[Spoilers] Gavagai, Bacchus and Elizabeth Form a Romantic Trio

[Gavagai]

Defending our two new border cities would be a pain. Jester can one-turn them from the fog, even with one-movers. I will unlikely be able to push back his borders before our peace is over.
However, this gives me some hope:



We spotted borders of Rohan, the horse city. It is actually pretty far from his core and not in this heavily forested region as I feared. This means that he is unlikely to build a lot of chariots in next ten turns. I will have at least one spear in each of my cities, quite possibly more. That should be enough. To hold him off.
Should I be annoying with my scouting chariot and destroy the road between Rohan and his capital? If Rohan is coastal, I don't think it worth it.



My core which is pretty pathetic for this state of the game. And I can't even say that it will get much better soon. I don't have worker force and, more importantly, don't have pop to work tiles.



I don't think I ever mentioned that but while my main army was fighting in the north I had a constant stream of barb warriors coming from the south. My axe which you can see standing on the hill SW from capital is already combat1shock and I'm pretty sure I will have my heroic epic unit soon.
This is one of the reasons I think that Kurumi is actually pretty far south and we have a lot of empty space between us. Another reason is that for a long time he had no contact with anyone of our neighbors but clearly had a contact with someone else.
As you can see, barbs are now fielding axes. My response is to bring south an additional axe, freshly completed in Yark. Also, I have chariot going here but it will be most likely sent to scout the south.



My capital. As you can see, it is working literally every decent tile available. It will whip a library next turn, then grow to size five (happy cap) and build worker -> settler. After the library is built, I'll turn on research and will most probably be able to grow it between a worker and a settler due to HR happiness.



This city (my second one!) would probably make every lurker cry. I know that I have to start growing it yesterday but I really need this spear and have nowhere else to build it. After spear it will do a granary, I promise.



This one will complete a settle (to settle eastern corn at last), then grow to size 6 -> whip a library -> run scientists. Also it will produce two spears assisted with chop.



That's a crappy one. I decided to go granary before monument: a farm on the floods will be completed next turn and this tile will be almost as good as the farmed corn. Also this city has 5 hammers invested into a spear. Will be whipped at some point.



This city will whip a monument immediately after it grows. I would normally hate to do that in a city like this but given the situation with culture I don't have much choice.



And here it actually makes sense to do a library. I can build it in 9 turns, I think: 30 hammers from whip, 30 from chop and the remainder will come naturally (I'm going to work plains forest after growth). A monument can be whipped in seven turns, hence, we will actually have a faster border expansion if we go for a library.



Demos are... acceptable, actually (though below average GNP is disturbing if you account for the Oracle and a holy city; on the other hand, we are saving gold now, though it doesn't help much). I expected them to be worse at that point.

[Gavagai]

Well, we knew he was running scientists from the GNP.

Do you think he can now research Construction?

Not in 10 turns definitely. He has something like 5-6 pop now and a terrible happy cap.

[Bacchus]

Would it make sense to move onto the copper hill in ten turns?

What plans for the Prophet?

[Gavagai]

1. Prophet will build a shrine of course.
2. May be. It will depend on the situation we will have in ten turns. Another option we will have is to move chariots to raze Rohan - or at least to make them think we are going to do this. Rohan is pretty isolated and if we force them to keep units there instead of stacking them in Moria, it would bee excellent.

[Gavagai]

Jester has decent land in the north. I destroyed the road between Rohan and his core. According to his trade screen he lost his horse after that (which means that he doesn't have Sailing, just as I expected).
What is interesting, Jester is still whipping a lot. He whipped his capital for two pop this turn, whipped Moria for one pop previous turn. He has silver in Rohan which was helping him with happiness. Of course, it got disconnected too.
Next turn we will have a shrine and a new city.

[Bacchus]

He didn't settle 1N of the sheep to get horses first ring, whilst in the middle of a war?

[Gavagai]

I think he settled this city before he saw my chariots but yes, this was a game-losing mistake for him. I think, he underestimated the threat and didn't readjust his dotmap.

[Gavagai]

I'm really annoyed by this missed turn situation. I have a pretty busy schedule and it's still beyond my imagination how one can fail to organize his turn played in 24 hours. Or at least fail to ask for a pause.
And not to reload isn't a good solution either. Civ shouldn't be punished for the sins of the player.
If only we have a good way to punish players...

[Gavagai]

The shrine is built. Buddhism spread very quickly to my first two cities and then stopped spreading. I hope, the shrine will change this situation as I really need culture in my new cities.



My core with eastern corn settled.



You can't see it on the picture but Jester has a settler on the stone. He will most probably settle on a tile where his chariot is. I have destroyed another piece of his road.



My next big strategic choice: should I focus on destroying Egypt ASAP or should I postpone this war and prioritize colonizing this lucrative region?

[Gavagai]

New turn and how often have you seen this before?



This axe had 2 strength and was standing on the jungle. Barb warrior had 10% odds.

PS. Well, this is ridiculous. I finished off this warrior with a chariot but he managed to knock it down to 2.3 health. Now my chariot has negative chances against an axe moving towards it...