Here's the current situation.
I opted not to crop this shot because of everything that's going on. You can see my line of defense at Niagara, having formed *just* in time to hold off the barbs, and starting to push them back. Fortunately, the barbs came from the north, and stayed out of that fertile middle area long enough for me to get a settler into position at a TOP-notch site. That settler was a farmer's gambit, but only for his last step; for every step before that I'd had visibility of adjacent squares so I knew he'd be safe. And I've got three workers working already, one of them ready to hook up the wines as soon as I build my new city.
Yes, that's 50% lux tax in the info box, and I've run as high as 80% sometimes, with Salamanca hitting size 6 with no police or temple. There will be time for cash later; right now we need every single possible wheat stalk and stone that we can scrape from our fields. Finally, look at the minimap - an American city has appeared down there! My scout in the north there (the other one died) is reversing course in an attempt to get down there and make contact.
Grand River would whip an archer presently to fend off a barb camp that appeared right near there, while an archer from Niagara nailed that first one.
Minimum science on Alphabet finished on schedule, and the only place to go next was Writing. Niagara plateaued at size 6 producing a wonderful 10 shields of military every turn, and Salamanca settled in as a nice 4-turn settler farm, mixing in two-turn workers as well, receiving heavy micromanagement constantly.
By 1830 BC in this picture, I'm up to six cities, and Allegheny has built a temple. I didn't even have to whip it, thanks to military protection from Niagara's units. The expanded borders gave me visual control of the entire northern half of my continent, no more barb camps. Allegheny would then build a granary, and become a two-turn worker farm for a while.
I didn't dotmap, so my cities ended up rather haphazardly placed. Of course Grand River and Niagara weren't my choices on locations (Niagara's is actually pretty bad long-term, having six water tiles in range but no harbor access). But having Allegheny one tile farther SW would've been much better spacing and gotten an additional gold hill and flood plain into play. Oil Springs had to go there, off the river, and there's nothing I can do (short of encroaching on ICS) about the strip of wasted tiles between Grand River and Allegheny.
And in 1625 BC, at long last, I've fought through the rest of the barbarians to reach contact with America.
Checking the F3 screen, America is indeed in Republic. They also have contact with Babylon and the Zulu, but want a ridiculous 600 gold worth for either. It would appear that all I can do is wait for one of them to buy contact with me. In the meantime, we get news that we're already doing pretty well at climbing out of the hole.
12 turns after first contact, Shaka Zulu finally pops up on the F4 screen. He wants 200 gold and the map for contact with Babylon, which I pay. I buy Writing, Code of Laws, and Philosophy for my remaining 400 gold and two more map sales.
That leaves me with an empty treasury, and 30 gold income. However, I can doctor the books by working water tiles and hiring taxmen to make it appear that I have as much as 50 gold income... which makes possible this happy day:
I then took out a small loan from Babylon so that the one turn of anarchy wouldn't send me into bankruptcy, and revolted. The Republic of Iroquois was founded in 1300 BC.
