[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

I can get a missionary reasonably fast, my monastery in Dishes will finish in a few turns and I'll get started on a missionary after that. I also need that border pop to work the crabs, so it's high priority.

[Catwalk]

Turn 68

Turned research down one step too low, got Sailing sitting at 153/154.... whoops. Settler and axeman finished, monastery finishes next turn and I've started a spearman for the elephant city. Next turn I'm finishing a grass mine up by Vacuuming and returning the fish to Dishes. Demos have improved a little, and they will keep improving. I've stopped spying on Jowy, hopefully he will take that as a gesture of friendship. I'm currently at 160 EP, 141 needed for research visibility. He's getting Fishing next (just finished Writing), so he's not going for TGL.

[MaxPower]

I've looking back on this thread, to figure out whether it is possible Jowy is building the Oracle.
We know he didn't have meditation at turn 46, or poly at turn 56. We also know he was about to finish masonry at turn 60, then switched to writing, and he is now going for fishing. Is it possible he finished meditation right after you and then researched both priesthood and masonry before turn 61? We know his GNP has been lower than yours most part of game.
In my opinion he is NOT building the Oracle. Don't know if that is good news or not. Thing is, what other wonder could it be?
Temple of Artemis is a very unimpressive wonder, let alone the Great Wall. I guess he is building either expensive buildings like ikhandas or libraries, or maybe units not yet completed (power graphs don't show any big increase so far). Check power graphs every turn to guesstimate what he is up to.

[Catwalk]

I'm quite certain he finished Masonry, although it is indeed difficult to go back and look I'm intending this game to be fairly casual for me, so I have access to less information than I've had in previous games due to neglecting to check up on things like that. If you're interested in helping to figure out what opponents are up to, I can try to put up a few more screenshots.

I agree with your analysis that he's unlikely to have researched both Priesthood and Masonry in 14 turns. We'll see soon enough what he's up to, it may just be settlers.

[Catwalk]

Turn 69
Sailing is in, and we have a connection with both Nakor (as expected) and Jowy (somewhat surprisingly). This overview shot gives a good picture of everything going on right now:

Vacuuming, Groceries and Dishes are all set to grow imminently. Vacuuming doesn't have an extra tile to work, but that works out fine since it'll triple whip a settler a turn after (done on t74) and I don't have spare happiness either. Dishes has the PH mine, letting it finish a missionary on t76. The spearman finishes in two turns, just in time to take care of an incoming warrior. Groceries will double whip a worker in two turns. I'll use it to build a grass mine first, as it's difficult to make use of food with my tiny happy cap.

This is looking a little better, and it'll get better still with growth and settlement in 2 turns. I'm above average in all categories and close to the leaders, and I'm only at 50% science right now. I also have close to 3 granaries reasonably early on, I think some players will have less than that for short-term gain. The imports look particularly nice, hopefully Nakor won't feel cheated If he does, I think I will have full trade routes with Jowy by now.

Someone is still having fun with a toy army, 79k power at this point is a lot! Early Archery or Mathematics is 6k points, but I doubt someone would be at Mathematics and building a large army. Discounting techs, it means someone has 3 axes on me. Given that I have 3 axes already, that's a heavy military buildup.

[haphazard1]

Demos are looking pretty good, Catwalk. The connection to Jowy...hmmm, maybe he has founded at the "Jowy Filler" site you have marked? Or somewhere on that coastline, anyway? I suppose one of the rivers near Jowy might also lead to a coastal connection somehow, but I don't see such a link.

79K power at this point is pretty sizable. Maybe Furungy? He has the only AGG leader and could have built some cheap barracks, they add a bit of power rating. Might even have gone IW early for some praetorians. Otherwise it would have to be several axes and/or chariots, which sounds like an unpleasant surprise is coming for some neighbor somewhere.

[Catwalk]

Turn 70
Punching Bag has been founded:

It costs us an extra 5 gold in upkeep. 3 is recovered immediately from the trade route and the city tile commerce, leaving us with a net cost of 2 gold for +3 food and 1 hammer before improvements and growth. At size 2 with horses and cows, I get +5 food and +4 hammers for 1 gold. Settlers are a great deal with these settings, I need more! I wish I'd taken Victoria instead, IMP is well suited for a map with upkeep costs this low.

Demos got a tiny little bit better, so did those of other players:

I doubt the same player holds the lead in more than one category, so in terms of overall economy I may well be keeping up. Graphs suggest that I'm inching ahead of both Nakor and Jowy in all categories before too long. Jowy is keeping pace with my military buildup, Nakor is about a unit behind us. Jowy accepted my proposed wheat for wheat deal, Nakor didn't. My new city got a trade route with Jowy luckily, so I have full access to both of them. I bet other players are jealous at that net export Sailing seems like a worthwhile early investment, getting early trade routes without it seems impractical and expensive. It's curious that noone else has foreign trade routes yet, that likely means that noone has both Writing and Sailing. Given that Writing is a prereq for Mathematics => Currency, I think most are likely to have gone for Writing at this point. Which means that very few have Sailing. I'm almost tempted to go for GLH, had I lucked into FIN/IND like Jowy I would have been all over it by now.

I'm thinking that Foot Rubs up north may well be my best candidate for Moai. It has few good tiles to work, so getting extra good ones is worth quite a lot. I could also put it in Vacuuming, but Vacuuming already has a bunch of good tiles to work so it'll be difficult to get enough happiness for it. How much should I prioritize failgold from Moai? I could turn Vacuuming into an early gold city that way, first hooking up stone and then getting 2 gold per hammer with the only downside being having to wait for them for a while. That delay can either cost me a lot or be inconsequential, depending on tech timing. If I complete Moai right at the start of a Currency with empty coffers, 250 gold can let me ride all the way to completion at 100% research. Completing it at Vacuuming will take me 8 turns without chops, completing it at Foot Rubs will take me another 8t with 2 chops and 2 grass mines. That'll probably be tight, and it'll require me to delay Calendar while I detour to Masonry. Organized Religion is also an option, but that'd require a turn of anarchy. I still think I want to do a triple revolt to OR, HR and CS all at once later on in GA.

On a side note, Dishes may have been the wrong city for the monastery. Missionaries aren't good for whipping, you need to produce them by hand. The better plan may have been to triple whip settlers from Dishes (with its high happy cap) and produce missionaries by hand in Vacuuming. 40 hammers for a missionary that can be built quickly in an existing city is a way better deal than 30 hammers for a monument that has to be built slowly in a new city, so I'll want to provide a missionary to every new city that needs a border pop. I need to make a mini plan for each new city including border plans and worker plans, I tend to be forgetful about that sometimes. If I seem like I don't know what I'm doing when wanting a new city, slap me around a little

Lastly, I decided to go with 4a over 4b for my new city. I'd say it cost me half a coin extra in upkeep, and I get a bit more visibility once my borders pop. I may not need a border pop here though, as I'll likely try to expand 3W of it later to grab wheat. I also get to use a single lighthouse lake tile with this location, and every little bit counts.

[Catwalk]

I just realized something about Jowy's expansion:

I've boxed in the resources he has, only extra resource not shown is pigs. This makes me believe that he settled the two locations I guessed at. He has 2 extra culture, either from 2 monuments or from the first one doubling after 1000 years. What puzzles me is that he doesn't have Ivory or Fish yet. His first monument is around 20 turns ago, so it has easily popped borders by now. It could also be a religion spreading to one of his cities, of course. Any guesses as to what the answer is? I'll find out in a few turns so it matters little, but it's an interesting puzzle.

[haphazard1]

More cities == good news.

Hmmm, "wheat for wheat" deal? Not sure what you meant by this?

The demos are looking up, with above average ratings in many categories. A bit more GNP would be nice but that figure does get distorted both positively and negatively by non-commerce things.

[Catwalk]

Wheat for wheat is basically a gesture of peaceful intentions, same as saying "Hi I'm not planning on invading you, feel free to believe that or not". Even if he takes it to mean that, he has no particular reason to believe me. I think it might help a tiny bit, and I am sincere in not planning on invading him. Other than stealing his jungle, of course I think Jowy is a bit behind economically, and I don't think he has any chances of landing GLH given that he's only finishing Fishing just now. With Stonehenge and Pyramids already gone, that means no good early wonders for him. If he gets the Oracle (unlikely, as my discussion with MaxPower showed) then he might get Colossus, which would be a pretty good wonder for him since he's FIN/IND. Oracle => Colossus is a no-brainer strategy for this combo IMO, you get both cheap forges and useful water tiles. For a non-FIN civ, +1 commerce on water only makes them sort of okay tiles. You're still not going to want to work them until you run out of pretty much everything else. With FIN, Colossus turns them into decent tiles that are worth planning your expansion around. If Jowy starts going for Metal Casting, I'll likely go for it as well and try to beat him to it.

What do you think about my Moai considerations? I'd definitely prefer GPP pooled in Vacuuming as I'm likely to be able to get another wonder there later and I can afford running a specialist or two as needed. On the other hand, the bonus hammers do much more good in the oasis city due to its lack of good tiles to work.

I actually take the middling GNP as a sign that I'm doing something right Had it been higher, that would have meant fewer food or hammers and it's definitely food and hammers I need at this point. As I mentioned above, new cities are still a great investment for me, even more so with 2c trade routes. I will be prioritizing capital cottages around now, one worker returned from Vacuuming to start working on that.