I started this round by using by great scientist to bulb Philosophy.
I did this for several of reasons. The first is that it's on the way to Liberalism so I need it anyway. The second is that it's the tech my great scientists will bulb for a while. And since I was planning on bulbing some other technologies in the future it would be nice to have it out of the way. The third good reason to bulb it was that it deters other AIs from researching it which gives me more time to get Liberalism. The final reason is that my tech rate is terrible and I'm relying on great people. Philosophy would let me run Pacifism which would help me get them out a little quicker.
I waited one more turn for Civil Service to come in and then make this civic switch.
The reasons for Pacifism have already been discussed. Bureaucracy is a pretty easy move to make since it's better than Barbarism and didn't add any turns to the revolution.
I could see that Charlemagne was researching Civil Service himself so I went ahead and traded it to him.
Now here's an image showing a problem.
I'd already decided it was vital that I go out and meet the other civilizations. As such, I was researching towards Optics. But so was Charlemagne. I didn't want to be researching the same thing as he was. But I also didn't want to find out that he was unwilling to trade it the way he was unwilling to trade Calender. It would probably be a good idea for me to go back and check if I could have researched other things and had him trade it. But for the purposes of this game, I didn't want to find myself up sh!t creek (or in this case stuck at the bottom of it since I wouldn't be able to build caravels).
Here's another trade.
I was hesitant to trade away my good techs like this. But not that hesitant since my research rate was so bad and Charlemagne had some really good techs to share.
We get some news:
I was able to see him when he had a border pop into the view of my northwestern city. You can see it a couple of screenshots down.
Another great scientist
He comes just in time to bulb Paper.
As discussed earlier, Charlemagne only had one turn left on this. So I traded it for his map.
Gee thanks a lot.
Here's a screenshot of me updgrading my trireme to a caravel.
This was a tough call to make. On the one hand, 50 gold is a lot when your tech rate is as bad as mine is. On the other hand, my coastal cities are not capable of producing caravels in a decent amount of time. So I decided it was slightly better to get the seas explored faster by building a trireme early and then right when optics comes in spend some gold to upgrade it to a caravel.
Oh yeah. Shaka is ages behind techwise. So I made this trade since hopefully his map will be helpful.
Well this explains his tech rate.
Man. Zara is getting trounced...
It's worse than I thought.
He only has two cities! This is crazy. He is also way behind.
Back home I popped a Great Prophet at low odds instead of the scientist I wanted.
Humbug.
I could have settled him and thought about doing so. But decided on a Golden Age instead. I'm still not sure if this was the right move. It probably wasn't.
I used the golden age great person multiplier to get out another great person in Berlin.
He bulbed the rest of Education.
My caravels have filled in the bottom of the map.
Shaka is going to be a problem.
Here's some more AIs.
Looking back. This was probably really dumb.
But when I saw that he and Wang were getting along, I just got trigger happy and traded away a great technology to an idiot trade-happy AI. I should definitely have given paper to Wang instead. Ah well. At least Mansa's map was useful.
And this is where I stopped the round.
Here's a view of the home continent
I'm slowly working on some universities for the ability to build Oxford. And even if that takes forever, the extra 25% beaker multiplier couldn't hurt.
Here's the tech situation
I can get to Liberalism in 4 turns at full slider and take Astronomy. I'm inclined to do that. But I decided I'd stop short and see if anyone had anything interesting to say.
Diplo situation
There's no friends anywhere except for me and Charlemagne, so I guess that's a good thing.
And if you're worried about how slowly I'm researching. This might make you feel a little better
So that's the situation. I'm not quite sure yet how to proceed. In the meantime I'll think about it and listen to your comments and suggestions. The save is attached.