I was very excited to get the 1830BC turn, and see that Carthage had researched Map Making! I was still one turn away from Philo, but since he had chosen that (and Japan had recently completed Horseback Riding), my sale of Writing didn't seem to have hurt. However, next turn (1790 BC), I discovered
Philosophy, but no free tech!
Neither of my neighbors had it, so either Akots beat me after all (possible, since he settled on the spot, so he'd have better growth with the cow in the capital) or England went for it. Either way, I couldn't have influenced their choices, and I'm not sure I could have gotten there any faster than I did, once I chose to move to the coast. It will be interesting to see after the game if Akots did beat me, and by how much, and how much of that was due to settling in range of the cow.
Regardless, I'm still going Code>Republic. I traded Philo to Japan for Map-Making, then to Carthage for Masonry (I had to kick in 1g). Japan still has a monopoly on HBR, and I wouldn't be building any of those soon anyway, so they can wait. I'm also down Mysticism. I've been able to settle my first two new city locations, and Rotterdam should be kicking out another in a couple turns to grab the Incense, which will help my science rate. Amsterdam is nearly finished with the Barracks, and will start cranking out warriors and the occasional settler.
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