[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

Let's go with the Fishing > Polytheism start. I only have one doubt; once we get Fishing, do we want to work high commerce tiles (lake and fish tiles) or non-commerce tiles which have more food or production (pigs and forests). High commerce gets it at T17, and no commerce T20. Right now I'm leaning towards getting it at T20.

So MM plan:
Techs: Fishing > Poly > Hunting > Mining > BW
Builds: Warrior > WB > WB > Worker > Settler
Improvements: 2x WB hooks up fish, worker hooks up pig, then mines/roads.

Grow the capital Size 2 and over, then get those 8 hammers a turn on the first WB, losing 1 food per turn. Work the fish when it's improved.

Suttree didn't settle on T0, so that's one point in our favor.

[Jowy]

Btw, you're right, I didn't get that reference.

I'll explain if it's bugging you now :P My username is taken from an awesome political RPG called Suikoden. Jowy is one of the main characters, and in the game he holds the power of a true rune called The Black Sword. It's really fitting that we happened to become a team. Though in the game, gaining the power of the black sword rune marks a turning point in his life and he becomes a villain who believes that peace can only be obtained by completely annihilating the opposition. Is that a sign of things to come?

[The Black Sword]

Hah, that's awesome, I'd settle for that storyline.

Have you founded the city/moved the scout yet? I'll be back to my civ computer and could do it in bit. Unless we find another resource though, I'm good with fishing. I think max food hammers into the WB as soon as we get Fishing is the way to go, can't sacrafice growth too much.

Agreed with your tech and worker improvements. I think we should put the warrior on hold until after the workboats finish though. I had what I thought was some pretty slick micro there:

T0-4: 2/1 forest into warrior
T5-8: 3/0 pigs, switch to workboat on T7 when Fishing comes in, leave warrior on 12/15. Grow EOT8.
T9: max food: pigs +grass forest +3/+2 => 3f, 4/30h
T10-12: max hammers: -1/+8 per turn => 0f, 28/30h
T13: grass forest, grass hill forest: +1/+5 => 1f, 33/30h*
T14: WB moves to fish, work max hammers: -1/+10 => 0f, 10/30h
T15-18: work fish+plains hill forest: +3/+5 per turn => 12/24f, 30/30h
T19: work fish+grass forest on worker: +5/+2 => 17/24f, 14/15h
T20: 2 fish: +8/+1 => 25/24f, 15/15h Grow EOT.

*Need 3 hammers overflow and 1food surplus here, 3 hammers is rounded down to 2 by expansive, 1f allows working max hammers for turn while WB is moving, shaves a turn off the next WB.

Then we're at size3 and ready to build a worker.

[Jowy]

Ah good idea on delaying the warrior. We also get Poly T19 for getting the fish hooked up and worked earlier.

I haven't logged in yet.

[Jowy]

I logged in to see if everything works. Didn't move scout because we are reloading.

[The Black Sword]

We also get Poly T19 for getting the fish hooked up and worked earlier.

Nice.

Seems like we're going to restart anyway. Looks like that hut pop is plako unfortunately, I hope he didn't get his preferred food source.

[Jowy]

10% chance to pop a tech. And the odds are even lower for popping that food tech you happen to need.
EDIT: Ah crap, CivStats shows he did pop a tech.

[Jowy]

Found marble, but settled in place. That marble opens up the possibility of a MC slingshot. Our tech path is good for it as it is.
Our password is "ace".

[The Black Sword]

Should be an extra few beakers as we build the WB.

Does marble speed the Oracle up much? It seems like in the time taken to grab masonry as well, someone else could have chopped it out. My experience with wonder timings in pretty much nil though. You're right our tech path fits it quite well, so might as well keep it in mind.

What's the scout plan? If we found a religion before T20 then we should get 3rd ring border pops before T30, plenty of time before a settler completes. So we probably don't need to do too much exploring close by. It looks like a thick forest to the north though. Maybe marble hill and see if we can go around it.

[Jowy]

Marble means every forest chop gets us double hammers. Great Prophet points from The Oracle would help in getting a quick shrine up. We can pre-chop the forests and minimize the window in which we can be beaten, and if it falls before we go for it, we can use the chops on something else. I reckon you are right that if someone beelines it, they will beat us. I still like the idea because it's not an all-in strategy, but can give us an edge we need against some of these pro teams. Low risk, high reward. Those are my first impressions anyway. I'm not a huge wonder whore so I don't know the usual deadlines for wonders, that's something we should research. Maybe use our sandbox and compare fastest possible oracle timing to our projected oracle timing.