4000 BC: We found Paris where it stands. Looks like a fine enough position. Start building warriors. Research at max on Pottery.

3500 BC: Warrior exploring to the west, finds a hut. Babylonians step onto it before I can. :P

Didn't record dates for a while. Babs trade all three of their tech - Burial, Bronze, Warrior Code - for our three - Alphabet, Masonry, Pottery. This gave the French a very helpful boost to the top of the tech pack very early.

Lyons founded just south of the incense.

Babs move three warriors near Lyons and declare war -- in 2500 BC! Luckily -- CRITICALLY luckily -- Lyons's single warrior holds off the two that attack, and promotes! We poprush an archer in Lyons to fend off the incoming warriors. Here's how things looked in the middle of that war. Those are the only three French cities, but Paris has built a granary.

The archer kills three Bab warriors one at a time. I advance a warrior next to Nineveh. Seeing a bowman in there, I bargain; he'll give me Horseback Riding and Mathematics for peace.

We buy two English workers, and had no idea at the time how much this small move would affect the development of the game.

This turned out to be a GREAT, possibly game-winning move: Paris built a granary after the first two settlers. Thanks to the cattle bonus, this got Paris into a stable pattern of growing 2->3->4 every six turns, producing the settler just as it grows to size 4. This would produce EVERY SETTLER for my entire empire with amazing efficiency. Founding a city every six turns is huge!

Traded world maps around - America conquered London from England!! Babs have 6 cities, I have 5 with a sixth founding this turn, everybody else 4, England 3. I would later learn that England had left York building a wonder forever, with NO improved squares around it or workers to improve any! And it didn't even get to finish a wonder. That TOTALLY crippled England, and let me have the entire eastern area with no competition. It also pacified the Americans for quite a while; they weren't looking for any more war.

Didn't keep notes on every tech, but I didn't research anything for myself in the ancient age after Pottery at the very beginning.

We build a couple galleys, and send a spearman to the island to the west to look around. One barb galley sinks two of mine! Spearman's stuck on the island.. finds a goody hut but it's deserted.

We send a worker two squares into Bab territory to build a road to Nineveh, so we can trade resources. But Hammi the idiot doesn't have Nineveh connected by road to his capital!

925 BC: Massive barb uprising near Rouen! 15 horsemen, and all we've got is a single damaged spear there. Buy Currency and Polytheism from America, and establish embassies, to use up my gold. Middle Ages in 925BC. Still 175 gold left and not a single thing to spend it on. Barbs ransack over 100 of it.

Avignon has 20 shields and is size 3; poprush temple. Strangely, it won't let me rush a temple, but I can rush barracks and then the temple. 710 BC: Avignon expands, getting the dyes online. We have 5 luxes and need to connect Besancon for a sixth. We have 12 cities, Babylon is next with 9.

To go along with the settler factory in Paris, I set up a worker factory in Marseilles. After we get out of Despotism, it can produce a worker every 4 turns with a bit of micromanaging. It's far enough from the capital that building up the city infrastructure won't do a whole lot of good just yet. Marseilles would produce nothing but workers (and a temple) all the way up until its Factory.

Barb galleys in the west are getting REALLY irritating. They've killed 3 of mine now. But we keep pushing through, and get our first city over on that island. This island will be our Forbidden Palace location, I now know.

510: 190 gold to India for Republic. (I had 11 turns left at min science.) Trade Republic + 85 gold to America for Monotheism. Revolt! 6 turns of anarchy, eh.

500 BC: One of them silly historical scribes brings us great news: The French are the largest nation in the world.

Galley finally cleans up the last of the barb galleys, and goes elite. I've been sending settlers and workers over to the island in the west.

390 BC: We're... a Republic!