Round 6: 110 BC to 250 AD (25 Turns) - The Liberalism Race
In this round, we continue in our race to Liberalism, which looks pretty good at this point (I was worried before).
I waited a turn into the round to see if any AI would discover a new tech. But they didn't, so I just traded around Philosophy.
After I traded with Cyrus, I gave Philosophy and 325 gold to Ramesses II for Feudalism. Yeah, he must have been researching Philosophy himself.
And the following turn...
The strange thing is, I still have no WFYABTA. This is surprising. According to the reference tables, Cyrus is "averse" in tech trading. I think his base value is 5 techs (mulitplied by 1.2 for deity) which turns into 6 techs. I've received MUCH more than 6 techs in this game, though.
Tech screen after Philosophy. This is the power of tech trading. Wasn't it just a few centries ago that we saw so many techs on the AI's list and we couldn't offer them anything?
Meanwhile, I founded my sixth city which will turn into my Globe Theatre city. It's build order was Granary - Theatre - Globe Theatre (I haven't yet finished the theatre at the end of the round, though). I probably won't found anymore cities. 6 is all I need.
Once Delhi grew to size 9, I began to hire scientists.
Which eventually resulted in this:
The Great Scientist would have lightbulbed Machinery, which I didn't want at the moment. I decided to bulb Paper with him once I finished Civil Service.
Now here's an interesting twist to this game -- Wang Kon adopted Vassalage when I gave him Feudalism, which meant that Cyrus was now cautious towards him. In order to get Cyrus close to "pleased" status, I actually switched to Vassalage! Imagine that...researching Civil Service and NOT adopting Bureaucracy! That's very unusual for me. Oh, and did I mention that the civic switch was anarchy-free? I must have saved on 5-10 turns of anarchy so far with Spirutual.
After I spent a period of time regrowing Delhi to size 11 (I put the scientists back to work on the farms -- this kind of tile adjustment is CRUCIAL to succeeding at this level), I hired scientists again. I wanted one to bulb part of Education, which is an expensive tech (about 4,500 beakers!).
Oh, come on....
I gave in to his demand and Cyrus got pleased. With Paper out of the bag, I figured I might as well get what I can from it, especially considering that there didn't seem to be any WFYABTA for some reason.
This was full price because Ramesses had more than 790 gold. Could that be a result of Cyrus building the Chichen Itza?
I went to another AI:
Calendar is a prerequisite for bulbing Liberalism, so that opens another option (I still need Compass, though). And, once again, it seems that Wang Kong is falling behind in the tech race. I don't understand why he always does this in my games...he's Financial! Oh, and by the way, I still didn't get any WFYABTA from anyone after these trades.
Soon I got another Great Scientist who bulbed part of Education. I held off on bulbing him until some of my cities grew in population, because the beaker value that the Great Scientists bulbs would slightly increase.
On a final note, it seems that a Great Merchant was born (in a distant land, so it's not on this continent for sure) on turn 186 (190 AD). Could that be the Economics Great Merchant, or is it too early to tell?
Thus ends the first part of the round.
[To be continued in next post]