FYI, I may have failed to Pause the game.
It is kind of hard when I'm uncertain of the big picture. I share your discomfort in not knowing what the rest of the civs are doing. Let’s remedy that. But here is what I suggest.
Our next goal should be Biology. So to get there as fast as possible we should get printing press and astronomy. Concur with prioritizing Bio, but urge that we tech Astro (using our GS) before PP. That would imply building MoM as it allows us to not be distracted. Fine with that. Note that to best utilize MoM we should get the NE built. It also leads to muskets which we can use to attack Sioux. We might be able to get muskets before he get feudalism if we are lucky.
Sioux has expanded quite a bit think we are better to spread Christianity to his gold city then being forced to eliminating him. If just getting a GG is the purpose of war, then we can consider waiting for grenadiers and cannons. There is also the possibility of targeting a different civ.
Russia now has Christianity which is worrying. We need to whip missionaries in 5W and 6R. Converting Rostov, Moscow and Novgorod should be a priority. A galleon will hold three of them, and the upgrade from galley to galleon arguably has the best cost/benefit of all upgrades, especially in our circumstances where a galleon will unlock trading possibilities and lead to knowledge of the other civs.
I confirmed that christian monasteries loose the extra hammers once we have scientific method so they will probably not pay for themselves. But I think we should have two of them to have option of getting missionaries at any time. Fine with this, but not as a priority.
PPP
tech path
Calendar -> Priting Press -> Astronomy -> Gunpowder -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Scientific Method -> Biology (with liberalism) This alternative is my preference but with Astro before PP. Also, would note that SM obsoletes the GLib, so we don’t want to complete it until we have Liberalism nearly researched.
or
Gunpowder -> Calendar -> Priting Press -> Astronomy -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Scientific Method -> Biology (with liberalism)
Trade optics to Peter to hope for some useful tech path. Concur.
Bib:
I had forgotten about +25% trade from connection to capital. Getting Bib to size 11 gives us +200 gold from merchants. Building farms here should have high priority. Did not know that. By all means build farms in Bib. As Bio is approached, do we want to build farms in BB and/or other cities?
BB:
Whip forge to enable greater food excess. Regrowing from empty bins is to slow. Okay, but build forge one more turn before whipping.
TC:
Whip forge into a christian monastery. Might want to reconsider TC as the best site for whipping right now or for a monastery later on. There is much to build here and little forest left over from Mid building. How about growing population here for whipping into expensive buildings later and put the Christian monastery in CC, which has most of its required building done?
6R:
Whip a Jewish missionary into the MoM, then whip other buildings into the MoM.
CC:
Whip forge into harbour. Value the harbor, but would rather whip forge into a galleon and then build harbor and Christian monastery.
5W:
Whip a Jewish missionary.
IT:
Whip a caravel. With Galleons soon available, would argue that caravels are relatively poor investments now.
Harbours are good buildings. Getting us +2 commerce and health which we need some of in CC, 6R and 5W. Forges are useful every where. Fail gold is also very good. Follow all that.
Workboat 6, near Germany/Russia can be deleted or gifted.
Chariot in Russia can be loaded onto galleon that delivers missionaries (before exploring) and eventually brought back home for eventual use as a pillager during war. In the meantime, he can look for the GM that was born in Moscow in 540 AD but is no longer there. (If he has not been incorporated, it would be useful to know that he is available to Peter to bulb Banking.)
I will have a look at the thread in the evening.