Not a great situation here. My hands are pretty much tied. We don't have police stations at all, so weariness would take us down too quickly. We can't touch Rome, and all this tech trading has sped us right on past the motor age. It's going to be modern armor vs mechs for the most part, with us racing to get the job done before the nukes start flying.
I decided to get Computers first. We can't build modern armor without aluminum anyway. One turn of tech investment lost, but we'll make that up and maybe then some with the labs.
Rome is really strong. I wouldn't have traded these AI's my tech lead for their deflated spread-around techs, but that may not have worked out any better than this, with Rome as they are. Their FP may be in a good location. We might be able to win without taking them on, but it would require that we mop up ALL the others.
Since this is going to last a while, I swap everything to Mass Transit. Might as well get out from under the oppressive pollution.
1255AD: Babs sign MPP with India. Not good. We could easily pull in everybody but Rome against us with an attack on any of the others, now.
Tanks against infantry in metropolis cities is not pretty. They lose a good bit more than they win. Vs mechs, very bad. Their two movement hampers advancement through ancient cities with their level four culture. The difference between two and trhee movement is staggering. Panzers are head and shoulders above standard tanks: they can move a tile and still attack twice, making for a LOT of elites and rapid blitz. Modern armor is the same way. Cavs can't blitz but have the movement. Tanks are more plodding.
1260AD: Babs bought Radio from Rome? They didn't appear to have much of anything free last turn. Oh, it gets worse. They didn't pull Ecology. They pulled Rocketry. So now instead of parleying our Ecology into Rocketry also, we've got the (admittedly nice, but still less valuable) gpt payments from Rome. We really should have gotten more out of this tech lead, but now we're no longer in the lead. I hope to trade Computers (gah, did I SAY that?) before they nab them.
1285AD: Nope. They researched computers the same turn that it came in for us.
In hindsight, what would have been best (IMO) would have been to ally with Rome vs the rest of the world. Or vice versa. Split these AI's up, shut down the tech whorehouse, and get some war into the history books. Isolate Rome from the other AI's one way or another, to keep them from handing down their lead and using the other AI's to fuel their continued efforts to catch up to us.
Water under the bridge now. Rome's going to be Wall to Wall to Wall mechs by the time their deal with us expires. When I have a tech lead I tend to play a strat involving attacking the strongest rivals, but in a situation like this... it is often better to take out the small fry before it's too late and they catch up in military tech.
I got us our mass transit systems, our police stations, and our labs. I built some forts on high ground along our border and manned them. I upgraded all our infantry.
Our oil deal has expired. Sulla gets his pick of whom (if anybody) to renew it with. Babs still have MPP with India, and taking them both on right now looks unwise to me. France and Aztecs would make for softer targets. DON'T bring anybody in vs the Aztecs, though. We want to grab all their lands ourselves, while we can.
Just goes to show that a great start can still hit a bump in the road if you lack for modern resources in your territory. No coal? No oil? With ALL this desert we claimed and all this jungle and hills?? Good grief. Don't be shocked if lack for aluminum and uranium too. Heh. The rep stain also hurt us -- they really DO need to fix that up better. It's one thing to try to close a loophole from those who may be selling to civs with a foot in the grave just to get a free lunch, and something else to penalize honorable players who get caught in a ridiculous situation, like some AI they are trading with committing suicide by attacking a strong neighbor and then dying out swiftly.
This ain't going to be a pretty finish. Really not much sense attacking now until we get the last little bit of the way to modern armor. Trying to get Rocketry without costing us all our limbs will be a problem. Also, the location of the aluminum may affect our targetting. Plus we have to watch our weariness. Armors are really good in that dept: less need for lots of artillery barrages, which are what increase weariness the fastest.
If we get a leader, we need an army. If there is anywhere in the game that armies are the most useful, it's modern warfare, armor vs well-entrenched mechs, cuts the casualty rate way down. Not talking one army, though. Many.
I will be surprised if we finish this one without some major nuclear exchanges happening first. If we don't make good progress quickly (vs the weaker civs, before they can afford to upgrade all their infantry), we may even need to go for the missile defense, although under the new tech penalty that might be unrealistic.
RBE1 - Persia - 1300AD
This is going to be fun, but I'm glad I only have to play 1/4 of it.
- Sirian
-- Antioch needs to run an extra entertainer until it finishes its colosseum.
France has aluminum near our borders though. Hammurabi sells us Aluminum along with 100g and 67gpt for Synthetic Fibers. Science to 0% (do we really need any more techs? We can always buy them, in any case), so we are at +1796gpt. All but two tanks that are in our outer colonies are upgraded to armor. We have 15 turns until our oil and aluminum deals run out, and I mean to secure our own sources of them before those come up for renewal. France is the only civ other than Azteca that does not have Computers and mechs. I plan to hit them hard and as fast as possible. We have almost 60 armors and over 120 mechs, plus almost 50 artillery and a number of air units. It will be messy, but it will get done. ![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
He forms an army of course, and promptly wins a battle; Heroic Epic due in 3 turns in Persepolis. 
And we now have oil too, thanks to taking that city. Nice. The Roman city of Kente was also razed this turn - first one we had to attack that was guarded by mechs. Only one armor died assaulting it though. From here on, I want to fight a defensive war with Rome and an offensive one with France. We'll see how that goes. French city of Kiohero captured, as it was only size 5. With that, this monstrous (90 minute) turn comes to an end. 
