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

[Gavagai]

My reasoning is that we will be starved for hammers, given that we don't have discounts on early builds as many other players do and will want to try to run caste system. That's why I'm averse to investing hammers in wonders. And also - what will Parthenon yield us? Let's take a city running 5 specialists. It is 15 base GPPs, 15 more from phil and another 15 from pacifism. 45 overall. And then Parthenon is built and this 45 are turned into - 52? Less, then from running an additional specialist? Do you still think that this thing is worth building?
And one last thing. If there is a marble wonder I would still want to build, it is Mausoleum of Maussolos. It can win us this game in Renaissance era. If we win a liberalism race (which shouldn't be difficult assuming no early wars, given that we are phil/fin leader), I can easily set up 36 turns of golden age with this thing. Can't see us losing a game in this situation.

Regarding techpath - we will also want calendar quite early as this jungles indicate (another reason I'm thinking about Mausoleum). And we may be forced to tech construction. So, this is quite a lot of expansive classical staff, actually - that's why I'm averse to teching aesthetics.
On the other hand - philosophy, civil service, paper, guilds, education, printing press - all these stuff can be bulbed. In an ideal world we will really need to research manually only feudalism and machinery from medieval techs. And also banking, though it can be bulbed too (don't see a point in that, however). But this applies only to a situation where we are able to run caste system. I'm not sure they will let us to. Plan B is to build TGL and National Epic in a food-rich city and cut our bulb ambitions to about a half.

Edit: and yes, we will be also most possibly forced to research engineering and gunpowder early - for defense purposes. Also, I would really want to get chemistry early somehow - then we may allow ourselves to stick with caste system. Not sure, how we can do it though. Another problem of this kind is getting astronomy.

[Bacchus]

We don't know what our long-term prod situation will be like. We can expect it do be dreadful from the latitude, but who knows what we'll explore. I can see cases where we might grab Parthenon, but I don't see them as likely, you are quite right.

MoM is awesome for this, obviously.

We'll have to see the lands, the more isolated we will be, the easier it will be to run caste, another remark from the old Captain.

[Gavagai]

Game is about to be started but I want to note here a new Serdoa's thread title. It looks like we are playing against a dream team which also has the best leader/civ combo. Well, should be interesting.

[Gavagai]

Sunrise hasn't rehost the game yet and I will be away from PC for next ~14 hours. Bacchus feel free to log in, make planned moves, if you want (scout NW-NE, settle on banana, grassland forest, WB, Mysticism) and end turn. I would only ask you to put a turn report here if you do so.

[Gavagai]

Game is up and I popped into it before work. Settled the city as planned, moved a scout but didn't end turn as I was in a rush and was afraid that I could be missing something important.
Bacchus, if only you have time in the morning, can you log into the game, check everything, grab screenshots (and post them here) and end turn? Or otherwise I'll do it after I'm home.
We have a grassland cow to the north of the capital in its third ring. Or may be fourth, I'm not actually sure I remember.

PS Password is "elizabeth" like before.

[Gavagai]

Alternative micro idea: to build a worker after the second WB, at size 3. The worker will chop while the city grows to size 4 on WB, the chop goes into a settler which is immediately whipped for two pop with overflow going into the third WB. It will allow to get a much faster first settler (at about T32) but without an escort warrior. Actually, I may really want to go with this plan if there is a good spot to the east of the capital, sharing the clams.

[Bacchus]

I think we need to spend the time researching Mysticism, scouting and building the first WB, then re-assess in the view of revealed settlement positions.

[Gavagai]

Demos at T0 after Merowar and Sian settled. Very interesting data. I'm the first in land area which means that both Sian and Merowar are coastal. GNP data implies that one of them is researching a tech with 1.2 bonus. Most surely it is BW (they both have mining). But the other one is researching a tech without bonuses, just like me, as I'm the second in GNP, not the third.
If I remember correctly draws are decided in favor of a player with the highest playernumber. Sian is player 8 and I'm player 7 but Merowar is player 1. It means that if I'm winning a draw, I'm winning it against Merowar. Merowar has mining and agri as their starting techs and it would be quite feasible for them to open with Myst - Med. Well, suck for them if it is true, as we are going to beat them to med via working clams. Another possibility, of course is that they decided to research the wheel, though it makes little sense.
Crop yield and mfg imply that they both are working 2f1h square, grassland forest most probably. I could probably deduce number of forests for both by looking at life expectancy but have no desire to do it now.
Of other players, four have ended turns without settling and three more haven't claimed their civs as of now.

And yes, city name screams that we need a naming theme. Would decide on it now.

Edit: another possibility is that Merowar are researching fishing.

[Bacchus]

No riverside crops or floodplains for Sian or Knightovech.

Forests for the rival best are easy: as many as we have, or maybe 1 less, provided everyone has fresh water, and the other guy has two or three forests less.

Alternative explanation for GNP is that Sian settled on a riverside commercial resource for 2 extra gold and is likewise researching Mysticism, which would be a bit annoying. But then could also be agriculture. Have you tried switching to BW to see whether GNP does indeed go to 18?

Would Knightovech have picked a non-fishing civ and a non-financial leader for a start which merits researching fishing first? Mysticism is also weird, given 2 financial fishermen in the mix. You would have thought Spi/Exp of China is bound to go BW. On tie-breakers, the "highest" playernumber is the larger one, rather than 1st being in fact first? I guess the fact that Sian is ahead on the scoreboard supports that view.

EDIT: Yes, I know nothing about this game. Let's build a Trooper.

[Gavagai]

Kurumi has settled his city. His land value is 7000, this means that he is freaking coastal! OK, you have a coastal start and choose Mongolia with hunting / the wheel over Rome with fishing / mining. Well, may be he had reasons.