I open the save and take a look at the situation.
On the diplomatic front:
The worst thing I see is that we are behind in tech: there are several AIs who have everything we do and other techs besides. We want a tech lead ASAP, and the only way to do that is trading, so I'm going to see what I can do with that during my turnset.
The other big diplomatic factor is that we're soon going to start incurring huge "trading with my worst enemies" penalties no matter what we do. Honestly, this is the part of the diplomatic system I dislike the most and understand the least: I'll do my best to avoid racking up the penalties on my turns, but I can't promise much. It would be nice if someone who understands it can develop a coherent diplomatic plan for us to follow.
On the domestic front:
Not enough food! Not only is it more efficient to grow pop and whip than it is to build using ordinary hammers, we have cities far below their happiness caps. If there is a single rule of Civ4, it is that it is
extremely hard to go wrong just maximizing food. Two particular problem are St. Pete, where we want to farm, not cottage (we want to support scientists here, and as I already noted, we
have to irrigate to get water to the rice, to iron city, and to the northern city); and Moscow, whose clams apparently got pillaged during the wars and were never rebuilt. I'm going to try to rectify these problems ASAP.
On the military front:
We have lots of axes, but only three galleys, two of which are exploring. I'm going to try to build more of those, too.
On the conquest front:
The AIs have been spamming cities like there's no tomorrow. I think we should seriously limit the number of future cities we found rather than conquer.
410 AD: I put all the cities under the governor, emphasize food/production commerce.
IBT: Colossus BIAFAL. We started this too late, I guess. I just hope we don't lose the Hanging Gardens.
425 AD: Yaroslavl' finishes a workboat, I start it on a granary. Novgorod goes to a library. We have enough military to fight a defensive war and falling behind on tech is the big danger here, in my opinion, so I'm going to emphasize that. St. Pete finishes a worker and I put it to the National Epic: it's going to take a long time to build that without marble, so we need to get it started early.
I trade Mao Polytheism for 300 gold. I meet Huayna Capac in the far east, sign open borders, and sell Polytheism, Alphabet, and 360 gold for Currency. Feel free to shoot me for this trade if it was a bad idea, but the Alphabet monopoly is long-broken, Currency will immediately bring in 10 commerce/turn before anything else, and no one else is willing to trade it to us.
440: Delete the scout to save 1 gold/turn.
IBT: Victoria converts to Buddhism.
455: GS born in St. Pete. I build an academy, since Optics is honestly a rather cheap tech, so we won't get full beaker-return from it, and it would require waiting six turns anyways.
I also whip a harbor in St. Pete, sending the overflow to the National Epic: the only way that city will ever produce anything is through the whip. There's a lot of overflow, 215/120, despite only putting one turn into it before whipping (the whip costs two pop); I send the overflow to the National Epic.
470: Our western galley looks like it's blocked by Tokugawa and Isabella, neither of whom will sign open borders. I look around some more with it.
485: Hanging Gardens finish!
I chop the spices near Moscow to build a plantation and finish a workboat for the clams.
We meet Frederick, who's very backwards, in the west.
IBT: Tokugawa demands we cancel deals with Gandhi. I don't see any reason to, so I refuse. Gandhi lands a settler on the far northern part of our island. I'm sorry I didn't see the boat to close borders in time, but he may not settle, and even if he does, we can always just take the city from him.
500: Nothing much.
IBT: Gandhi settles.
515: I trade Gandhi Compass + 20 gold for Construction.
530: We finish Machinery. I stop here so we can talk over our next tech choice.
I'm leaning towards Code of Laws/Civil Service to Paper and Education, myself, because it will allow us to spread-irrigate St. Pete and get Bureaucracy.
I have workers pre-chopping jungle near St. Pete. I made an error with Yaroslavl' build order: it has one turn into a lighthouse, so the next player can whip it if they desire. Novgorod will finish a library in two turns, then it should probably go to a marketplace or military. I think we should spare Moscow the whip until it reaches its happy cap (12 now), so it can start building up those cottages.
We can build catapults now if we want to kill someone.
I'm kind of busy right now, and I don't know how much input I'll be able to provide until after New Year's. There's lots of important stuff going on, though, which people should talk about before playing.
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG003_AD0530_01.Civ4SavedGame