Some observations:
- Washington of Portugal (confusing!) has free market, so switching to free market from merc should net us some juicy trade routes. I would assume it should give at least 4 commerce (1 extra national trade routes plus 3 upgrades from national to foreign, more with lasting peace?), so it is probably worth the specialist?
- We currently have 2 trebuchets +1 almost done, 1 grenadier, and the 4 garrison riflemen. That should be enough to capture the barbs one by one if we leave the cities undefended, which should probably be fine at this stage.
- There is another GP, presumably GE, in 8t. We could double rush the SoL? The GE is worth 660, the SoL costs 1200, so it is not a lot of waste; we could also keep one for Mining inc.
Very brief outline:
- move troops to barb1 while finishing treb, bombard, sacrifice at least 1 treb, capture, repeat
- switch to Emanicpation, Free Market after finishing treb (1 turn - room for more but US and FS are not worth it yet)
- Steam power -> Steel -> RailRoad -> Assembly Line (?)
- cottages!!!
Will post more detail tomorrow morning, will play tomorrow evening european.