Strauss said:
However, we must win by conquest.
This rules out a PA of course. I guess the only way to win this is the Nuclear Plan.
Now if we switch all cities with meaningful

over to building
I thought it were shields that were converted to beakers when building Research? I know that's true with culture, I'm not sure about this one. Also, does the 10% Free Religion bonus also count for 'production research'? If so, did you already include that in your calculations.
if we swicth to Bureacracy
We can't: we have to stay in Vassalage

. However, if we have Police State (did we get Communism/Fascism?) military units will be built faster (25% I think), I assume nukes are considered military units.
We also have Slavery, which in our biggest cities *could* save us valuable turns and give us 3-4 nukes relatively quickly. Our cities will then be pretty much useless of course, but we're not in a situation for long-term city development planning right now of course

.
Will Gandhi have either secured SDI or Non-Proliferation by then who knows.....
SDI is a realistic possibility. Since we have the biggest population, there is a chance that we could revoke the Non-Proliferation Treaty though. Or perhaps, with the the help of Julius, become secretary-general of the UN ourselves and completely ignore the Non-Proliferation. There might even be some helpful decrees from the UN like Single Currency, giving us extra trade and thus extra research.
I also think you should look to micromanage a bit, perhaps scientist specialists will help, especially with the 10% FR bonus.
Two things to remember for Ralph and actually everyone playing from now, if we go with the Nuclear Plan:
- Do not forget the variants. I can't check the game myself now of course, but I've got the feeling that we've missed switching to some variant civics. Ralph, please check the variant list again and then look if we've switched to all required civics. The
only acceptable victory is still conquest.
- Except the variants, everything must be sacrificed to achieve the victory. Strip our cities bare, starve our people if need be to complete our Nuclear Arsenal.
BTW, sorry for posting Pvblivs as up. For some reason I got the idea that you had already played. And since internet went down 2 seconds after my post, I wasn't able to check.