Inherited turn:
Why in the world is Madrid building a university? We still have many cities without muskets. Well, I'll let it finish, or turn into a Factory. Bapedi building a longbow? Rifles are on the scene (Embargo is a diplomatic option with Egypt, so they have Nationalism), and we do still have the two elite swords which are almost the same thing as a longbow, so Bapedi swaps to musket.
I pay 1 gold for Egypt's territory map, to see if they have any rails yet, and they do.
The price would be 150 gpt to get the three remaining middle ages techs, probably about another 70/turn for Steam Power, and 36/turn for Iron and possibly that much again for coal. Also, our Wines will not come renegotiable for another 11 turns minimum.
Our cash is going to do us no further good by sitting around and rushing buildings. We can't afford to wait any longer for China to get a tech to double-deal with. So I decide to do what I proposed earlier, mortgaging everything we've got towards rails. Plus we CAN trade away our only Silks; all the size-12 cities can absorb the happiness hit.
To America, the only possible Silks customer, we trade Silks + 20/turn plus 405g for Metallurgy.
Egypt has an extra silks they could trade us but it isn't worth 25/turn.
To Iroquois, who offer the best price, we trade 117/turn for Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, and a worker. That puts us in the Industrial Age.
Oh, America and Iroquois do have Nationalism; the embargo diplo option wasn't there because we never established the embassies.
I buy Iron BEFORE buying Steam Power, since the price for it does go up when you have rails. I pay Iroquois 40/turn for it (yeah, ouch.) I would've bought it from Egypt to give her a reason to keep us around, but she wanted 45/turn.
Iroquois also have the best price for Steam Power at 103/turn (yeah, ouch again.)
Joy of joys, holy of holies, WE HAVE COAL, at Intombe!! There's also another, one square OUT of Mpondo's cultural control.
The other AI civs have Medicine and Nationalism. Egypt and Iroquois have Industrialization, while AMERICA LACKS IT. I'd LOVE to buy and broker, but our remaining 40/turn plus every penny of our 1000 principal isn't nearly enough.
I think the deals were worthwhile. The techs weren't going to get any cheaper other than a two-for-one with China, but who knows how long that would take, and the odds are at least fifty-fifty they'd just get an optional tech (the AIs love Democracy.) Arguably we could've waited for Democracy to get more rail miles out of each iron buy, but it isn't that huge a difference, and it's still due in 15 anyway and China might get it sooner.
I swap Tenochtitlan, Tlaxcala, and Mpondo to workers. I also buy an Egyptian worker, stop all our lumberjacking workers, and send our boat over to retrieve the workers from Mpondo Isle.
(I) I order up another worker at Tlax (city has 10 shields), figuring it can live at size 11
for a few turns.
1210 AD: I've been workin' on the railroad.
1220 AD: Ditto, being careful not to waste a single worker turn. Bapedi finishes musket, orders up a worker.
1230 AD: I cancel the ROP with China and do not renew.
1240: Madrid finishes university, starts worker.
1260 AD: BINGO! China got Democracy. (And Navigation, somehow.) I trade them the last three medieval techs for both those techs and 3 gpt. I revolt - after moving and commanding the workers - and start the lone scientist working on Nationalism.
It's also now barely possible that China will get Medicine before we need it, still giving us two-for-one brokering opportunities.
Whoops - forgot we'd get hit by the bug where roundoff error makes slave workers not gain speed under Democracy before Replaceable Parts. Keep in mind now that slave workers are only one-third the speed of natives.
1275: The great railroad baron Thunderhawk retires.
I got close to half of our squares railroaded. I don't think we'll even need to buy another round of iron to get them all; just spread the workers out one per square on the last turn of iron (which will be 1325 AD, the last turn of the next leader.)
Wines for Egyptian Furs and Dyes and Iroquois Incense all expire next turn and will need renewing. Lincoln lacks Electricity but we don't have the money to buy it to broker.
The currently building Universities and Colosseums are Factory prebuilds, of course.
We almost have enough to buy Industrialization, but it looks like we're too late for any chance at Theory of Evolution. If Suffrage cascades to it we have no chance. But the cities building it are Thebes (which has a hospital!), Salamanca, and New York, all pretty powerful cities, so it is possible it'll finish before the cascade can happen. If so, rush a factory and coal plant somewhere (Bapedi?) and we just might get ToE.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/rbe2-aztecs-1275ad.zip
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