I started with a decent spot and pitted 3 fish near woods. I had 2 berry patches in my area and built a granary second. I was very nervous about that Shang Queen Emily. I was pretty sure she would know how to use Shang’s advantage and I was hoping she would not be next to me. I made decent progress and sent a villager scout across the shallows. I found Archaic’s wood cutters and sent my villager further into his territory to wait. I tooled and built a range and dock on the other side of Archaic’s town. I walled the shallow between us and waited for bronze to train some CAs and test my fortunes. I arrived in bronze and researched the wheel. Through the fog I saw an elephant die to some invisible hunter’s spears. I knew from that that when my CA popped out it would attack and my location would be known. Such are the fortunes of war. As I was getting close to ironing, Farsan informed us that he was under heavy attack. I hoped our ally could help him since he was near and I was about ready to hit the iron upgrade button. I asked Farsan if he wanted me to iron or crank out a horde of chariot archers. His response was something like “what?” hehe... I went ahead and ironed. I trained some camels and priest while waiting to arrive in iron. I intended to send them to help Farsan but suddenly Emily attacked me with camels. I lost a lot of woodies but was able to fight her off. I built some trannies, trained some elephants, camels, and a few priests and sent them towards Farsan’s base. By this time the attack was basically over and Farsan told me to attack. I attacked Laelius doing little serious damage. I killed some villagers, tore up some stuff, and converted one of his docks, but mainly it occupied his time for a few minutes while Farsan was rebuilding and I was reloading to attack Archaic. I now had about 4 priests and several war elephants and elephant archers ready to attack Archaic. I crossed the shallows and sent my dumbos in banging and smashing as one of my priests converted a Yam stable. It was obvious that Archaic has been playing against another Egyptian (Omnivac I assume) because after I converted one stable he started deleting the others. Dang! I had possession of his town now and started mining the gold my scout ship had chased him off of earlier. I needed it bad. I moved my trannies over to send my force to Emily’s town as battles were being fought elsewhere. I trannied over a mixed force of priests, Scyth chariots, and elephants into Emily’s town and the fighting broke out immediately. I converted a dock, 2 temples, and a stable as my other troops did their work. Emily fought hard but eventually moved her operation towards Laelius. I sent some more priests and scyth’s to some of her other production centers but I was stopped from entering Laelius’s town by triremes, walls and towers. We were approaching the 2 hour mark with no side clearly winning. The gold was just about gone from the map and in spite of the heavy fighting, everyone’s populations were relatively close. I chatted to Farsan and asked him if he wanted to wonder. We agreed and started setting up. We needed more stone so we had to wait a while. There was a cease in hostilities and I was afraid that the other team might read our minds and start one before us. I started sending the biggest part of my army back to my home base where Farsan was preparing his Palmy villagers to build the wonder. I put all my villagers on stone to build walls and towers. We agreed to start and that spooky Waaannnnnggggg! sound went off Fortunately, Farsan won the wonder race, but now we had to defend it. We had many layers of walls at the shallows, towers scattered around the perimeter of the wonder, and extra buildings going up everywhere just to create a speed bump if nothing else. Laelius sent armored elephants with elie archers and priests to the shallow I had originally dock blocked from the South. I managed to convert some armored elephants and a elie archer or two. I tried to convert one of his priests but he retreated. They came again---harder this time from the East. I sent some of my priests and Scyth’s etc to help Farsan and NA_21 when I saw Laelius attacking again at the shallows near 10 from the West. His armored elephants were making short work of my fortifications and I was very worried. I sent my old dudes waddling over as I sent my scyth’s and war elephants to meet him. I managed to convert several and stopped the attack. I tried to repair the walls but he was back at me quickly busting through once again. Emily and Archaic had busted through the wall from the East and were moving in with hordes of heavy cavalry (cataphracts?), scyth chariots, and cats. The fighting got hot and heavy. They were getting very close to the wonder as the time grew shorter. Finally, “good games” were exchanged just before the time expired. WoooHooo! I must say, even if the out-come had been different, that was one of the most fun games I’ve played in a while. What a pleasure to match up with and against such good players and good people. When the game was over I noticed how close the scores were. Great game Guys and Gal. I can't wait for our next meeting. Jehu