I’m up to 15 cities. The only player I can see with more is naufragar, but he’s João, so he doesn’t count. The 15 cities is counting the one I took from Frolland, that was previously at 16 as well (now 15, as basic arithmetic shows me).
My economy is good. I have a library in my Capital and I’m generating a Gsci in an auxiliary city. I finally got my happy cap past 8, since Calendar is in this turn and I’m finishing a mine in the gems (got IW). My capital will get +3 from new happy, +2 from a market and probably +1 from a trade with CF. That’s enough happy to grow for the next 50 turns, I think. I also have currency. My GNP seems to be pretty high for someone that has almost no culture generation. Most of my numbers is commerce.
I’ll likely get an Academy with the first Gsci (I’ll stop teching after Calendar for a while), as my Capital will be a killer commerce city, as most others will be as well.
My power numbers are decent. I have a lot of archers, which don’t add too much, but are decent in defense. Piccadily has a lot more, but as the last SS shows, he’s serious about attacking Jowy, with a stack of HA’s (he’s the only one with HBr).
Frozen expanded very fast and it seems his economy suffered a bit. Graphs show I was always higher than him in GNP. I’m almost sure he went for Currency (stupid me never checked if he can trade gold), so he can’t have much more than I have (I know he has IW). Just checked, he has currency.
I have all the basic worker techs + archery, sailing, masonry, Myst, Maths, Currency, IW, Calendar. Frozen has everything I have, barring Calendar (does he have archery? I never seen a bowman), and he has a worse tech rate. So he can’t have any significant military advantage. I say that because I can see 2 people have Metal Casting and I’m trying to see if he’s one of them. I’ll probably have to go MC next, for the triremes. Even without the war, I think that is a power play, because we can’t forget the naval techs, as I usually do.
Cornflakes has very good tech. He has calendar for a while now. I need him as a friend. He could have messed me some turns ago by taking two workers (it’d be hard for him to profit from them, but even still). I’ve sent him 5 gold that turn, to show that I realized it and took that into account. Next turn, I’ll try to show him the option of attacking Frozen. He could take a city in the center of the donut, that is likely very lightly defended.
Djalma Santos is the city I took from Frolland. They didn’t attack for another turn, but they wipped two nearby cities this turn. Next turn, my axe will be full strength and I can unload a new axe in the city. They have one galley. If I can resist a bit more, I can get an archer there (whip) and then I’m mostly secure, I think.
I’m also proud of Casagrande. Frolland island city was settled way before, but I settled on the hill and chopped a monument on the same turn, which stole the fish (as you can see, peace with Frolland would never last all game). I really liked this play, albeit it was a simple one, because it was very proactive and fearless. I think Serdoa would be proud.
I attacked Frolland because it’s unacceptable to have players defending contested island cities with warriors. For the sake of the game, I could not let that stand. Obviously, it’s a move that I consider to be beneficial to me as well, but it has a bit of a moral meaning to it as well. Obviously the IMP/FIN team will dominate if no one checks their defenseless, culture-less cities. And since Picadilly is looking the other way, I was the one who had to act.
I think I was a bit unlucky that a size 3 city got 4 turns of revolt. That delays my whipping time, which is annoying. Alas, it my fault for not having brought an archer.
My demos are okay, I guess. Someone is kicking ass in the food department, but I can’t really complain about my numbers, when I’m AGG/ORG. Next turn, 2 cities will pop borders, so my northern cities won’t look so barren.
Jowy will likely lose some cities, which is pretty bad when you have only 7. Picadilly will be on a great position and CF will probably take something for himself as well. The future looks kind of bleak for me, in that sense. How can I keep up with them, when my land ended? They’ll have 1.5 of my land and I don’t see a way to overcome this. CF tech is very good, no way I’ll trample him with knights or something of the sort. Frolland is perhaps a more suiting target, but how do you attack a neighbor while protecting from your more powerful neighbor. And we’ll have border tensions forever, now that I attacked him.
Who knows, right? I’ll keep looking for opportunities, and that means having good naval tech and not slouching on military.
That’s my update. Any questions?
And neither simply enjoying the game and whatever happens happens because you'd like to do better, nor going fully the extra mile that it needs.
). I don't know how TBS does his thing as he doesn't post too much but he's certainly familiar with all of the mechanics and doing all the micro to put it to his favour. There is just no way to beat such in-depth planning without doing it yourself. You don't watch the football world championship and get disheartened that you are not as good as them right? 
