[Spoilers] rho21 follows the works of Homer... D'OH!

[rho21]

Late last night:

Turn 77

Score tracking
Kongo and Aztec both gained a tech and some military strength. Perhaps Kongo is still in this after all.

Western Theatre
Nothing moving again, except Brussels throwing an archer into the teeth of the Eagle warriors and archers.

Housekeeping
Library finished at Pythagoras, great scientist due in 10 turns. Acropolis started, due in 4.
Commercial hub finished at Euclid. This gives the boost to Mathematics. Euclid is now working on a trader.
Aristaeus founded at the C8 site. It places an acropolis but starts work on a builder.

Here's a view of Aristaeus (from next turn, as that was easiest):

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And this morning:

Turn 78

Score tracking
Kongo finished a tech.
Aztec finished a commercial hub and grew two population.

Western Theatre
There is an Aztec scout poking around near C4. I move an archer to intercept and cover the settler; I have a chariot finishing in Hippocrates I can send chasing the scout in a couple of turns. There's a good chance they'll meet Geneva before I can stop them, but that doesn't matter much as they will meet them when I get sovereignty anyway. Hopefully this isn't the prelude to a flanking force attacking C5. I will have to make sure to keep visibility on that area.

Housekeeping
The trade route from Hippocrates to Pythagoras is complete. The trader is relocated to Aristaeus as a road through the hills in the east would be useful. Will probably target Geneva for 3 2.

Hippocrates works a 2 tile for a couple of turns in place of a 22 tile, in order to get much more overflow out of the chop.

[rho21]

Turn 79

Score tracking
The Aztecs gained 2 more population.

Western Theatre
The scout in the north has crossed the river towards Pythagoras. Should be able to chase it away from anything sensitive.
Nothing much else moving. Hannibal got kicked when he moved too far forwards looking for information, but he's immediately back with the scouting party.

Housekeeping
Mathematics is completed. There's a lot of overflow, so it goes to Stirrups.

The builder is completed at Xenocrates and fixes the pillaged farm. Xenocrates devotes production now to the wall, even without the card in place, so it can be finished as soon as possible. It's badly needed for the Engineering boost as well as for defending the city.

The trade route to Geneva (as planned last turn) is started. Should have a second route running in a few turns, probably from C5 or Xenocrates to Geneva. I'm now making 8.5 per turn, which alleviates a few worries. A shame not to be able to boost Aristaeus' early growth, but gold is more urgent right now (and the science is hardly a bad thing too).

[Garath]

Speaking of gold income, is Kongo (still) actually disbanding? I mean, that really is quite disorganised if so!

[rho21]

It's quite hard to tell. I assume there's been some disbanding, but I don't really know how the mechanic works as I've never run into it myself.

The data I have:

Turn	Strength	Gold	Gifts
68	110	11
69	168	7
70	158	3
71	154	10	10
72	146	6
73	174	0
74	161	10	10
75	140	4
76	108	0
77	147	0
78	135	0
79	127	0

[rho21]

Turn 80

Score tracking
The Aztecs founded a new city.
Kongo gained a pop.

Housekeeping
Chopped the very last bit of the chariot in Hippocrates, sending the overflow into Stonehenge.

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Round-number roundup™


Civ Comparison

Civ	Cities	Pop	Techs	Civics	Gold	Districts	Military estimate
Aztec	11	42	15 (+35.9/turn)	10 (+26.9/turn)	215 (+24/turn)	Encampment, Holy site, Commercial, 2 Campuses	459 strength, maybe 16 units.
Kongo	5	20	13 (+19.7/turn)	9 (+16.5/turn)	0(<= +0/turn)	Campus	120 strength, maybe 6 units.
Greece	6	20	16 (+29.4/turn)	9 (+15.7/turn)	123 (+8/turn)	Holy site, Commercial, Campus	282 strength, 11 units + ram. 3 builders, 1 settler.

Just about hanging on at the moment in science and culture (I'm one turn away from finishing an acropolis for 3 more culture).
Need to roll out a bunch more cities: Aztec is even further ahead in that metric than the others.

Great People
(General) Hannibal is mine
(General) Temujin (120): Aztec 64 +2/turn
(Prophet) John the Baptist (60): Aztec 21 +1/turn, Greece 13 +1/turn
(Scientist) Aryabhata (60): Greece 47 +2/turn, Kongo 33 +1/turn, Aztec 21 +2/turn
(Merchant) Zhang Qian (60): Greece 3 +1/turn, Aztec 2 +1/turn

Looks as though the first great scientist will be mine, providing 3 random classical / medieval tech boosts. And of course the boost for education from recruiting a great scientist.
A good chance I'll get Stonehenge too, in which case all of the first three great people would be mine. I will hopefully have a lock on the first artist too, and can make a play for the first merchant.
The new great people might well be industrial at this point, which would put them well into the future.


Research and boosts

Tech	Cost remaining (assuming boost)	Boost	Turns until boost
Engineering	0	Build walls	~7
Machinery	150	Already boosted
Military Tactics	150	Already boosted
Education	195	Earn a great scientist	7
Stirrups	143	Have Feudalism	~12
Military Engineering	195	Build an Aqueduct	~18
Castles	195	Have a 6-slot government	~30

Civic	Cost remaining (assuming boost)	Boost	Turns until boost
Mysticism	25	Already boosted
Military Training	60	Build encampment	~8
Defensive Tactics	1	Already boosted
Recorded History	87.5	Build 2 campuses	~20
Theology	60	Found a religion	~8
Feudalism	137.5	Already boosted

Speeding up nicely.

[Garath]

Yeah, if the Aztecs would just *stop* gaining new cities (for, oh, the next hundred turns or so) this might still be OK!

[rho21]

Turn 81

Score tracking
Kongo now has 1 in the bank! I guess the books are in balance at last.
Aztec finished a tech and a civic and gained two more population. They have entered the medieval era in technology, but the yields on the map say that's not through Apprenticeship. The other likely options there are Machinery and Stirrups. No change of city strengths, so no Knights incoming quite yet.

For all their cultural dominance, I suspect the Aztecs are only about 3 turns ahead of me in civics. This is mostly because they've had to pay the unboosted price for Defensive Tactics and Drama & Poetry. Possibly for Games & Recreation too. I'm really happy with how my game has gone in terms of landing boosts.

Western Theatre
The Aztec scout is now standing on my dye plantation. Pillaging it won't do them much good (I believe it gives ), but it will cost me a bit of income until I can fix it. Annoyingly I have a number of builders round about, but I don't want to send any of them as they all have important chopping work to do soon while we have Limes active.

Housekeeping
Research into Engineering is at halfway, so our efforts are now devoted to Stirrups again.

Menaechmus is founded at C5. It starts working on walls immediately, though I place its industrial zone as I don't think I'll be able to get the discount for it. New districts from now on will mostly be discountable, hopefully.

Acropolis complete at Pythagoras for 3/turn. That gives me a second envoy to invest, so they both go into Geneva for the extra science. Sadly I'm not going to be getting the suzerain bonus any time soon the way this game has played out, as I don't see myself being at peace with the Aztecs. I'm concerned that the Aztecs will have spare envoys and use them to battle for suzerainty here. I may have to take a detour via Mysticism just to pick up an envoy.

Pythagoras starts on a builder, because I want a bunch of them almost complete when Feudalism is done (obsoleting Ilkum in favour of the policy that gives builders 2 extra charges), and I think I'm heading there next.

Next up there's a bunch of micro to do in order to get the best possible overflow from chopping walls.

Hippocrates starts on its walls immediately. I wanted to put a little work into the builder (before Limes policy shows up next turn), but it looks as though I'll end up with much more overflow by putting a turn into walls now.
Euclid is in much the same boat.
Xenocrates, meanwhile, needs to do the opposite, switching off its walls for a turn onto a chariot.

[rho21]

Turn 82

Score tracking
Kongo finished a civic and gained a pop. They've had their campus pillaged again though.

Eastern Theatre
My hoplites wander into Kongolese territory and find a barbarian sword and a bunch of pillaged tiles and damaged units. Wow. The hoplite will get attacked but it has its bonus so isn't in any real threat. Hopefully I can really help my ally get back on track here.

Western Theatre
The Aztec scout ran away to the east. They also sent three envoys to Geneva to draw level and get peace so the city-state won't be intervening. That's worth 6 per turn to them, too. Ugh.

I have been moving an archer up from the south ever since the scout was spotted though, which looks to have been an excellent idea as it is out of sight of the scout but has an excellent chance of getting a shot on it next turn. I think there is only one space the scout can move to this turn where neither the archer nor the chariot can attack it, and that would leave it cornered anyway. It is possible that Geneva's warriors will get in the way of my archer though and let the scout escape.

Housekeeping
Trade routes started from Xenocrates to Geneva. As hoped, this goes through both Menaechmus and Pythagoras.

Defensive Tactics is complete, Feudalism is due in 7. I'm very tempted to delay that for a turn or two just to get the bonus envoy at Mysticism and kick the Aztecs back out of Geneva. On balance I want to stick to the critical path to Mercenaries (for cheap unit upgrades) though.

For government, I'm obviously keeping Conscription and adding Limes; there's still no better alternative to Charismatic Leader in the Diplomacy slot. That leaves me with an Economic slot and a wildcard slot.
I really want all of Manoeuvre, Ilkum and Urban Planning, but I think Manoeuvre has to be dropped for now.
Urban Planning is just too good: I have 7 cities now and the extra production is affected by multipliers. I reckon it's worth easily 10 per turn in practice.
It's the last chance to run Ilkum before it's obsoleted in favour of Serfdom (+2 builder charges). It would be ideal to have most cities with a nearly completed builder waiting in the queue which could benefit from both cards, in effect. This would probably be worth about 26 between Hippocrates, Pythagoras and Aristaeus. Apollonius already has a builder waiting to finish, so that would give me 4 builders to get the serfdom benefit.
I am starting to feel more concern for my military, and particularly for its ability to cover my entire flank. Also, Feudalism's fast approach means I could reach Knights at any time I like starting at 8 turns from now. There's a bit more time than that to make chariots though, as really I'd want to wait to do any upgrades until Professional Army is available if at all possible, and that's more like 17 turns away.

So after all that, the net effect is just that Manoeuvre is dropped in favour of Limes.

With that, all of Hippocrates, Xenocrates, Menaechmus, Euclid and Apollonius are working on walls; three of those will be getting a large chop overflow in a few turns; I do a bunch of micro to get as much overflow out of the chops as possible.

[rho21]

Turn 83

Score tracking
The Aztecs founded another city and finished another civic. They still don't have a civic from the Feudalism column, at least.
The big news though is that they are now in autocracy. Perhaps they do have some plans on wonders. Whatever, that's great news if it comes to blows any time soon, as they can't get the +4 combat strength back without suffering the penalty for returning to an older form of government.

Eastern Theatre
The hoplite was attacked by the barbarian sword, as expected. It took only about 20 damage while the sword suffered badly and may have taken additional archery fire from Kongo. Anyway, it was easy to finish off. No sign of other barbarians as yet.

Western Theatre
The Aztec scout chose a position where it was safe from the chariot but vulnerable to the archer, but then Geneva blocked the position the archer would have needed to stand to shoot it. Sigh. I move the units around to continue to give it no route out unless Geneva provides more assistance.
Spotted an eagle warrior off to the west of Menaechmus. It has Tortoise promotion. Wonder if it's just scouting.

Housekeeping
More fiddly micro around walls production. First chop is next turn at Euclid.

[rho21]

Turn 84

Score tracking
Looking at the great people screen, the Aztecs have something odd going on. First off they're up to 4 great general points a turn, which I guess means they are running Strategos policy or finished a couple of encampment buildings. They will have Temujin in 12 turns at this rate.
Secondly, they are producing 1.5 points per turn towards each of the artistic great people. I have no idea how this is possible. Means I need to get another acropolis out sooner rather than later. I'll probably get the one at Aristaeus chopped (through walls) in about 10-15 turns, perhaps I can find somewhere for another one.
Anyway, they also gained 1 empire point, which I guess means they finished a district and two settlers or something like that.

Eastern Theatre
The hoplite (61 health) that was damaged recently by that barbarian sword stands in place for a little healing, while the other (83 health) leapfrogs it and finds a second barbarian sword. The hoplite has a slight advantage if it attacks, but I'm going to need to heal these guys up before making more forward moves.
I'm interested to see how much healing I get in Kongolese territory.

Western Theatre
The Aztec scout is again saved by Geneva's units getting in the way. The archer and chariot can keep it cornered though.
The Eagle warrior is still in place to the west of Menaechmus, presumably guarding that flank. I have a couple of archers moving that way to cover that section of the borders. Nonetheless I have a warrior moving that way in case it's needed to cut the scout off.

Brussels has taken a tiny bit of wall damage this turn, which is concerning. I don't think Kongo can be putting up a serious attempt to capture it with their tiny military score (and at least 3 units back at their capital). It's not under siege yet though, so that could yet be Kongolese archers doing plink damage for some experience.

Housekeeping
It's time to chop a forest at 61 into the walls at Euclid, giving 120 overflow into the Pyramids, which will take 6 turns to complete. This instantly completes Engineering tech, so research starts on Machinery, due in 5.

One final bit of micro gets Hippocrates and Xenocrates ready for wall chops next turn.

Apollonius has grown to size 4; Aristaeus has reached size 2.

Pythagoras' builder is almost complete so it starts work on a granary. Pythagoras is going to need to grow quite a few sizes shortly.