I dont know why, but I decided to pick this up and have a look.
Economics in 21, making 43 gpt. No horses, iron, or salt. Down by at least one tech to everyone.
Bonampak Fire both clowns, stop working forest.
Lagarto, Quirigia, Calakmul Change clown to scientist
CI put clown to work on mined grass
Copan fire clowns, shaving 7 turns from growth, and 1 from build
Palenque change 1 clown to scientist
Tikal Fire clowns, shaving 16 from growth, and 9 from build
Yax- Change clowns to scientists
Bump science up to 50%. Drop luxury to 20%. Have to rehire about three clowns (sorry, dont remember which ones) now get Econ in 7 at +8gpt.
You have no luxes, so Leipzig must go. This will grab you two spices, giving you something to trade around.
You have rax everywhere, but almost no vet units. You also can go after germany without to much difficulty, as they have no salt. Youll need some MDI as soon as you can rush a harbor, and also some cats to help dislodge those forted pikes.
After taking 1-2 cities, and inflicting a lot of losses on the Germans, you can sue for peace, bringing you back up in tech, and probably grabbing another couple cities in the process. A force of 5-6 MDI, 5-6 cats, and 4 pikes would probably be sufficient, especially if you use the terrain to your advantage. Declare war, and plop your units on the hill next to the spices. Let them come to you at first, so you can cut them down. After that, start your advance. Keep all your units in 1 stack for defense, and make a concerted assault.
Once you have a spare spice, trade it to someone for gpt or another luxury, or some tech. When Economics comes in, you should be able to basically catch up in tech. BTW, if youre going for Smiths you should have started a prebuild 15-20 turns ago. If youre not going for it, then why are you researching Econ?
Just some random thoughts from a quick look at 2:30 am. The biggest thing I saw was a lack of specialist use. You need to see how scientist and taxmen work.