I'm used to ten turns per go. These twenty turn deals seem to last half an era.

Not a rail on the ground when I took over, now it's quite different.
IT 1120AD: What? Cities without granaries???

Well of course that has to be redirected. I think you guys left it that way to give me something to do.
Scattered workers does well in the early game, but at this point stacks work much better, preferably stacks of four, so you can lay a rail in one turn (under democracy... what? Nobody has discovered democracy yet?? Hmm, well we're deep into Medicine, hopefully someone will learn it soon).
I bump up the science rate to bring medicine in a turn sooner.
Finally, I see our military is paper thin. We conquered Germany with two cannon and four units of cavalry? Wow they must been pathetic.

I skim a round of conscripts of our size 12 maxed out cities, then off five other cities, too, and I wake some vet pikes and pay to upgrade them to rifles. BAM, instant army, we go from one rifle to ten, and I haven't hit Next Turn yet.
1130AD: Preparations for doubling our workforce. We need workers to build rails! We need granaries to build more workers so that our population and economy aren't sent into the drink!
1140AD: The world has discovered Democracy! I bought from X-man for about 200 gold. We revolt.
1150AD: We're in democracy! Our workers are faster, and more are being prepared. Our first pathetic rail lines go operational.
1160AD: We discover Medicine, start Industrialization. All our big cities who are done skimming workers are switched to factory placeholder.
1170AD-1210AD: Rails.
1220AD: Nobody has discovered Medicine or anything else yet, and we're now just two turns from Industrialization. I check the diplo screen, and even the poor nations have a wee bit of cash burning a hole in their pockets. I broker Medicine and some of our luxuries, we net about 600 cash, Furs from Liz, and about 175 gpt. We're RICH!!! We're positively wealthy. We're gushing cash. We're in the black, baby, yeah.
1240AD: Industrialization! Unfortunately, somebody else also discovered it this turn and has already traded it around, everyone's got it. What's worse, Magellan's has STILL not been built, so there is going to be a cascade to Suffrage, and the AI's will probably get ALL the remaining wonders, and perhaps also threaten Theory of Evolution too.
1250-55AD: Factories, rails. We now have over well over 30 workers and the slow creep of railbuilding at the start of my turn has transmuted into rapid, visible progress. The best part is that, with granaries, the extra food from irrigating some of these irrigated grassland and plains tiles is more than making up for the population lost. I cranked FIVE workers out of Silkton alone, and dropped it all the way down to size 4, but I bet you won't be able to tell that by the end of my turn.
1260AD: Egypt completes Magellan, everyone cascades to Suffrage. *sigh* No one has discovered Free Artistry yet either, oddly enough.
1265AD: Abe moves a longbow onto our land. Two of his cavalry move purposefully into sight of our border. I dial him up and say, "Abe, old boy, you do NOT want to do this. OK? You understand me? This would be the mother of all Unwise Choices." He stares at me blankly and says, "Oh is that YOUR land? Sorry."
Yeah. Right. I check our military. I haven't been building any, we've been building factories and workers instead. I pull over half of the obsolete units from every corner of our empire and upgrade them at Peaceful Prairie. We end up with a stack of about ten rifles there, most are not veteran though. There goes our treasury, and how. At least we had the dough to pay for it. I also move our cavalry out of the far northeast, and mass them down at Solstice Tree.
I dial up Joanie, Hiawatha, and Cleo, and get them to PAY US for a Mutual Protection Pact. Abe would have to be a complete idiot to attack us now.
1270AD: Abe is a complete idiot.
One of his cavs charges right up and attacks us at Solstice Tree. Our veteran riflemen were ready and repel the attack with no losses on our side. France, Iroquois, Persia and Egypt declare war against America. Abe then moves nine more cavs onto our land, surrounding us at Peaceful Prairie.
And then it was our turn.
