First is Always the Best(spoilers BaII)

[BaII]

Turn 45

I got beat to a city site. It's an extremely fertile city as well. So I might try to rush Dtay with a couple of axes and capture the city. Or raze and replace it on the orginial tile I wanted since it's safer.

[BaII]

Turn 49

So I've decided to go rush Dtay with 4 axes and a spear to try and raze his city that had taken one of my city spots in a few turns.
I'm going to get out to axemen by double whipping 1 and overflowing enough to complete another. Also the acedemy arrived and it is drastically increasing my research.

[BaII]

Hey look, Dtay made a post and the lurker thread has gotton some posts. I'm guessing Dtay noticed my power spikes.

[BaII]

Turn 50



Zed is going to make a 2nd spear after this one to protect the city from the immortal. After that it's going to be making a worker.



Capital is going to regrow and work the cottage tiles to make use of the academy. Also cap it at size 4 by building a worker until the the ivory happiness is hooked up.



This city is going to be working on another settler for the gold city site. After that it's going to grow while building a library. Also the workers that are currently pasturing the horse tile is going to go improve the capital and laying down the roads for the strike against Dtay.



This is going to be the spot where the troops gather. Road this tile and when the troops are all stationed there have two workers road 1W so that the stack can move 1W 1SW onto the plains forest tile, then move onto the grassland hills tile and if their isn't enough troops to take out the city then just retreat and play defensive. Also the settler Ezreal is building is going to replace the razed city of Dtay on the tile marked Gragas.

[BaII]

Turn 51



Would love to be able to raze one of those cities, except he knows what I'm planning.



PITBOSS 13 SPOILER

So after looking at how Dtay managed to rush TBS I realized I should have done just taken 2 axes, I believe he only had one 1 axemen to defend his whole empire, so I could have taken the city I wanted.

[BaII]

Turn 52

I'm currently focusing on catching up Dtay. My next city will put me back in line with Dtay, then I can focus on vertical growth, hopefully timing it with a GA so I can revolt into HR, OR and Judaism.



This the next city site I have planned to help isolate out the city I wanted since it's pretty far out. I also offered Dtay OB just to get in some trade route income, and hopefully improve our relations.



I'm about to get some ivory hooked and if u look to the upper right hand corner of the screen u will see that poppy has also been founded to claim some gold up there. Once I can get those happy resources under my control I can start growing upwards again.
Currently running towards currency to get out those extra trade routes, as my economy is going to be crashing shortly as breakeven is at 45%.

[Qgqqqqq]

Just catching up now...why are we at war with dtay? While we're clearly behind in expansion, this isn't going to help, and with at least a 5 turn deployment rate there's no way we're going to take any cities with axes, so I think we should definitely call off the attack, or perhaps simply move to threaten and then quickly retreat when he whips sufficiently. I'm almost certain that wasting worker turns on a combat road which we aren't going to get any benefit from, while we have an unprepared new city, and several cities working unimproved tiles (including the odd move with unlighthoused coast).

[BaII]

Yah I changed my mind on that since he noticed shrug* Were not too far behind right now. Just need to get the happiness hooked up and then start expanding once currency comes in. We're not that far behind currently same number of cities as everyone except Dtay. After currency we probably want to go priesthood to get up a temple to run a priest to get the shrine up to help increase natural spreading and get pre req bonuses for monarchy.

[Qgqqqqq]

Ok so I've played the first turn. Proper update will have to wait, but some notes for BaII:
I sent the two eastern workers to road the forest NW of Poppy. One was standing around doing nothing and the other was cottaging the capital, but the cottage doesn't seem in any way urgent given we have spare cottages to grow on already and it won't be using them for a while anyway given it's building a worker. I felt that getting a connection ASAP was important for commerce reasons. As most places are building workers/have happy room, I intend to focus on improving the cows.
I whipped the settler in Ezreal, swapping the capital onto the deer and gaining a turn on its worker build. We don't have the worker labor to improve the new city, so I intend to add another worker to the westernmost cities queue, which will probably be whipped in two turns time. The net result of this was a lost cottage and 3c farm, but given it speeds up both the worker and the settler I considered it worthwhile.
In light of the above, I moved the southern axe to support the new city.

[Qgqqqqq]

Everything as above basically. A note on your priesthood plan: I really don't think it's worth it, as it won't come in before a academy, and will take about 40 turns of working a priest to do so. If it comes in before, then that's still 20 odd turns waiting on it, and it delays the academy! I think a shrine isn't worth that much, especially in a small pbem map, and would mostly serve as a nice shiny for whoever conquers us.
Speaking of which, we are definitely quite far behind the leaders, dtay and Azza (who finished the Great Lighthouse this turn) and, in all honesty, probably won't ever catch them. I'll post the demos next turn, but I'm sure you understand what I mean. Still, we can but try!

I notice that you offered OB to dtay at some stage, are you comfortable with me doing so again? He is the game leader, but then we are well placed to explore his lands and he is not.