20k, no coal, no iron, no rubber

I would appreciate your opinion on this one. My starting strategy was to get early armies and then target strike cities building wonders and therefore stay in monachy (going for 20K in Trondheim). Basically to be a warmongering 20K civ. Of course that fell flat when I didn't get a REX, rather a SEX, and found myself inferior to my neighbours quite early. Well, I'm still small but Trondheim is ticking on nicely. Thing is I miss out on iron, coal and rubber which sucks. Somehow I managed to keep deals going by planned researching but of course, if Liz wants to she'll break my bones. Same goes for Genghis if he comes with a fleet . My plan is to stay one notch ahead in tech, sell only (all) no-culture wonder techs, save gold and then deal for rubber. With enough gold I then can upgrade what I've got to infantry and maybe keep the wolves at bay. This sound smart or dumb? Maybe I should also give small gpt's to prevent them from attacking?

What version is this? I couldn't open it in PTW or Conquests.

Without looking at the save, I'd say in general you need coal and iron if you're going for 20k. Trondheim needs a factory, coal (or other) plant, and railroads to 'keep up with the Jonses.' If it's stuck at 25spt and the AI has cities kicking out 75spt, you may have a hard time getting wonders before they do. As for your military, you can build cavalry, artillery, and riflemen with what you've got. Unless the AI's just have a crushingly large military, a good number of these should at least be able to hold them off until you can sue for peace.

Thanks Grog! Sorry I forgot to say that it's c3c with Snoopys terrain mod, that might be the problem!? About factories, rail and such I've managed to build up by buying this (coal, iron) from AI so infrastructure is OK. What I'm most worried about is my military weakness and how to best handle this situation by playing the good boy. If I had those resources I guess I might be in another situation. I'm not experienced at playing on emp. level so I don't know how AI will respond even thou I've turned the aggression level down on them they might be short fused on this level, I dunno . Good suggestion anyways, I'll stick with that