Whelkman, I would love to take a look at your spreadsheet.
It's pretty useless, even to myself, after (or even during) a turn. When resorting to spreadsheets I work only with the data that's needed at the moment. Then the data is either quickly flushed to make room for the next or grows stale at a record rate. The only data I currently have is that I used to determine overflow conditions for Approval Rating, Family Size, and Productivity.
These ideas work without cheating. Whelkman and I just use a few "cheats" to make the endgame start a lot sooner.
An important consideration is that leveraging these tactics serve only to make this style of play
harder by adding more variables and layers of complexity. I certainly don't feel like I'm getting away with something for free when maneuvering 80 Fast Settlers turn after turn. Games would progress 5-10 times faster without leveraging some of the more time consuming tactics. Concatenating my playing spurts and including my round of false starts, it takes me in the realm of 4-5 months to see a game through, and that's assuming I actually do complete the game.
On the topic of Fast Settlers, the most notorious Civilization glitch is also the most overrated. On the big list of difference makers, Fast Settler lies somewhere in the middle, behind legitimate avenues such as Mfg. Plant + Hoover Dam and Caravan utility. They just aren't as dominating as early estimates predicted. In fact, my early game is arguably slower due to my tendency to leave "breadcrumb" roads with all of my Settlers. Without fast roads I would maneuver Settlers directly to new city points and handle the primitive infrastructure later.
Once you have discovered future tech 64, you encounter what is commonly known as the pollution bug. Every city has a 50% chance of producing pollution every turn.
I've seen this referenced but have never encountered it myself. Instead, I encountered another type of pollution bug that was somehow triggered by saving while pollution squares exist. Upon reload my map would be trashed with worldwide pollution, forts, and, I think, mines. These junk tiles would appear everywhere, even over the ocean, they actually counted. My world would instantly become locked in a never ending cycle of global warming. Eventually it was enough to starve my cities and collapse the government due to lost trade. While ultimately annoying, it was fun seeing the planet eat itself into extinction and turn into Venus.
