London settled in as a 4-turn settler farm easily enough, and I expanded out with settlers quickly. As my wonder build in York approached 200 shields, my nearby exploring units discovered more ivory that the Netherlands would have connected very soon. This meant I didn't necessarily have a lock on the Statue of Zeus, but if I built that first I might not get the Pyramids. Time to establish embassies with my wonder-building rival capitals, all of which are presently building the Oracle.
Madrid showed size 2, with crap for terrain and building 3 shields/turn with ~30 accumulated already. No threat. Edrine showed the same. Paris showed size 2 and 5spt but growing this turn, decent terrain, 24 shields accumulated. Berlin showed size 3 and 6spt, growing this turn, decent terrain, over 100 shields already.
Berlin was a lock for the Oracle; the question was whether Paris will cascade to the Pyramids and complete them before I can. I decided to go with the Statue of Zeus now, then race Paris to the Pyramids. The Statue's effect would actually help me immediately more than the Pyramids, and getting culture started in York would get more and faster culture, including an expansion to grab those Dyes sooner.
Nottingham was my third city and an additional population farm along with London, micromanagerially sharing those two flood-plains tiles with London. Hastings grabbed Ivory while Canterbury grabbed both Iron and Horses and both cities became military builders. Coventry grabbed gems. Warwick filled in land, picking up one otherwise unused flood-plains, and can just reach one of the wheats to share it with London as well.
Soon after this, Berlin completed the Oracle as I expected - but Paris cascaded to the Temple of Artemis, leaving me a 100% lock for the Pyramids (barring an AI SGL.)
I also completed the rest of the embassies to keep an eye on things.
That's certainly a bad sign, although at least Holland already ended whatever war they were in.
Presently, in 875 BC, I got a slight redemption from the earlier disaster.
The Prussians chose Unwisely. Now I have the chance to Honorably cut the game's score leader down a peg. With this, I decided to try hard to keep the entire game honorable to get the 10 bonus points.
Good thing I built the Statue of Zeus. Its military production (the wonder is clearly way overpowered) would handle this war for me all by itself. The units would be regulars, since York hadn't gotten to build a barracks and wouldn't for some time, but there are certainly ways to solve that.
Also, here's the current game scores. I'll keep this Honorable war with Prussia going for some time, so they'll be dealt with, but the other discrepancies on the score graph will just have to wait.
I researched Republic myself at max rate, and reached the tech in 710 BC. A nice, short 2.5-turn anarchy ensued. Here's my land immediately after that:
Notice the Prussian city of Istanbul up there...
