE techs for Education.
I turned around and used one of the techs that I got from the other AI to backfill Guilds, if I recall correctly (like turning around and trading Printing Press to someone else the turn after getting it in trade, in exchange for Guilds).
The human player can definitely abuse trading, which is why WFYABTA is one of the limits put in the game. But, with several Friendly AIs, we can go back to using abusive trading practices, a-la-Mansa-Musa style, and climb the tech tree rather quickly.
I was just hitting enter without thinking. Should have put gold modifiers in and let the HE city do HAs. Giggles doesn't have many cities and his stack is in the border city that we can hit first turn... Bismarck is woefully behind due to grabbing all that land... I'm looking forward to see where you guys end up. I'm going to start again and HA rush Giggles as well so we can see which ends up being better. 
