Still in 1250 AD, I've noticed the price for Steam Power is dropping, so I need to trade it. To Rome @monopoly for Medicine @3rd + 79/turn. To Aztecs (with Medicine) for Nationalism @last + (whee) Horses. Germany won't give Communism for it.
Also, I hadn't dared to take the turn to revolt to Democracy, fearing that a lost turn of shields would lose a wonder for Salamanca. But now I can, and of course it's now more important with the workers building rails.
I take this chance to make a note of exactly how many shields each city is producing in Republic, and compare it with Democracy. After the revolution, every city had exactly the same amount of waste, except for Niagara, Grand River, and Centralia, which each improved by exactly one shield. Democracy does have lower corruption than Republic, but it's insignificant.
I make one of my most expensive rushes ever: Salamanca's factory for 776 gold. The next turn, I rush a coal plant, after using a forest chop to get up from 0 shields in the box.
I'm researching Sanitation and it's due in 3. Sala wants a hospital before building Suffrage, but the truth is a hospital won't get Sala any more shields, since its remaining tiles are mostly water. So Salamanca starts Universal Suffrage now. No idea if I'm going to get it, since Smith's is still building everywhere and will cascade. But Wall Street is available as a fallback and soon ToE will be, and also I've done well before in having a city with factory and coal rushed beat my rivals to Suffrage.
I sell Industrialization when several of the civs have plenty of gold-per-turn to offer. Particularly humorous is Rome's offer:
Notice that he lacks Iron! He's going to pay me 3,480 gold so that he can not-build factories!
OK, looks clear: Smith's didn't complete and the AIs didn't cascade to Suffrage until Sala had 7 turns left on it; and a city without a factory won't go from somewhere below 480 shields for Smith's to 640 for Suffrage in 7 turns. (It can happen, but won't here.)
More time passes...
Sala gets Suffrage in 1345 AD, helpfully ahead of anybody getting Scientific Method. Rome researches Replaceable Parts as I research Scientific Method; we swap techs and then I shut off the research. Salamanca builds a hospital, then Theory of Evolution, then a very late Wall Street, and the Intelligence Agency and Battlefield Medicine.
In 1530 AD, Salamanca builds... its marketplace! Yup, it had never before had time to build one.
After a while, the Aztecs, Zulu, and Romans go to war with each other, and all fall into communism. This supports a theory that I formed in Epics Fifteen and Sixteen - the faster the tech pace goes, the less likely the AIs are to make war. When tech is going faster, at each build choice the AIs have more city improvements to pick from, and in the long run end up spending more time on improvements and less on military. And when an AI hasn't built up military, it doesn't go to war.
1590 is the year Salamanca makes 10,000 culture, and it's producing 81/turn. I'm now bored of not researching, and I want to push the game into the modern age to give the AIs some stuff besides infantry to build, so I start researching again on Mass Production with 21k in the bank. (Yes, between them the AIs researched about four techs in around 50 turns.)
The AIs make occasional peace and wars with each other, while I keep researching and make the Modern Age sometime around 1720 AD. Germany kept pace with me on tech, and got Ecology for free. Greece lagged a while behind, but got Rocketry for free when they got to the modern age; they and Germany swapped their techs freeing me from having to buy them at monopoly price.
I research Computers as always (in this game I realized that Battleships make great prebuilds for things like Research Labs and Mass Transits), then Fission. Salamanca started building SETI, then swapped to the UN when it became available.
Now I remember why I stopped researching before. I hope my culture wins before somebody launches a spaceship. Salamanca's still over 70 turns away from victory, and I'm 4 techs into the modern age - only six away from the spaceship!
I research Nuclear Power next, to get a Nuclear Plant. After Nuclear Power comes - how often do you get to research this? - Miniaturization! My best bet culturally is to get the Genetics wonders for Salamanca. And along the way, an Offshore Platform will actually help it towards that end.
Sala rushes a nuclear plant, then builds SETI at 91 shields/turn while researching Miniaturization. After that, it builds the offshore platform, and both Genetics wonders in 10 turns each from scratch.
And here's one way to slow the economy of an AI that's heading for space:
Also, it seems that the Zulu have been getting the worst of the various AI wars. I sell them Oil and gift them Motorized Transport to help them out. The longer they stay alive, the longer everyone else stays in Communism.
Oh, and the AIs became HORRIBLE polluters. I guess they were landing enough amphibious invasions on each other that the workers kept hiding in the cities? (And of course, none were Industrious as per the scenario setup.)
Look at all that pollution!
Germany makes another misstep towards space by researching Advanced Flight. That is one seriously pointless tech that does absolutely nothing besides delay AI space efforts...
Everyone now has declared war on the Zulu. And they lost their rubber; if they hadn't I'd gift them up to Computers to give them a chance. But now they're doomed, since I haven't a spare rubber to offer them.
Tenochtitlan finishes the Manhattan Project; Salamanca tries to look inconspicuous.
In 1838 AD, Salamanca finishes its fourth Modern Age wonder (UN, SETI, Cure for Cancer, Longevity), and is 30 turns from victory. The only possible remaining culture is the Apollo Program, but that isn't going to get the win any sooner, so I just keep researching the non-space techs. I go up to Robotics, and build a bunch of Manufacturing Plants, and then Recycling to get rid of the pollution caused by same. :) I sell Recycling around for a round of luxury renewals and lots of gold/turn.
The Zulu end up destroyed in 1858 AD by the Romans.
Oh, and I was playing another mini-game with myself:
Centralia claims the world record for Most Shields in a Tundra Fishing Village. :) How often does a city like this get to build an offshore platform, nuclear plant, and manufacturing plant?
I finally fulfill the goal of taking a civ all the way from 4000 BC to victory without any war, ever, which I've been trying to do for a long while. Epic 16 presumably managed such, but it wasn't all under our hand. Seventeen failed in the last minute. The game EX? did, although it was a succession game and again not under my hand all the way. But I've got it here. I hit end turn a bunch more times, and the game quietly ends.
