Turn 278 - 1816 AD
Our First Golden Age
As I write this, we have played through the third turn of our Golden Age. The purpose of having it now with only 3 cities is twofold:
1. To build the required 6 cities to unlock IronWorks
2. To time our discovery of Steel with the completion of former Vijay's Great Engineer in order to build Iron Works there.
Getting IW in a mere 10-11 turns will allow our highest production city the means to continue producing Settlers at a rapid rate once our Golden Age has past, or quickly pump out units in 2 turns (or less as the city grows). It will allow us to devote up to 4 Engineer specialists to help us rush the Statue of Liberty or some other Wonder.
Here is another reason I though we could get away with the GA now:
Though you may not recognize them, all 3 of our beautiful Indian cities are now in the Top 5 due to their enormous size. We seem to be the only ones going super tall at the moment, because we are the only ones who can sustain the infra for such growth. But this also puts a big target on our back, which is why I opted to swap out Serfdom for Slavery and go into Theocracy, as we will need to read and minimize any oncoming threat. Our large pop serves us well here should a war of attrition break out.
Anyway, let me introduce you to our newly named cities:
Wax Trax! (formerly Delhi)
We have a Settler coming out in 3 turns (after some post-pic adjustments) thanks to an unincorporated chop as well as our source of Coal, connected immediately upon discovery.
I am still thinking of 2-whipping here though, in order to put some hammers into the next Settler.
Sector 19 (formerly Bombay)
We have 2 Rifles here now (one at Garrison II) and will have a Catapult next turn. Despite their relative weakness on the battlefield, Cats still have the ability to soften any stack that we will see in the early stages. But other considerations are a Jewish Missionary for our other Barracks city, as well as a Frigate or two to guard this increasing contested sea (more on that soon).
You will see that I have used 2 GL tiles here when I should have really been using the GA-buffed sea tiles. I know I ended up using the empty Workshop though, so not sure if I grabbed from one of them. I'll optimize better next turn.
Zoth Ommog (formerly Vijayanagara)
Look at all that Iron! This city is going to be ridiculous, and so I wanted to find a name that seemed to fit such a relentless production machine. There will be another chop into this Settler next turn and I may 2-whip here as well to move things along on military. It's also time to start thinking about a Library/University here now that 6 cities is an impending reality. But protection for our 3 new cities (and Wax Trax!, still at 1 Rifle) comes first.
And yep, that is an REM city to our left, one of 8 so far. I'll be reviewing our 4 neighbors next.