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Ruff finally took SD's holy city and seems to have survived so far with quite limited losses (1 or 2 axes being our estimate). There was some fighting before, but now when he took the city he did not lose a single unit. SD's copper comes online, so here's the hoping that there will actually be some fighting in the future as well... 
Overall Ruff has invested quite a bit for this war, but I can't fault him at all. With SD having very limited abilities to hit back, I think this might have been a solid mid-term investment. So congrats Ruff  It's a bit hard to judge his position without having scouted Native American borders, but while the scoreboard does not look too good at the moment, there is a good chance that Ruff will be one of the powerhouses in this game.
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Turns 47-49
Here is our little empire after the first 50 turns of the game:
- 4 cities
- 5 workers
- 3 terraces
- Military is replaced by sentry quechuas and power graph/ratio staring
There are tighter (and more interesting) corners in our world where civs fight and compete for valuable land between each other. The fact that the land between us and our neighbors is so barren is both the strength and weakness of our start. We are jealous of those cities around the world that have more than 1 food resource, but at the same time we are happy that we have been able to focus on squeezing every bit of value out of the resources that we have at hand.
With Sailing coming in, next up is our own backlines island city:
I guess settling for a single crabs resource is not too amazing, but doubling the value of our trade routes provides a healthy commerce boost.
Demos keep looking solid despite terrace whips - let's enjoy those for a brief moment before the winners of wars and land grabs get to consolidate their gains..
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Turns 50-53
No big news, just executing the micro plan and following what neighbors are doing. I think Elkad whipped a galley last turn and now preparations for a galley full of axes are ongoing.. Elkad's total force should consist of 2 axes, 1 warrior and 1 galley so it's really unlikely that he would be sending a city razing force our way, but might as well take that possibility into account.. 
We are also quite close to our first island city: - T54 Settler and galley are whipped
- T55 Settler and worker loaded to the galley
- T56 Units unloaded
- T57 City #5 founded + Crabs consume our dear working boat
As a sidenote, F4 screen is providing us more info than it should, I think. I don't believe we should see saved gold and gpt without Currency:
Not really a biggie, but probably worth fixing for the next game.
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Stupid me, why did I forget that. Will be fixed.
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Turns 54-57
City #5 sees the light of day.
And that makes demos strong. I’m quite happy with the micro performance so far and the early development lead it has enabled.
But when we think about the big picture… This is pretty much where we peak. Our scout has covered other players with multi-food cities and I think that land-wise there are civs that can match our 5 cities with their existing four sites. (land area stat from above also gives you an idea)
Our expansion options are quite non-existant from now on. If we burn a barb city we can settle for a sheep resource, but that sheep city won’t even theoretically grow past size 4. In the north we could pink dot for a 2nd ring rice and some kind of access to the jungle area. That’s pretty much it.
But do not interpret me wrong, I’m not complaining at all. Our isolated start has allowed us to focus on snowballing and this does give us options. We even have a neighbor (SD), who has suffered from an early war.. So, let’s see how it all plays out, this most certainly is not a game where you try to hit a nice timing with knights..
***
I slacked and did not provide a comprehensive T50 report, so let’s compensate a little bit. You can find our domestic status from T49 above, so here are some quick thoughts about the other civs..
The War Heros
I’ve praised Cornflakes here before. Cute stuff with an early Garden-CHA abuse and successful bowman rush. But at this point the price he has paid for the military success seems a bit too high. Cornflakes is the top power of the game, but so far he has no city captures, just a single raze. True winners? All the other players in the north. That being said, Cornflakes just pushed himself to 4 cities and is thus starting to fill the space that he created for himself. He is most definitely not that much behind and there is comeback potential.
Winning chances: In the race 
***
Don’t let Ruff’s low position on the scoreboard confuse you. He is playing a slow AGG/SPI Montezuma and invested into a bunch of early axes.. But it paid off. Capturing an early city is a decent reward for the investment, but it being a holy city? Well, that makes it a lot sweeter for a SPI leader. We do not know anything about Ruff’s land, but SD whipped himself completely to the ground, so keeping the gains should be doable without too big further investments. Ruff seems invested into this game and it’s pretty much now in his own hands to make this game a success.
Winning chances: Very much in the race 
The Beaten
I have not become wiser whether Raskolnikov made a mistake or if he was just unlucky. He kinda is still breathing, but I think he has checked out and Cornflakes keeps adding pressure..
Winning chances: Hoping for a miracle 
***
Superdeath made a cute holy city play, but Ruff called the bluff. SD whipped his cities to the ground and still lost the city. So here we are crossing our fingers for a scenario where SD can still cause pain to Ruff while we get to eat Rome’s remaining cities.
Winning chances: More pitboss games needed 
The Builders
We only know parts of Elkad’s play, but this just can’t be the way you are supposed to play with EXP/IMP Joao. Elkad spent the first 23 first turns at size 1 and founded his 3rd city on turn 52, and in quite a weird spot too.. He might not have to pay the real price for that though. His closest neighbor Cornflakes has been busy elsewhere and it’s still quite pink-dottish for us to contend northern sites.
Winning chances: The ship has not sailed yet 
***
Miguelito went for a very early 2nd city and the pinkest dot I remember seeing for a while. As described earlier, this should lead to an early bloody conflict, but if it does not.. Well, I’m sure Miguelito has more quality in his 4 cities than what we will have with our theoretical 7 peaceful cities..
Winning chances: Very much until not anymore 
***
And then we have a squeezed Commodore sitting at just three cities. I think that should mean that hammers are flowing into the war machine.. Fireworks is inevitable, but as the northeast seems like a complex mess, timing is still blurry. I believe that a Mexican standoff would benefit Miguelito and I think Commodore knows that as well.
Winning chances: Still doable 
***
Mr. Cairo’s conservative archers+settlers opening does not seem the fastest, but could be exactly what’s needed when you push your civ towards Commodore and Miguelito. If he has enough quality land to his east, Cairo’s position actually might be comfortable enough that he could wait and pick up the spoils of potential Commodore-Miguelito war.
Winning chances: Why not? 
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Turns 58-60
No big domestic news, but globally Miguelito oracled MC. Nothing truly synergistic or snowbally in that, but of course nice for him if his neighbors just let him continue buildering.
Elkad also showed up with an axe+roading worker at our border (NW of flood plains). I'm quite clueless re what's happening. It does not really make sense for offensive purposes - if you are attacking, build the road with 2 workers and move the units immediately into our borders. And if he is expanding to the rice, why build the road there at our border?  I guess we are not really bothered by that, but more just clueless. We already have a trade route connection..
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Turns 61-63
War!
60 turns of sandboxing is over and we are moving to "always war" phase of the game. War was declared on superdeath this turn. Comeback to proper reporting will also follow in a bit..
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Turns 64-65
The Real War!
Yeah, the last report and war declaration to SD was kind of fake news. It’s time to show what’s really boiling..
As discussed earlier, I don’t believe in the long-term potential of our land and something has to be done while we are in position to do something. Crippled superdeath to our east is an option, but we have been asking ourselves... Can we do something more?
So here’s a plan that I showed to OH and Hitru 12 turns ago:
Yeah, I liked this plan quite a lot. 4 combat workers, possibility to hit Elkad out of the fog with HAs and chance to take his 3 core cities in 3 turns. Potentially a game-winning strike.. So that’s the direction we went.
It required indeed very early planning to get all the necessary roads and improvements in place so that we could have all the HAs and 4 workers timely in the north.. But unfortunately 15-turn (attack) micro plans quite rarely survive real life..
And this time our plans were trashed in quite a spectacular way: 
Well, that’s a “in-your-face city” if I’ve ever seen one!
We were already planning to attack Elkad so no big feelings.. But if we had not been already on the move, well that’s an invitation if I’ve ever seen one.
***
So here we go! We had been following Elkad’s power throughout the game, so we knew long time ago that he had couple of axes in his composition. So while waiting for HBR, we had built couple of chariots to counter them..
C1 Chariot vs Axe 88%... WIN!
Chariot vs Axe 78%... WIN! 
And in-your-face city is no more. Auto-razed for the prize of 3 gold.
All good so far, but the follow-up will unfortunately not be as crushing as I initially hoped. In the original plan we were revealing our forces two turns later and two turns is forever in terms of how big defensive forces one can prepare.
Elkad has consistently had the most population out of our opponents so he has resources to do quite a lot. Our success might come down to small decisions, what Elkad has in his production queues and ancient battle luck.. Stay tuned!
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I love partially amphibious attacks. 
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What, no arrows all over the diagram from OH?
Have fun.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
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