Depraved Danish Debauchery - Catwalk cooking up a storm [SPOILERS]

[Catwalk]

t48 report

Lots going on here:
1) The barbarian city I noticed a while ago is still there and ripe for picking! 3 warriors sitting in it, my axe just took one out. Another axe is approaching from the east, not shown in the screenshot. Also sending a spear in case kjn sends a chariot at it.
2) I'm officially in GNP hell for a little while, made 6 gpt this turn My two new cities will grow fast, so I'll recover in no time. I can easily add another 12 gpt over the coming turns from growth, cottages and lakes. Adding the barbarian city will raise upkeep by 8-10 gpt, though. Need to keep my cities big, else this is suicide.
3) Worker SE of Delhi is en route to the silver (S of clams by Delhi), I need extra happiness badly. I'm tempted to go for Calendar instead of Literature, would give me +2 happiness and a shot at MoM.
4) I've had research visibility on AT for a while now. I'm surprised he's going for Currency, it is of minimal benefit when trade routes won't exceed 1 cpt. I'm confident he's not planning on rushing, his power has stayed low along with mine. I want to chop the forest 2N1W of Vijaya asap, would be annoying if he marches axes and war chariots there.
5) Borders popping next turn at both Vijaya (3rd ring) and Bombay (4th ring!)

Very nice demos, except for the rotten GNP. Soldier count a little low, building another two units to remedy that.

[Catwalk]

Burned a barbarian city for 40 gold and 3 XP, yay! Thought about keeping it, but it'd be difficult to hold it and it'll take quite a while before I can make it profitable. Already my GNP is hurting, adding it would seriously impact my beeline to Literature. It also wouldn't secure any resources I don't have already: Marble, silk, sheep, deer. I'm planning a plant for the gold over by thestick soon, I need the extra happiness badly. A worker is busy mining the silver by my capital, once I get silver and gold hooked I'll be set to boom.

Surprisingly, I seem to be on the way to establishing good relations with AT. He's keeping an eye on my city, we both have workers out and about and no aggressives moves are being made. I'm glad I opted for the less aggressive plant close to him, that would have sent a message of hostility as I would have gained little from the closer plant if not for wanting an easier invasion route. I think he's getting the point that I wanted a safe border against him, he's made a show of strength with his war chariots and I've shown him 3 spears total. He seems to be the #2 contender based on CHA being really good early on and being second in population.

I've been building a steady stream of axes and spears in my copper expansion, and I'm currently sitting on a close first in soldiers. This is a very tight map, I want to make sure I'm not seen as an easy target. Still planning on building extra monasteries here and there, will get a library in Delhi first as I just got writing at EOT.

[Catwalk]

Overview shot of current affairs:

1) I'm moving a settler to the tile marked green, S of the oasis and E of the stone. I thought about moving it NE, mainly in order to secure the gold. If S&B settle N of the gold I might be screwed out of it. I have a Jewish missionary being produced for it in Vijaya, will help pop borders in a hurry and let me construct a monastery. Now that I think about it, the missionary SE of Pata can be diverted there as it's the more urgent priority.
2) AT had a menacing axe that might be moving on my two spearmen in Pata. It moved NW though, sitting NE of the mountain. kjn moved a skirmisher close to Vijaya which gave me some grey hairs as I only have a spearman there, but he chose to head south rather than try to choke me.
3) The silver resource that I thought I had hooked up (S of the clams) has not been hooked up anyway That sets my growth plans back a bit while I find out how many roads I need. Planning on building a road on the silver and one SE of it. The ivory hooked up without tiles, is that because I have cultural control over the river?
4) My research is through the roof of the apartment beneath me I don't think any other players have 4 cities yet (not doing any C&D), and I'm planning on founding my fifth in 2t. I'm feeling confident that I can make it work, as I will have excellent research once those cities grow to decent sizes. All have very nice food available to them, and with 3 luxuries happiness won't be an issue. My path to Literature will be sluggish, I really hope noone beats me to the Great Library.
5) I finished a library in my capital this turn, planning on running two scientists to get an early academy. Will also help a lot in getting 4th ring culture sooner from the culture, which is useful since I have no immediate plans to expand S or SW.
6) AT has weird research priorities. First he beelined Currency (will be worth 3-4 gpt to him in an AW game), and now he's going for Iron Working. From exploration so far I've only seen 3 jungle tiles per player, with a single banana resource on them.

I'm not planning on reporting this game much, but if anyone is interested in something specific feel free to ask and I will do my best to provide. I'm feeling optimistic about my chances right now, I think I have a good start and a good leader combo. Without Financial my income would be 6 lower right now, enough to grind it to a halt. I probably could have done better than Philosophical, but if I land the Great Library I think it will be worth it. GLib + lots of settled scientists + academy will give me a killer bureacapital, even better once I reach Representation in the distant future. Pyramids would be a perfect match for it, but there's no way I will get to that first. Already kjn managed to land a great engineer by taking Metal Casting with Oracle and rushing a forge. Pyramids is the most likely use for it, I'm screwed if he goes for GLib. On the other hand, I will be able to hook up stone pretty soon. May as well try to produce some failgold? Vijaya has 4 forests available and a 5th giving 10 hammers, that's 62 out of 335 hammers. That leaves me with 136 base hammers to produce manually, wouldn't take me all that long with all the plains hill I have available. One problem is that it'll take several roads to connect the stone, delaying the whole project quite a bit. I'll probably pass on it.

[Catwalk]

AT switched to Code of Laws this turn, makes more sense as it'll give him access to Civil Service. His capital is currently size 7 and was 9 earlier, looks like he has a very decent capital with which to take advantage of Bureaucracy. I'm confident he won't be competition for Great Library. Since he has Currency and I have research visibility, I will try to track his economy. Right now he's getting Code of Laws in 70t (matches a single scientist at 0% research, 4 bpt) and has 42 gold.

[Catwalk]

I've settled my 4th expansion, grabbing stone + gold + an oasis + incense. This will never be an amazing city, but it does have 6 good tiles to work for a food surplus of +3 (assuming cottages on FP and river grass). I'm mildly concerned that S&B might try to grab the gold with a city on the plains 3N of my city, I hope that a solid military presence will discourage him from doing that. I have an axe and a spear by the city, will probably add another axe soon. Also of interest is the fact that I've found the east/west mirror, so all tiles further west ought to be known. There are still 4 rows of tiles on the north/south mirror that I haven't explored yet, I think I will send a scout soon to remedy that. I know there are some good sites down there, I've spotted grass hill gems and wet plains wheat. I won't be able to settle more cities in the foreseeable future if I want to land the Great Library, but I hope to stake out a good share of the unclaimed lands later.

And am now officially in GNP hell:

Keeping in mind that I'm getting a massive 22 culture per turn, that GNP is horrible. I do think this is going according to plan, though. I have lots of workers available to rush river cottages, I'm Financial and I have plenty food in all cities for rapid growth. My big bottleneck is that silver didn't hook up automatically, and now there's a warrior harrassing my worker which delays connection further. Once silver and gold are hooked up, I hope my cities and my GNP will be thriving again. Had I kept the barbarian city, my upkeep would likely have gone up by another 13-14 or so which would have given me major problems.

AT moved a war chariot near my expansion site, next to my axe which was NE of it. It only has strength 2.8/5, so I could have taken it out with odds 99%. I chose not to, wanting to signal to AT that I'm a peaceful neighbour who won't take cheap shots.

[Cornflakes]

1 gpt at 0% research?

[Catwalk]

What can I say, I'm a big spender This may turn out to be a disaster and cost me the game, but I think I'm on track. I have the following factors in my favour:
1) Lots of rapid growth potential in all my cities, fixing my GNP within the next 5-10t.
2) Massive cultural control. I control 110 tiles, #2 controls 60 tiles and #4 controls 51 tiles. If my reasoning is correct, this gives me considerable military advantages and ensures my long-term expansion prospects.
3) Very high MFG, which can be substituted for commerce or help me get more infrastructure rapidly. As previously mentioned I'm planning on building a library and a bunch of monasteries in most of my cities, getting massive research and culture bonuses.
4) I'm Financial and Philosophical, once I start focusing on commerce it'll take me less time to boost it. And I have my first great scientist arriving in 4t, not sure if I want to settle or found an academy. I'll probably go straight for another great scientist, so first one gets settled (larger short-term payoff) and second one makes an academy (bigger long-term payoff and boosts my specialists).

[Catwalk]

As kjn bragged about, he landed Pyramids this turn. I strongly assume he used his engineer for it, this would be a very impressive Pyramids date otherwise. AT didn't care too much about my peaceful stance and chose to go at my axe. He had a promotion stored, which allowed him 88% odds after healing. I still won But if he had won, my spear would have eaten him the following turn. Not sure why he did this, he doesn't have anymore chariots lurking in the immediate vicinity. This means I have a spear and an axe in my expansion, both with 5 XP. I'm on the low end military-wise, feels like I keep increasing my garrisons but I guess others like military even more. Just completed a monastery in my copper city, will make sure to get another unit or two.

[Catwalk]

For unknown reasons, I decided to lie in the banter thread about having lots of failgold invested in the Pyramids Probably stupid, since now they assume I can tech like a monster for a whole bunch of turns. AT has currency and will know next turn I did no such thing, if he checks the Techs tab.

[Merovech]

I want to see how your very unique start works out-if you can pull out a victory here, that would be very interesting.