TheViking: What's a "caravan bombing strategy"?
I think you're looking for my discussion,
Modernization as Strategy, which I appended to my Annales of Rome timeline. The discussion is a bit dated, as my "strategy" of modernization has evolved somewhat, and in particular, substituting Refrigeration for Railroad in the early Modern Triad so as to maximize the value of Caravans and the bonuses of the Hanging Gardens.
In a nut shell, the reasons for delaying industrialization are: (1) The economy of scale after industrialization is signicantly larger than the preindustrial era, with WoW's costing 600 shields, and most improvements 160+ shields. I consider it important to ensure that the core of my civilization is capable of handling the transition to this new economy of scale. (2) Industrialization without Combustion leads to none of the Modern (i.e., fun) units of offensive warfare. Consequently, early industrialization can get you into the demands of the new economy of scale with none of the immediate military benefits. (3) The Railroad and Industrialization seem to act as a "trigger" for the AI civilizations to ally, mutually orient their research programs, aggressively hunt you with diplomats looking for technology, and -- given any pretext -- go to war with you. This can prove to be a further strain on an insufficiently developed economy.
Instead of immediately pursuing the Railroad and Industrialization, once I have achieved Explosives, Democracy, and Refrigeration, I throttle back on scientific research in favor of luxuries for WLKD and taxation for the income to expand the foundations of the Power Democracy (by rush building Marketplaces, Banks, SEs), as well as rush building Engineers (for the rapid construction of RRs) and "quality" Caravans (which will transform into Freight via Leonardo's Workshop). In essense, I am "priming" my civilization for what W.W. Rostow called the "take off" phase of the Modernization process.
Once the core of my civilization -- usually 16 to 24 cities -- has been fully developed into the engine of a Power Democracy, I finally get the Railroad -- often while the AI civs are still researching the Steam Engine. The next turn, I get Industrialization via research from my Global Trade/Super Science City, and Corporation and Communism via Darwin's Voyage. Thus -- and this is one principal of the benefits of the Modernization schema -- I suffer the 33% loss of trade value from the discovery of the railroad for only one turn before getting the 50% increase for having all of my caravans upgraded to freight; it is always good to maximize one's profits from establishing trade routes! Once I have the corporation, I usually maintain a rate of two techs per turn (one via trade, one via research) until at least the Automobile and Superhighways to further boost the benefits of trade. By this point in the game, my Power Democracy is in a position to pursue various lines of development, whether it be direct military conquest (via the rush-building of a modern military), global expansion (via the rush-building of hordes of engineers), or the rapid launching of the Space Ship. With the ability to use Freight units for one advance per turn, and to research a second (and third, after SETI) advance per turn if desired, the AI civilizations have no chance of competing.
It is interesting to note that these days, I never mine hills and mountains, and rarely bother to build factories until Solar Plants are available; I just purchase my military with all the money I make from Trade and taxes.
Hope you find this helpful.
