Game update, Middle Age:
In 450 BC the red-lined galley that can be seen down in Spain in the 510 BC save, made it to India, but then was sunk by barbs before meeting any of the other nations on the second continent. I did not have many resources left for further ships, so decided to postpone discovery of the rest of the second continent until I had the lighthouse and a coastal town that had already completed its infrastructure build-up.
As already indicated in the last update, once my military had captured most Dutch towns, I made peace (390 BC) in order to let Amsterdam complete "my" Great Lighthouse. Instead I used my military for a first small campaign against the Mayas in 250 BC. I got lucky and got an MGL, which was used to rush the Forbidden Palace in the nice Maya core area in 90 AD in
Ixtapulca.
Got a second MGL shortly after, which was used for a Horsemen Army.
Capturing Chichen Itza turned out to be quite a chore, I even got into a bit of war weariness. My military was too weak (core was still busy building Universities, Tenochtitlan had just finished the Copernicus Observatory in 30 AD, and stuff like that, so no time for building a decent military...), and the Mayas also had their Golden Age at that time due to a Bowman victory. But I did not want to concede peace before capturing Chichen Itza, because that was distance 3 from my Forbidden Palace town, and I wanted to get a decent ring around the FP up and running as soon as possible. So I dragged on...
190 AD finally saw the capture of Chichen Itza. Made peace and regrouped for the capture of Amsterdam, expecting the completion of the Lighthouse any moment now. That moment came in 260 AD, the Dutch did not put up much resistance, but they had a number of far away towns, which took forever to send troops there. But the Dutch and Maya mainlands were in my hands by 280 AD.
Meanwhile I had gotten an SGL, which was used to rush Newton's University in Tenochtitlan in 290 AD. This also started my Golden Age at a convenient time, because I could now finish all remaining middle age techs in 4 turns and also could use the extra shields for finishing those expensive universities and other important stuff in the last first&second ring cities.
2-3 techs later I got another SGL, which I am still keeping for later. The Knights Templar had already been finsihed at that time, Leonardo's Workshop had like 10 turns left, so no use to waste the SGL on that, the Sistine Chapel is useless for me, as I don't have any temples, much less any cathedrals, and SunTzu's Academy is not really needed in this game. So for lack of anything useful, I'm keeping that SGL in stock. Perhaps I can use it at the beginning of the Modern Age to rush Darwin's Voyage and get two expensive modern age techs (instead of the usual Atomic Theory and Electronics) But that depends on how fast the AI is progressing, and whether they are threatening to get Darwin before that.
In 380 AD I finally discovered the last remaining AI. A bit too late for a science game, I should have prioritized that a bit more. However, there was no way to discover Babylon (the only scientific nation) in time to get their middle age freebee, and for their industrial freebee it was early enough.
I finally entered the Industrial Age in 480 AD, immediately gifted the entire middle age (except for like 2-3 techs which they already knew) to Babylon and got really lucky: Babylon got Steam Power!
However, I had to pay an arm and a leg in order to buy it. Good luck that I was able to accumulate quite a bank account during my Golden Age.
I only hope, they will not have spent all that gold by the time I discover my first industrial tech, so I can buy some of that back... I did not want to first research Medicine and then trade Medicine for Steam, as a) having Steam asap is really worth it, starting those powerful rails asap and b) I want to skip Medicine for now and rather do the "inner techs", Electricity, Replacable Parts, Industrialization etc. and hope that meanwhile Babylon researches Medicine themselves, then I have the option for another nice trade. I can research quite a long time before I need Medicine.
Big bummer: after I traded Steam, I discover that I don't have coal connected yet... Sending some workers in that direction, it will fortunately only take 3 turns to connect it.
Other noteworthy points: by now I have 5 luxuries connected on my continent. (3 in my territory, spices colony down at Harlem and incense colony down at Jilotzingo) Thanks to Magnetism I can now trade with the other continent and bought ivory and furs for some outdated techs. So with a total of 7 luxuries, I can now go 0% on the lux slider and research at least the first couple of industrial techs in 4 turns, even after my Golden Age has ended.