I notice on T52 that Mr. Cairo's power spiked upwards, along with a decrease in gold. Looks like he's upgrading into a couple of his archers. My walls may be completed just in time.
City state helpfully chips away some of the barbarian spear health but allows me to capture for 50g
I paused the walls with 1T remaining to start the encampment. I'll bring the encampment to within 1T, then finish the walls, then finish the encampment.
Mr. Cairo moves one of his archers onto my encampment the turn that I complete it. His unit is not kicked off, and since I don't have enough firepower in the area to kill it he is able to pillage my encampment without even having to chip the walls down first
I got in all of 1 shot before having to repair.
I have a large gap in screenshots since I was playing these turns on my other computer. Most of the turns that Mr. Cairo and I have played were in bursts, with the turns passing back and forth 10 or so times in an evening. So I've been planning on the fly more than planning ahead. I made an attempt to capture the religions city state in the southeast since it had a juicy holy site + shrine, size 5, and relatively decent terrain. Unfortunately I only brought 1 warrior. The CS did some intelligent targeting and took out my warrior so I didn't have a melee to capture. Unfortunately I didn't have another warrior within 5+ turns, and the CS was continuing to chip away at my archers. Since I didn't have enough ZoC to maintain siege after my warrior died I backed off out of range. By the time I could get another warrior in place the CS had upgraded a sword + crossbow
so the city remains independent to this day. The crossbow upgrade is probably my fault. I completed Machinery prematurely (still haven't build or upgraded any crossbows 15 turns later). I'm not certain, but I suspect that CS research is tied to major civ research, because the CS upgraded to the Crossbow about 2 turns after I completed Machinery.
What else has happened? Hmmm ... Mr. Cairo and I continue to be in a standoff around my walled city. I again got a little ahead of myself and tried to advance west of the mountains once I purchased the GG. This resulted in an even exchange of about 4 of my Immortals for 4 of his archers. I may have scored one additional kill, but even so the cog exchange was greatly in his favor especially considering his +50 archer production bonus. To balance this out he tried an advance about 2 turns ago and lost 2 archers in the process (I don't think I'll lose anything). I'm now 3 turns away from Mercenaries, stockpiling gold for Crossbow + Knight upgrades. I have a half dozen archers and 3-4 heavy chariots. I again pre-maturely finished Stirrups when I wanted to get a couple more heavy chariots out for upgrade first. With the turns blitzing back-and-forth the science wheel is something that I've been overlooking.
The only other incident of note that I recall is the Suzerainship of Buenos Aires. Mr. C took Suzerain so that they declared war on me. I had an envoy or two stored and immediately made peace. A couple turns later he dumped another envoy in so that it again declared on me. I'm getting an envoy next turn and will again peace out. I'll be getting another through a civic in a couple turn I think which I'll immediately dump here as well. Buenos Aires actually has a very large standing army and could be a dangerous pest in my backside.
On the whole, I can't say I'm doing spectacularly good or spectacularly bad. I have certainly made many mistakes this game. Mr. Cairo has had one more city that me for quote some time thanks to his capture of Stockholm, but tech-wise and culture-wise I'm at parity with Mr. Cairo. My science actually shot way past him about (30/turn to his 20/turn) thanks to the +100% policy card, our culture rates are neck-and-neck. He was slightly ahead so I built 2 monuments and regained a slight lead. But I have been foregoing many of the Culture eurekas so I think Mr. Cairo is at least equal to me in culture. Mr. Cairo also completed the Stonehenge for the free GProphet. He took state property and something else I can't remember, not Defender of the Faith. Long-term I think I'll be overtaken by Mr. Cairo if I don't do something soon.
My current strengths are superior science rate and superior gold generation. My plan is to upgrade into crossbows and knights and brute force may way westward with GG support. I'll begin my offensive immediately upon completion of Mercenaries to make the best use of my current advantage. I honestly don't think that I have any tech advantage, just an advantage in being able to upgrade at 50% cost. Military power we are about equal at present, so if I can first-strike his archers with my crossbows and take out a few with minimal losses I should be in good shape to push to Stockholm. I'll try and do better capturing screenshots of the engagement.
After showing steadily locked on the Holy Site tile for the last 10 turns, never wavering as far as I could tell, the forest hill was picked instead. I don't have gold to spare to purchase that tile due to needing the upgrade reserve. Tech set to Currency to build the Commercial Hub while waiting for the holy site tile to get picked up.