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

[rho21]

Turn 10

Score news: Aztec and Egypt both finished their first techs, on normal schedule. Egypt also finished a civic, which means a cultural city state, probably met on turn 5 (or interturn into turn 6) - disguised by growing on the same turn.
The military numbers from CQUI (which include a small score for treasury) are a little tough to track this turn. I suspect Egypt finished a scout. It also looks as Kongo spent some gold - presumably on a tile purchase - and both Kongo and Egypt have damaged units.

The big news for the turn on the home front is from the slinger: there is a wheat near the marble in the east. This is looking like the second city site. It has some good starting tiles and immense production potential down the road. It will need two builder charges ASAP after founding, so that makes my mind up: the first builder will drop a pasture at the capital, then head over with the settler to improve the second city for the boosts to craftsmanship, irrigation and masonry.

Settler will be built on Turn 21 (assuming another slinger doesn't need to be slotted in) so I'll need my military forces in position to escort it then. New city foundation expected on turn 25.

Here's a close up view of that area. Note that the water visible in the fog NE-NE of the proposed city site is fresh.

[Garath]

Man, that really is a beautiful set of grassland hills. I certainly concur with sending the second city over thataway. Shame the builder will be doing nothing for as long as it takes to build the settler - I presume that isn't enough to switch to building the settler before the builder?

I'm getting a little surprised we haven't seen a barbarian yet, especially since it sounds like some of the others have - I doubt that those two damaged units have been so nice to us as to be fighting each *other*, after all!

[rho21]

The builder's only 3 turns out anyway, and will pay that delay back quickly with the pasture: roughly at the same time the settler is done, I think.

I'm hoping barbarians will show up before too long. I could really use the boosts to archery, military tradition and bronze working in the next 25 turns or so.

Current technology targets are, in rough priority:
Masonry & Writing to be able to harvest the stone and place a campus.
Archery for defence.
Bronze Working for Hoplites.

And for civics:
Craftsmanship to unlock bonus cards for military units and builders.
Military Tradition to unlock the great general wildcard (probably - will need to see what the great person situation looks like).

[rho21]

The builder's only 3 turns out anyway, and will pay that delay back quickly with the pasture: roughly at the same time the settler is done, I think.

Not sure what I was thinking when I posted that. It obviously takes rather longer than that to pay back. Anyway, on to...

Turn 11

Score news:

• Kongo finished a tech on schedule.
  
• Egypt are running god-king policy and have (probably) more military unit damage.
  
• Aztec have higher than expected income, so likely met a commercial city state a few turns ago. Far more importantly, they also finished an Eagle Warrior this turn. Those things cost 65 so they would be nowhere near finished without a military city state. Given that no-one else has produced quickly, it's almost certain that's Valletta. Strong start for the Aztecs, which might be ominous.
  

Scouting:
The warrior finishes clearing the fog south of the capital and finds a third 4-mountain-adjacency location!
The slinger finds truffles and stone in the third ring of the proposed second city site. Nothing on settler view.

Plan now is for the warrior to move SE-SE over the next couple of turns, then swing in a circle around the mountains. Should be back to the capital just in time for escort duty, unless it runs into something interesting. The slinger will poke about in its current area for a short while, then also head home.

I've put down a very tentative dot map for the explored area, which will doubtless need revising once we know where the Aztecs live.

[rho21]

Turn 12

Score tracking:
Aztec has gone down by 11 points in the CQUI strength report! That's surely got to be a combination of fighting and spending money.

Scouting:
Took a step SE with the slinger, met a warrior belonging to Yerevan... and I'm first to meet them. That should give me a lock on second choice of pantheon, assuming there's not a third religious city state out there. The city is approximately in the mirror position of Valletta: SE of Pythagoras instead of SW. Quest is to get the eureka for Bronze Working.
Yerevan's suzerain bonus is free choice of apostle promotions. Bleh. Definitely a conquest target once it has a holy site. Sadly, like Valletta it's dry (but one square off a river). I think I can see coast over to its east too.

Housekeeping:
Finished Animal Husbandry. Research set to Pottery which is due in 4 turns. Doesn't really matter what order I do things in here. Builder next turn, Code of Laws still 3 turns away.
Boost for Political Philosophy thanks to meeting Yerevan.

[rho21]

Pantheon timing expectations, for reference:
Kongo: turn 17
Greece: turn 21 (my wildcard has to go on god-king for a bit)
Egypt: turn 34
Aztec: turn 39

I'm currently most wanting Goddess of the Harvest (bonus faith when harvesting / chopping). Going to be doing a fair bit of that, lots of stone in the vicinity. Second choice would probably be Divine Spark (bonus great people points from some districts).

[Garath]

Man, that's a rubbish city-state. Bad suzerain bonus, bad position for capturing (pre-Aqueducts, anyway) given that it's dry. On the other hand meeting it first is definitely an unlooked-for bonus - it was very kind of the city-state warrior to come that far out to meet you, since it's quite possible the slinger would have turned around before getting far enough to see those borders!

Is the wildcard on god-king actually entirely necessary, now you have the city-state? I guess right at the very start there isn't really anything better to do anyway, so you might as well just get the pantheon out of the way and done.

[rho21]

Yeah, the only other option with just Code of Laws is bonus XP for scouts.
God-King does at least get me 1 per turn as well as speeding up the pantheon slightly.

Definitely looking forward to having some good choices at Craftsmanship.

[rho21]

Turn 13

Score tracking:
Aztec's power rating is taking a serious beating. Perhaps attacking a city state? If so, it's not Valletta. The others seem to be healing up.

Scouting:
Found some fresh water in the hills south of the capital. Looks like an excellent area: note the river and lake peeking out of the fog. Nothing new on settler view, no sign of barbs.

Housekeeping:
Builder done, started settler. Due in 10, but that will drop as the pasture, urban planning card and city growth happen over the next little while.

[rho21]

Turn 14

Score tracking: Egypt grew another point of population, which suggests a 2 food surplus, I think. Aztec's power rating jumped back up by 7. Much healing, presumably. Meanwhile, Kongo's took a 12 point drop. Definitely some barbarians elsewhere on the continent.

Scouting: The warrior takes a closer look at the southern lake, which is pretty inviting. Note that this is just south of the equator, so quite possibly not "my" land. The slinger has found the coast near Yerevan. Another area with great potential for a city or two over here. I think the slinger is about done over here for now, so will return homewards. This lets the warrior head SE a little longer before swinging N, to get a better overview of the area.

Housekeeping:
Pasture created, Animal Husbandry boosted. Code of Laws due next turn.