[SPOILERS]The 3 Muscateers playing Ragnar of Rome!

[Catwalk]

Yeah, what convinced me to go for Haga Sophia was that it will help a lot with offsetting the current worker shortage. It won't take me long to get it either, and the speed bonuses are pretty sweet on Quick speed (1t roads, 2t cottages and 3t farms).

For the true story about how many workers I have (don't look, it will make you cry):

8 workers for 12 cities... oops

It's just too tempting to keep spamming coastal cities, especially with the GA in action. Every city is a net benefit right away even without any improvements, and I've been generally been able to get one up for new cities ahead of time.

In case I haven't mentioned it enough lately, I hate being AGG Rome. Next game I'm so going all-out builder combo. I'm pretty sure I'm rocking everybody's pants tech-wise, though.

[Catwalk]

I just made a million-character post analyzing all my opponents and my tech plans and it got lost!!!! Grrr....

Basically, Superjm + Azza + Waterbat are my main rivals. Azza and Waterbat are in the hole tech-wise, and Superjm has excellent tech but weak MFG and crop yield.

[Catwalk]

The good news:

- Colossus done!
- Christianity founded in Babbling Baboon!
- Christianity spread to Jagged Jaguar! (the new city over by Azza)

The bad news:

Since I'm currently Jewish, I get no culture from Christianity... whoops. Ideally I would have waited with converting and stayed without a state religion for the duration of the GA, then converted to either Judaism or Christianity before ending it. I'm considering converting to Christianity and spreading that from now on, although culture is not critical in either of those cities. Oh well, I'm still getting Haga Sophia in 7t!

Superjm also changed to Bureaucracy (and Hereditary Rule), so chances are he's also competing for Nationalism. Planned tech path:

Code of Laws
Meditation
Philosophy (on the off chance that I can grab the religion, if it's already been founded I will go for Civil Service first instead)
Civil Service
Nationalism

If I go for CS after CoL there is a slight chance I can get it in time to revolt to Bureaucracy before my GA ends!

This means passing up on the following:
Feudalism (can be used to tech CS instead of CoL, but that requires teching Philosophy with Drama instead of CoL)
Divine Right (can be used to tech Nationalism instead of Philosophy at a cost of an extra 400 beakers, also halfway tempting to go for Spiral Minaret)
Aesthetics => Literature => Music (Parthenon, National Epic, free Great Artist)
Paper => Education (University of Sankore, University, Oxford)
Archery + HBR + Construction (Horse Archers, Catapults)
Machinery (Crossbows, maces)

Other than catapults and horse archers, there's not a lot I will miss up there. And until Waterbat sends macemen at me, I'm feeling pretty confident defending with Praetorians. I don't particularly want to attack anyone with this much land available still either. Suggestions are welcome!

[Catwalk]

Also, I decided to found another island city rather than founding the horse city. I'm running out of foreign trade routes, cutting significantly into profits from new cities. With a second island city I will easily be able to supply all my cities with max high value trade routes. It also affords me a bit more resilience in case one or more players closes borders with me. And more importantly, it might go a long way towards discouraging Superjm from trying to colonize the island. He will be none too pleased with me, but I do have a Praetorian and a Chariot parked over there already. On that note, Superjm is the only player I haven't had any negotiations with yet.

My economy really is set to explode now, I can pretty much expand without limits. All I need to do is provide the settlers for the cities and the military to hold the territory. Haga Sophia really will work perfectly for that, as I will be hard pressed to provide enough workers and settlers while also upgrading my infrastructure and training enough military. It feels like I'm on a roll, but I need to keep balancing a whole bunch of different priorities. And I think that I need to keep REXing hard, taking some risks along the way and continue compromising a bit on worker counts. The colossus is only providing 10gpt at present, but with continued expansion and growth I hope to get 20-25 from it pretty soon. I'm pining for Darius lately, half cost courthouses and lighthouses + half price on my 34gpt civic tab would be pretty awesome.

I just realized that I got a Christian Missionary for free, that would let me spread Christianity to AA and convert to Christianity in 2t after borders pop in Imperial Impala. I only have 9 hammers invested in the Jewish missionary at CC, so I can put it off for later. Thoughts on this welcome as well! And as usual, bonus points for looking at the save.

Lastly, I'm thinking about relocating the capital to DD up on the desert arm eventually. It sucks for maintenance but I have awesome commerce there. It's also one of the only non-crowded cities I have planned, most of the other cities are spaced very close together. DD has 16 good tiles all to itself, and more than enough food surplus to support cottages everywhere and still whip stuff out with a 50% hammer bonus. I'm also currently building a forge there, although I'm not quite sure why.

[slowcheetah]

Hey Catwalk, I took a look at the save. Definitely looks to me like you can get into Bureau before the golden age ends, athough you may need to work a lot of coasts/build wealth. I think that with the saved revolt turn and the payoff for Bureau, it would definitely be worth going CS before Philo.

Christianity vs Judaism. Personally I'd do what you suggested and switch to christianity. You can then use AA as a missionary pump after it finishes the Hagia Sophia and while it's growing.

Why on earth are their no workers being built!!!!!!!!:neenernee

Also you should maybe send that Chariot you're building in BB down through the jungle arm south of MM. We haven't explored there at all yet.

A forge in DD is good-> bolsters happy cap, the +25% production is helpful with the whip, but I'd switch it to a worker or a settler build. She's currently at happy cap and is working several unimproved tiles.

Actually new thought on Missionaries HH can two turn (3 turns after golden age). So you could build one in the cap for HH and then use HH as your primary missionary pump. We need culture.

Looks like you have one turn left until your peace treaty with waterbat runs out. Worryingly he can one move both of our border cities with one movers. Although it might delay nationalism slightly given our previous bad feeling I'd go Archery->Feudalism after Civil Service. A couple of Longbows in each city would make the place a whole lot more secure.

[slowcheetah]

Saw you'd revealed the jungle arm earlier. With our severe lack of workforce we can't really settle in that dense a jungle for a long time .

[Catwalk]

I agree that the defensive situation is not good, but I don't think rushing to Feudalism is the answer. It's a very expensive tech for one thing, and longbows would have to be built afterwards. I have just put up walls in both borders cities to discourage military adventures, and borders will expand in II in 2t. GD has a river for extra protection, and it will get a monument soon. At the very least he will have to spend several turns smashing our walls before he can invade, giving us time to reinforce.

My island settler is settling the mirror location of my existing island city, hoping to claim the entire island. Maybe I will let Superjm have the NW site, I don't particularly need all 4 sites. If it can garner any goodwill or support against Waterbat I might sign a border agreement with him to that effect.

The jungle arm is not particularly interesting at the moment, no. There's ivory in the middle, two rivers and a bit of food but it will take quite a while before it becomes worthwhile settling. I will likely go down the desert arm towards Arch first, much more profitable. All the same, I sent my scout up there to see what Superjm is up to.

[Catwalk]

I've found a better location for Moai: Hippy Hippo

It has 8 good water tiles all to itself, of which 1 is crabs and another 2 are lakes. It also has excellent production already, with Moai it will be able to put out 16 base production at size at 12 and a whooping 29 when in GA. It might even be a suitable Palace location, having excellent commerce as well as excellent production. Moai can be completed in a hurry, allowing me to pop borders easily.

I'm keeping DD on the forge, whip anger dissipates in 2t at the same time that another cottage is completed.

Just calculated that the island city next turn will earn 16 gpt straight away without any improvements: 4 from tiles, 3 from boosting Magic Magpie's routes and 9 from its own trade routes. Craziness! Another worker is being shipped over to make these jewels productive ASAP, they will be excellent for trade routes once they grow to size 10.

[Catwalk]

After completing Haga Sophia in 7-8t I don't have any more wonders lined up in the foreseeable future. I still want to hoard wonders in AA, so here is a revised priority list, in order of how soon I want to build them if I am allowed to:

1) Great Wall - 100 hammers - Stone - Spy
2) Apostolic Palace - 268 hammers - Prophet
3) University of Sankore - Paper - 368 hammers - Stone - Scientist
4) Spiral Minaret - Divine Right - 368 hammers - Stone - Prophet
5) Versailles - Divine Right - 536 hammers - Marble - Merchant
6) Chichen Itza - Code of Laws - 335 - Stone - Prophet
7) Shwedagon Paya - Meditation + Aesthetics - 301 hammers - Gold - Prophet
8) Sistine Chapel - Music - 420 hammers - Marble - Artist
9) Notre Dame - Engineering - 368 hammers - Stone - Artist
10) Parthenon - Aesthetics + Polytheism - 268 - Artist
11) Angkor Wat - Philosophy - 335 - Stone - Prophet

So, why these?

Great Wall
This is a measly 100 hammers with a doubler which gives me 2 GPP and +100% Great General production. I think that is a really good deal at this point, and I'm surprised noone else has taken it. It will also give me 24 failgold from DD, an amount I will be able to increase a little. If I don't manage to land it I will get 2.5 gold per base hammer invested in AA. I'm even halfway tempted to delay Haga Sophia and get GW right away, reasoning that my chances of landing Haga Sophia are very good. It gives spy points which is not great, but if I plan on using most GPs for golden ages anyway it won't matter much.

Apostolic Palace
This one I'm not completely sure about, but it will be the only wonder I have access to until I research Nationalism if I stay on my current tech path. I expect to be able to finish it before finishing Nationalism, so I see little reason not to go for it. It will be quite some time before it pays off, but it will be nice to deny anyone the ability to grab all monk wonders (AP + SM + US). If I'm lucky I may even be able to grab one or two more myself. AP is by far the best monk wonder, +2 hammers per religious building. Having founded 2 religions already and having a good shot at Islam as well, that will allow me to spam a whole bunch of temples and monasteries. Even Synagogues and Cathedrals would be worthwhile. Do I need 3 temples per each of these or just 3 temples before I can start building them?

University of Sankore
If I land AP, I definitely US as well. Paper is a reasonably cheap technology and I have double prerequisites for it. It's probably wishful thinking that I will be able to grab this after going to Nationalism first, but I will definitely make the attempt. Alternately, if it looks like someone else will beat me to Nationalism I might abandon that altogether and pursue the monk wonders instead. It is by no means a cheap wonder, but it will be well worth it.

Spiral Minaret
Same reasoning as for US, except Divine Right costs a lot more to research. However, it does allow me to skip Philosophy on my way to Nationalism and I think I will have time for it in AA after finishing Haga Sophia and Great Wall. Depending on how confident I feel about reaching Nationalism first, I'm feeling very tempted to go through Divine Right and found Islam. I recall Gaspar and NobleHelium founding the same 3 religions and getting the monk wonders in PBEM38, I will need to read up on their plans to see if any of it applies here. And as I'm typing this I realize that I can only get the bonus from a single religion at a time, bummer. Even so, it's still tempting. I also noticed that AP gives its bonus regardless of which state religion I'm running.

Versailles
This one is expensive, and is not that high priority. Even so, if I do go for Divine Right I will want to put this in AA eventually. AA is quite well situated for Versailles, especially if I put the palace in HH and Forbidden Palace down on the desert arm somewhere.

Chichen Itza
This is another filler wonder that I might go for if nothing else is available for the simple reason that I don't need to research extra techs for it. While the effect is not overwhelming and can be catapulted down, it might not be bad to have a small extra edge in case a catpile were to happen. In my island cities for example, I'd be able to get up to +75% defense if I get walls. For smaller battles, this bonus would be invaluable.

Shwedagon Paya
While this is off path, it might be interesting. If I fail to get US and SM I might want to run Free Religion quite a bit whenever I'm not in Theocracy or Organized Religion. And if I skip Philosophy it'd be nice to still have access to Pacifism. Not a must have by any means, but I'll grab it if it's there for the taking.

Sistine Chapel
This one is pretty nice, allows for massive cultural dominance with a single monastery. Music is far off path so I don't expect to get it, but you never know. I hope Waterbat doesn't get it, if he does I may have to make a preemptive invasion as his culture will simply be far too annoying.

Notre Dame
Extra happiness is nice, but it's off path and I expect others to beat me to it.

Parthenon
Given that I plan on using AA as a GP farm and do little elsewhere, Parthenon has little value to me. And it's off path, even if the prerequisite techs are cheap. Expecting someone else to grab this.

Angkor Wat
The effect is all but useless, as I'm not planning on running any priest specialists. Even with the boost they're only 1 gpt better than engineers.

[Catwalk]

I didn't include national wonders here. Obviously I will want National Epic in AA, and I don't really want to delay it for very long. Aesthetics costs 287 and Literature costs 191. The epic itself is a mere 167 hammers with a doubler. Should I go for this before Nationalism? I'm not sure which other national wonder to put here, maybe Iron Works later on.