Here are a few screenshots:
Capital had stagnated for a while working specialists for the 2nd Great Person (Theology bulb) but has since reclaimed the deer + grass cows from neighboring cities and is growing up to the happy cap in order to maximize the upcoming Bureaucracy boost. It will have a heavy production focus making use of the +50% production bonus for construction of the monk wonders.
Decision Makers has enough food in the granary storage to get us through the next Great Person. I could have had this great person 2 turns earlier but I was hedging my bets in case I lost the 75% roll for the 2nd prophet (which was successful last turn). I throttled the GPP by holding back scientists so that I could maximize the prophet chance. My plan was to launch the GA with enough GPP accumulated here that I could exactly birth this GP in 7 turns (at about 85% odds) in order to claim Civil Service via bulb on the last turn of the GA for the free swap. As-is I'll be able to launch the GA on T104 with either the prophet or scientist.
The long-term plan for this city is to lumbermill all the forests and turn this into a production center. Meanwhile it has been juggling cottages and specialists between the capital to the east and Money to the north. It has been very handy to be able to switch those cottages around and make sure they have been worked 100% of the time.
Resource Base has stagnated with a lack of food resources. I mis-played the micro here. The intent was to finish the monastery with no overflow in order to set up a 2-whip of a missionary. I may dump this overflow into something else so that I can set up the 2-whip next turn. Long term plan is probably to stagnate working a couple of scientists for the beakers. I don't think I'll ever build the Christian shrine but may if the Apostolic Palace religion gets spread around.
Money spent quite a few turns working specialists and successfully rolled the 2nd Great Prophet end of last turn
Civil Service can be bulbed as soon as I finish Code of Laws, but isn't absolutely needed until T104 when I am able to launch the GA. This is a powerful city and well worth the scuffle with MJMD earlier to secure it. I'm not taking any chances as you can see with 3 axes and 2 spears garrisoning. I also have an additional 5 axes in zone defense towards the Indian front ... but Suckstaciv has about 10 axes and a half dozen spears/archers so those zone defense units are pretty well tied down.
Christian monastery completes this turn and then I'll start building missionaries. I considered whipping but I want to keep those cottages worked and pop high for the upcoming GA. I may 2-whip + overflow one time to get a pair of them out. But I also want to pop available for emergency whipping. It wouldn't surprise me at all if MJMD builds up a stack to challenge me here as the peace treaties with Superdeath + Sucksatciv wind down in the next 5-6 turns.
Long-term plan for Money is to cover the plains hills with windmills. This will be another nice production center.
Monitor is the city that I sniped from SAC in the First Arabian-Indian War. It boasts the largest concentration of grassland tiles in the known world outside of the capitals so I am taking advantage of that for cottages. I will eventually put windmills up on the hills and it will turn into a nice production center as well. The theme of this map is poor commerce with decent to excellent production potential. I think that this is an extra boost to PHI + Pyramids synergy above and beyond the typical. I can front-load the tech and then leverage a mild tech lead at Maces with the high MFG + Police State.
Control had been growing into specialists until this interturn when I just reconfigured onto the coast. Notice that my gold per turn is negative and the balance is getting uncomfortably low. Therefore I am foregoing a few turns of REP beakers for the immediate commerce. As painful as the un-lighthouse non-FIN coast is, the 1 food from those tiles adds up vs. running specialists and speeds growth by a couple turns so that is at least some consolation (
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Long-term plan is to build Moai Statues here but that requires Sailing which has been lower priority. However BING opened borders this turn so I need to take a good hard look at the map and see if sailing would provide us a trade route. I may try to slip that in ahead of Metal Casting > Machinery since it will pay back quickly if indeed it grants me a trade connection.
Herd Effect is my newest city towards India. The Rice, Cow, and Marble are all on or across "the line" so that is extra territory that I was able to claim.
Obligatory shot of the aggressive border city towards Superdeath. That's 4th ring capital culture there 1NE. Clams will be stolen the turn after the border pop
(i.e. 2 turns from now). I need 500 culture to flip the tile to the northeast but that would give knights 2-turn access to his capital
This is part of the reason why I am playing so conservatively with heavy military builds while flirting with strike, even though I have top power already by a decent margin. If I can maintain my current position given my territorial and strategic advantages I'm very confident that I can convert this into a victory. I have achieved "Medieval Dominance" already and I don't want to fall into my historical follow-through with "crashes and burns".
Tech tree for status ... even though Charriu will give you all the juicy details anyway in a couple turns
Iron Working is Superdeath since he already has iron connected. I'm guessing it popped under one of his cities because I noticed it on his trade screen the same turn that I saw it on the tech advisor (although I wasn't checking every turn). Iron Working is a little surprising but then I remember that the gems on this map are jungled so he probably has one of those in his territory. Nobody has Currency, Construction, or HBR yet. But Superdeath's research rate should be around 50-70 at breakeven so he should be getting at least one of those in the next 5 turns.
it can complete all those units back-to-back while generating enough overflow to complete another 2 units! But what else can I do?
(disregarding the Forge build)
", but my heart says "COLOSSUS 
"