10 turns (1200 BC - 875 BC)
Fairly uneventful set of turns, as we're still kinda of jockeying for map position right now. As far as things go now, we definitely have our work cut out for us. I still think the magenta dot would have been the best spot for our fourth city rather than where Hastings is now, mainly because of the gems that we would have had access to. Gems are really, really good for us right now, as they increase happiness (London is angry) and they generate enormous amounts of commerce, helping us fund our rapid expansion. Hastings is going to be a money sink for the forseeable future (stalling our growth) and it has poor long term commercial potential due to the derth of grasslands there. We did have a free roaming settler down south, but the magenta dot was too far out of the way, so I founded Canterbury instead. Though it only has one gem tile as opposed to the magenta dot, it has a really nice balance of commerce/production potential with lots of food/commerce resources, grasslands, and hills. Long term this might actually end up being our best city.
I know we talked about having you freewheel, but there is something we're going to need to take care of in a very specific, orderly way in the next few turns. The Oracle had one turn left to finish, but we weren't done with Writing yet, so I switched to building an axeman. If we would have finished it before learning writing, we would have ended up getting a cheap, crappy free tech. Also, I have a new settler camped out on the magenta dot by those gems to the east. I didn't want to found another city quite yet as it would have delayed us learning Writing, which in hand would have delayed us finishing The Oracle, opening up the door for one of the other civs to finish it before we do. So basically, once we hit Writing in two turns, we should get York working on The Oracle again and have the settler settle the spot where he's currently chillin' out. As far as everything else goes, have at it.
You'll notice that we have some new barb neighbors right in the middle of everything. I'm not too concerned about this. Our axemen should eat them alive within the next few turns. Oh, and if you get the opportunity, I'd really like to do some fog busting to the west to see what's over there.
