Anyway, time for some city evaluation. Neither Carthage nor Leptis Magna can quite make a worker every turn. A bunch of flood plains and one wheat won't suffice for that; you need three or four cattle. Carthage can, however, make the 3 workers every 4 turns pattern, described in detail in my Epic 14 report. I'm going to let it do that for quite a while to get the population rocketed up quickly in all my cities.
Cascade takes out the Great Library (Theveste was building towards that), Hanging Gardens (Theveste's second choice), Great Wall (who cares), and Great Lighthouse (3,000 points but useless effects) all in a two-turn span. Theveste can swap to a Palace to keep building, and I guess it'll have to. The city's going to take a long time to build all the way to a 600-shield wonder, though.
Ironically enough, the first tech that I have to buy without a brokerage is Currency. Heh. It costs 250 from England, and then I can resell it to the civs on my continent for a total of about 100 gold and a worker; not that great a deal but I'll take it. Marketplaces are ordered up, of course.
I rush harbors both at Rusaddir on the island and Suicis back home, and now I've got five luxuries online. I still need 10% lux tax, at least until some of the larger cities build marketplaces or I can import a luxury. Rusaddir is now stuck according to the variant rule; it isn't allowed to build any more buildings until it gets out of 1-gold status. The Forbidden Palace might make that happen, or it might not.
The Forbidden Palace completes in 70 BC, reducing my corruption losses from 84 to 59 and increasing my income from 182 to 209. It's not a whole lot just yet, but as the cities around the FP complete aqueducts and marketplaces, it'll improve greatly - and it did get here very early. It also gets Rusaddir up to about 50% corruption, so the city is allowed to build a courthouse, and it will develop well enough from there.
Some of the AIs did manage to begin making contact with each other, almost certainly due to the Great Lighthouse. Eventually, England threatens me for contact with Spain. England couldn't bother me, of course, being on the other continent, but she could pay off the nations on my continent for alliances, which is something I really don't want just now.
I get Brokerage #10 buying Monotheism (for 700 of my 3000 cash) and reselling it for Feudalism, and then I clean up everybody else's spare change by trading around all the contacts.
Theveste changes to Sun Tzu's. That's actually somewhat useful as an economic wonder, sort of a mini-Smith's; and also I'm definitely planning on some conquesting here when the time is right. Leptis Magna swaps over to the Palace to prebuild another wonder; I'm hoping for Leonardo's there, for obvious reasons.
I sent a pair of workers south to build a road to Spain, to get some points for trading resources in 10 AD. I've got spare wines and gems to trade. And furs, thanks to this city that I settled way over here.
There's one of the sillier moves I've gotten to pull in some time. By putting that colony there, I was able to sell those furs to Spain even though they were a turn or two away from hooking up their own.
Meanwhile, freaking India built a harbor THREE SQUARES away from their capital, and didn't CONNECT the city by road! So, in 110 BC, I decide to grab every worker anywhere near India, and try to rush a road there as fast as I could. I fell one turn short of completing it by 10 AD, though. I did, however, have a second Spices to export to Spain, so I do claim 2000 points for Resource Exports in 10 AD.
Brokerage #11: 670 gold to France for Engineering; Engineering + 120g to Greece for Theology, and to Spain for a free supply of Horses. Leptis Magna swaps to the Sistine Chapel, and Hippo swaps to the Palace to build yet another wonder. I do this largely because the cities don't have anything else they really need to build. They've got marketplaces, can't build the research buildings, and don't need cathedrals - and won't until beyond size 12. Also, I want the cascade stopped COLD as long before Smith's as I can manage, since that wonder is Absolutely Critical.
Here's my land in 300 AD:
