And so I set my sights on the required techs ... Priesthood, Writing, Code of Laws (CoL). I also put hammers into the Oracle. Here is the position on the Sling Shot attempt as Writing completes ...
As you can see, the Gold is mined for commerce, the pigs are penned for food and hammers, the fish are netted and the hills are mined. I also have two turns left on the Oracle but a 24 turns left to finish Code of Laws. I stop the Oracle with about 5 hammers to go and start on that other wonder - Pyramids. However, I have set Berlin to max commerce to reduce the Code of Laws research time. This means that only a few hammers are trickling into the Pyramids. Guess I will have to chop these forests to have any chance.
Each turn was flying past ... I only have 1 city, 1 worker with next to nothing to do and a very long build queue. It was a case of move worker onto forest, chop and press enter for 3 or 4 turns. 15 turns to complete CoL. What are the other civs doing? Is anyone else building the Oracle? What about the Pyramids? Will I lose both? 10 turns to complete CoL. I am on the edge of my chair, hitting enter and dreading those little words in the top left "The Oracle has been built in a far away land!". 5 turns to complete CoL, 4, 3, ... 1, ... and then those words do appear ... oh no!
Phew - at lease it was only the Pyramids. Next turn, 950BC turned out to be a very busy turn for the Germans. Firstly, Code of Laws is finished, Confucianism is founded, The Oracle completes and Civil Service is selected as my free tech! I had done it! I get 230 gold from my failed Pyramids attempt and set the tech to Archer. Time to build some settlers and start growing this civilization.Oh, look at that, some barbarians are coming to bother me. Not to worry, I can always rebuild those pillaged mines ...
I press enter, both the Archer and the Warrior move next to my capital. I still have the feeling of 'All is Well with the World' from completing the CS Sling Shot - those last few turns pre-Oracle really set my nerves on edge - but now, hmmmm yum ... nothing can go wrong. Gee, wish I would finish Archer and start to beef up my defenses. Press enter ... oops ... I then realize that I only have 1 lone warrior defending my capital. He also has a worker (great!) and 1 priest (even better!). I could actually lose this game. My warrior fights off the barbarian warrior
but fails to fight off the Archer ...
What a major smoke! Talk about day dreaming. I could have stopped the settler build 5 turns ago and build 3 warriors. I could have stopped 1 turn ago and whipped a warrior. So, what do you think? Will this win the "Biggest Smoke Ever" award? I even submitted my 850BC Conquest Loss to the GOTM people (hang head in shame).
PS: I reloaded from the prior autosave, whipped a warrior and did survive.