Snow days ROCK!
Pre-turn – I decide to wait a few more turns to try to find someone else to trade with before I make any deals with Cyrus.
1100 (1) – Chengdu’s borders expand, and a barb appears by Macau.
We meet Bismarck of Germany! He his Hindu, which is the largest religion (27%). He has all the same techs as Cyrus, except he does not have Meditation and does have HBR. We are up Machinery, Compass, and Alpha on him.
Mono to Cyrus for Meditation and 40 gold.
Machinery and Compass to Cyrus for Monarchy, Priesthood, Currency, Archery and Construction (everything he has, except Calendar (obsoletes Obelisks) and HBR (won’t trade).
We are still up Alpha on both of them.
Start on Engineering due in 21 turns…
IBT – The barb archer dies attacking our Axeman.
Bismarck offers Calendar for Alpha and 30 gold. I decline.
1110 (2) – Meet Mansa Musa, the founder of Christianity. He’s up Feud, Theo, HBR, and Calendar and down Alpha and Optics.
IBT – Mansa Musa offers the same trade that Bismarck did last turn, and I decline again.
1120 (3) – Not much, for once.
1130 (4) – Guangzhou theatre->harbor. Huangzhou Obelisk->lighthouse. Nanjing theatre->lib.
Damn, I just realized some cities are still on avoid growth when they don’t need to be anymore…
IBT – The Colossus is built in a far-away land. We pass Cyrus in score!
1140 (5) – Cyrus has discovered Alpha, so I trade it to Bismarck for HBR and 20 gold. Mansa has nothing to offer, though (except Calendar, but he also wants 70 gold), so I don’t give it to him yet.
Damnit! I accidentally pressed Ctrl-W instead of Ctrl-S and entered World Builder!

Will that do anything bad?
I’m going to stop here anyway, since these turns are taking a long time. It takes about 15 seconds to switch back and forth between the game and Word.
Um, just keep exploring. All the AIs seem to be on the OTHER continent, so the next person may meet them all before the end of their turns.
I suppose we could gift Mansa Musa Alpha to make him like us more. I don’t want to, but it may be better than letting an AI get something from him.