[Spoiler] OW PBC1 Chaotic Neutral

[Ginger*]

Oh when I left the note about the ambassador, I thought you still had the negative wisdom one that was throttling your culture development. The current guy is fine.
If you have the opportunity to tech Polis-Forestry soon, please do, I'm going to start running out of Wood very quickly as I build even more monasteries, granaries, and start on some Ranges in 7t. In fact, wood is probably going to be my limiting factor this game. I have a ton of orders to start chopping but not enough workers.
Settling more the of the Scythian sites is another priority, I'd save your gold for that instead of recruiting more mercs.

Edit: nvm we need to get you a 5str unit tech, Steel/Phalanx/Spoked Wheel. Babylonia has Chariots, if we don't also have a 5str unit we'll be hurting

[Bruindane]

Year 32: Skirmishing in the north

Spotting the Roman settler en-route we now get that they previously sent their warrior east to protect it. We do draw their warrior at Bastions to move north, while their southern Nomad Skirmisher moves into the open towards Agoge in what must be bait.

   

That Babylon chariot projects a lot of power into all theaters, but we also have plenty of counter attack possibilities. The ability for teammates to move their ally's units is hard to account for, as Kaiser could move idle roman troops to set up CMF's attacks, though I don't mind it when Ginger does it for me.

[Bruindane]

Year 33: Battle at Aeminium

Between turns, Kaiser moved his chariot north giving the freedom for Ginger to attack and kill Rome's bait nomad mercenary southwest of Bastions. That chariot is just in range to be stunned by the marksman slinger led by my tactical leader on my turn.

Rome meanwhile marches north with two warriors, and another spotting incoming from the east. The city name of Aeninium peaks out from the fog as Rome's forces maul one of my Nomad Mercenaries to 1 health.

   

Using all of our available orders for this battle and a critical hit, we kill one warrior and a skirmisher

[Bruindane]

Zoomed on the corner mini-map. Didn't see a full screen 'mini' map to share.

   

Our team's kill streak is 9 units in a row with no losses, and an overall kill ratio of 14:2. This streak is about to end as Rome now has at least three warriors at Aeminium and Babylon initiated battles in the woods near Bastion.

Military competency aside, my economic management is subpar, perhaps criminal for a teammate, though learning as I go. The focus on to curry favor with the Tribes while bribing mercenaries did positively impact the battlefield. I do worry, that CMF will bribe our Scythian allies in our back-lines, though it might be too expensive for them, as we have killed five Roman mercenaries to date and they may have recruited some elsewhere. I imagine there's a formulae for scaling legitimacy cost for Orators to recruit mercenaries.

[Ginger*]

Okay with Ishtar falling I just had a massive swing turn, with 8 new culture level-up events :D

The windfall in short:
4th Ambition finished + Leader is now known as "The Magnificient", or the second highest possible cognonem for +90 legitimacy for a total of 167 legitimacy—total orders now sit at 34 per turn.
~340 science
~600 gold
2 additional charisma stat points for a grand total of 13, which gives 79 global civics per turn and a 210% civic modifier as governor, which means our Clerics seat is making 89 civics per turn. We are converting most of that into growth via festivals at a rate of 3:2. We are strangely capped by food in our costs to upgrade specialists, which is quite rare in old world, to compensate we are making farms and granaries across our other cities

We can now also hurry production in all of our cities (as global civics permit), and build strongholds in every city.

The resource economy is notably falling behind the production economy. Several barracks and officers coming online, but we need way more food and we need forestry too. A very nice total of 66 science per turn will solve a lot of our problems, but I can see myself using civics to rush workers out to improve our new cities and get more farms and soon lumbermills.

Advice for Bruindane:
Pull the mercenaries back from Aeminium, priortize saving the upgraded 5str Amazon Cav. The tactician warriors and your leader-Slinger should kill the Chariot.
Bring the warriors from Agoge to join the forest battle in the south, pull back the Cav or leave it hidden in forests, it trades poorly with the melee because its ranged.
I can also give orders to your workers, like in Carthago or Theveste, so you can prioritize moving military before Kaiser. I have 34 orders, I'm out here burning some of it on clearcutting scrub with workers, so I can definitely spare some.

As for economic management, most of what I'm seeing is pretty good, but some is unfocused. I like the Rider city that is training marble stonecutters and officiers. Statesman seat doing festivals is good (culture to get to level two and growth for citizens to make into stonecutters). The riders seat should have some source of culture long ago, shrine or Odeon. If it were level two right now you could have built a stronghold for African Elephants and rushed high level officers with the judge seated there.
Also again I see some Civ production habits in Old World. Choosing what a city makes is often the most important decision, especially because of the 3 separate production streams growth/training/civics
You have the newly settled Riders city making a warrior at 6 turns, when it could make a settler at 7 turns. Your capital is making a settler with 6 turns, but could instead make a warrior in 2 turns. If you swapped who was tasked with what, you'd lose 1 turn and 16% rate of production on the settler, but gain 4 turns and 160% rate of production on the warrior.
I say this just as point of learning, not to complain
I'm very happy with our partnership this game

[Bruindane]

Thank you for the insights into economic optimization, as we are waiting on the turn to swing round I'm reviewing my rationale.

   

I didn't consider building a settler at Leptis Magna, though it is a good reminder that it is cheaper to build a settler at a new city as the game penalizes settler pumps with increasing costs. I'd still build the warrior as orders don't need to be spent to arrive at the front, the build queue being available, and rider generals available to lead them.

Carthago has plenty of idle citizens, so dumping growth to pump out a third settler, while using the surplus training to upgrade mercenaries stronger than the infantry I can currently build feels fine.

It feels prescriptive that you should hire stonecutter specialists as they are that good. Saldae is an odd case as I didn't know about the second marble when I built a rider settler, so making it a rider city was perhaps in error, but at the time it was also at the front line and it could start with two citizens. It'll be able to hard build officers and festivals when not building troops. Perhaps that's the fallacy, cities should only build one type of production and hurry the other two.

The worker coming out at Neopolis will build an Odeon. I considered it a few turns ago when it became available, but went with a second barracks first to increase my baseline orders. It should have been an Odeon.

[Bruindane]

Carthage (Bruindane)
Turn 34

-Summary-
Queen Consort Lampedo the Scythian (Your Wife, General of The Harii) has fallen Ill.
Prince Pygmalion the Vigilant (Your Son, General of Warrior, Your Heir) cannot let go of grievances and is often angry. A most Bitter person!

-Combat-
Elite Nomad Skirmisher Killed by a Roman (Chevalier Mal Fet) Warrior.
Your units were attacked by Babylonia 2 times!
Your units were attacked by Rome 3 times!

-Goals and Ambitions-
You have completed an Ambition: Control Six Quarries

   

A fighting withdrawal from Aeminium as Rome's strength is ~31-34 after killing another warrior.  We see 14 strength on the map including a former Danish skirmisher just recruited. Up to 5 warrior equivalents in the fog, moved on Kaiser's orders I suspect as Rome burns legitamacy. I'll need Egyptian orders myself to retreat and heal skirmishers along with builder actions.

   

I don't have enough orders to press the attack, though we take out another Babylon warrior. Kaiser's total strength is now 3 warriors and a stunned chariot.

[Bruindane]

Carthage (Bruindane)
Turn 35

-Summary-
Gov. Abdosir of Neapolis, Governor of Neapolis, has died in office.
Oligarch Carthalo the Commander has converted to Zoroastrianism.
The Didonian Family has converted to Zoroastrianism.

-Combat-
Elite Nomad Skirmisher Killed by a Babylonian (Kaiser) Warrior.
Your units were attacked by Babylonia 3 times!

   
We clear the Babylonian chariot and a warrior, 'advancing' south away from the Romain reinforcements. We don't have the orders to keep fighting on two fronts.

[Bruindane]

Carthage (Bruindane)
Turn 36

-Summary-
You are now known as Hiram the Strong!
Severely Ill, coughing up bloody mucus and suffering from sharp pains in her chest, Queen Consort Lampedo the Scythian (Your Wife, General of The Harii) fears she does not have much time left.

-Science-
Discovered Sovereignty

   
Lampedo attacks her Scythian sister, the Dowager Queen of Babylon yelling in her native tongue

To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee

Babylon might be building chariots, but without supporting troops they are nothing. Perhaps we can do some pillaging next turn.

In the north with Roman strength incoming, we choose to do withdraw to Leptis Magma to heal and reinforce. Our now Tyrant, Hiram the Strong, moves his slingers slightly back, in part to cover the Scythian Tribal units in our backlines in case Rome decides to spend even more legitimacy to hire them. Egypt is building their first unit(!), while we also focus on economic builds.

[Bruindane]

Carthage (Bruindane)
Turn 37

-Summary-
Team 2 is now at War with the Gauls.
Mutunbaal of Neapolis has died!

-Combat-
Your units were attacked by Babylonia 1 time!

   

Not Dead Yet. Queen Lampedo slays.

Babylon is sacrificing warriors, burning 50 iron & 60 training (+100 training for the general), for reasons not clear to me. Perhaps it’s better to lose troops than to allow pillaging. With Rome using orders to move south through the Forest of Thrawn I keep to the hills.