Of course, with the Commercial Dock built now, this is as high as my income is ever going to get. Working in my favor, though, was the fact that the Mongols were oscillating wars against everybody else in the world. They polished off Egypt some time back, and presently knocked off the Greeks and started in again on Carthage a turn later. Only Mongolia was presenting any sort of economic power, with the Iroquois staying right with me in the tech race and letting me pull two-fers with them.
The Mongols did present one big problem, though. I'd traded my Rubber and Coal to Carthage in order to get Flight and Motorized Transport. I just had to hope the Hannibalites could hold on long enough for me to pay off the resource commitments, but they lost their trade route. I got the two techs for very little gold, but now my reputation was trashed.
One-beaker science on Radio finish in 1967 AD, putting me into the Modern Age. How many modern techs are in play already? Yikes, all four of the first-level techs.
Well, if I can't pay gold/turn for techs, there's no way I'm going to be able to afford anything to broker, so it's time to start stealing...
... but the gods of fate are certainly not with us this time. This does not bode well for us, my friend.
One beaker on Computers finishes in 2007 AD, and I steal Fission, although I'm finally too far behind for any brokering to be possible. It's only 43 turns from the end of the game and I've still got eight techs to go, to say nothing of the shield production.
I guess there's only one chance - somehow start the Golden Age. I can do that either with a Jaguar in a war, or by building the Manhattan Project (to go with my Sistine Chapel.) The Internet is not an option as I can't research Miniaturization in time - that's largely because I didn't get a sniff of SETI either; if I had either that or Newton's, I could do my own research now in about 25 turns instead of 35.
So let's build Manhattan for the Golden Age.... hey, WHY IS THERE NO URANIUM IN THE WORLD?! This isn't Falsfire's Folly!!!
Hey, wait, there is - four sources, all on the far southwestern island, and India (the weakest civ that's still around) has it. But, the city doesn't have a harbor.
Sooo... the GA is going to involve that island one way or another, either via Jaguar Warrior, or by exiting the OCC rules briefly to capture the Indian city, build a harbor there, and give the city away to someone and buy the uranium from them. I pay 17/turn to the Mongols for Oil, and start building transports and tanks.
Unfortunately, that plan ran into a bit of a snag as well...
A freaking SUBMARINE is blocking that strait now so my boats can't get out once again.
So now how am I going to pull this off? I don't dare start a war with the Mongols, who are the only civ I can reach. Maybe I can steal all the techs as the Mongols research them, but I don't even think the Mongols are going to get the research done by 2050 AD. Never mind the fact that I'm going to have to build Apollo and ten spaceship parts with one city in 30 turns total. And I don't want to hear any news about aluminum, either.
Index | The Exciting Conclusion
