I can't afford Industrialization to broker. But there is a way: I can afford an immediate STEAL of the technology from Carthage.
But it fails, and Carthage declares war.
But that cancels my 198 gold/turn payment for Electricity! Now I can pay 175/turn to the Ottomans for Industrialization. Industrialization to the Vikings gets me Sanitation. And those two techs together to Germany get me Communism.
Then, I can give Communism to the Vikings for an alliance against Carthage. Also Sanitation to Arabia and Medicine to the Zulu for the same. The Ottomans cost 29/turn to bring into the alliance; I do it to make sure Hannibal doesn't buy them in against me.
You can do SO much with brokering when all the AIs are a tech level or two apart from each other.
How's THAT for turnabout, Hannibal?
I also sign embargoes with everyone against Carthage, which is a standard tactic for me to make it harder for my target to do any trading if one of my allies makes peace.
Anyway, with rifles and rails, and the Vikings on MY side, I'm not worried at all about getting attacked. My cities swap to factories, and Neapolis' wonder prebuild that's been going for a while is switched to Universal Suffrage. I would like to rush a factory and coal plant somewhere to prebuild for Theory of Evolution, but I don't have the money.
Carthage completes Universal Suffrage four turns later - could only have been a Great Leader. Neapolis is stuck - the Palace is only 500 shields. I decide to swap it to a factory which reduces it to 240 shields (wasting 404!) and then back to the Palace, in hopes that Scientific Method will come soon enough to switch.
In 1190 AD, the luck just keeps on rollin' in. Both Arabia and Ottomans got Scientific Method this turn (so I can avoid buying at monopoly), and also this turn just happened to have a large payout for another deal expire. 148/turn to Arabia for Sci Meth. Sci Meth + 56/turn to Scandinavia for Replaceable Parts. Sci Meth to the Zulu for Gems.
I have one rubber. I upgrade all my rifles to infantry, and then trade that only rubber to the Ottomans for Spices and cash.
Now I have to figure out how to build the Hoover Dam. And that's assuming Neapolis gets ToE, which will take another 7 turns, before an AI pulls a Leader to grab it. I don't have any really good high-shield cities. Lugdunum has the Iron Works, but isn't that great a shield producer despite. Veii is my other halfway decent shield producer, even though it's sitting on two flood plains and four water tiles. It'll have to happen in Rome itself, despite the city lacking any prebuild larger than a university. Rome gets a hospital and coal plant rushed, and workers merged in.
Six nervous turns later, ToE does complete!
So in 1255 AD, I decide to renew the alliances against Carthage with the civs that made peace. For anybody that still doubts that Theory of Evolution can catapult you into the lead all by itself:
ToE works so well because, mind-bogglingly, Atomic Theory is actually the most expensive tech in the Industrial Age; it's inexplicably more expensive than Electronics, more expensive than Flight, and tied with Radio. All that was despite the fact that The Corporation was me buying at monopoly. Because of the global alliance against Carthage, they've fallen into communism of course, and the Ottomans that are one-third their size have moved into the technology lead.
Of course, I didn't actually accept that deal; I split the tech trade with the gold/turn payments into a separate trade from the military alliance, so that the payments wouldn't end if Osman made peace with Carthage again.
Atomic Theory also gets me 54/turn from the Vikings, although nothing but new alliances from everybody else. I hold off on trading Electronics until I've got the Hoover Dam secure.
Presently my Rubber sale with the Ottomans ends; I take all the riflemen I've built in the interim, upgrade them to infantry, and then sell my rubber anew.
Time passes, and war weariness finally makes an appearance in 1335 AD, thirty-two turns after this war started. Still, I don't make peace just yet. The closest Carthaginian city to me controls an extra coal and extra rubber, which I would very much like to acquire.
Ten artillery, ten guerillas, ten infantry, and ten cavalry later (somehow in there Arabia found an extra saltpeter to sell to me), Amatikulu is razed and replaced.
Syracuse had its library and university rushed on the first two turns that it existed; the fastest possible way to get a city's borders expanded, in only two turns.
I've also finally got the time to fish for Leaders. I just want one, to form an army and get started on the Leader-based small wonders. Being a militaristic civ has its advantages...
and that's all I need. Peace is struck in 1390 AD.
I started a one-beaker run on Radio after building Theory of Evolution; 25 turns of that have already ticked by, as you can see. That war lasted quite a while, although not a whole lot happened and I just kept building my infrastructure.
