The Eternal Infrastructure Christmas

And of course, having shown the invasion pic, Russia lands a whole bunch of knights and cossacks and such and takes the town, whereupon a lot of Vikings come running in on boats, and there's Bloody Warfare Over Towns On the Ass End of Nowhere.

By 1415, the AIs are apparently researching different paths, since Medicine and The Corporation are roaming the world in search of victims. Me, I haven't got enough money, and my fur deals aren't...quite...up yet. And when they are, the Iroquois get 1900 gold, iron, and furs in exchange for the both techs. Iron, we note once again, rules.

And then the Eternal Infrastructure Christmas continues.

In 1455, I get a message that the English have established an embassy. Did I forget embassies again? Why, what a foolish question. Of COURSE I forgot to build embassies. Fortunately, when you're making +300 gold per turn, you can afford to do something about piddly little problems like embassies.

In 1485, I notice Refining and Sanitation making the rounds, so I snag Refining for 1280 gold, 1 gpt, furs, and saltpeter. A couple turns later, the Vikings come demanding...The Corporation. Let me think about that for a moment...No. He takes that answer, but it appears I need to beef up my colonial security pretty quickly. They're still using spears...

And guess who didn't get oil? Yup.

And for whatever reason, massive world wars randomly break out in 1490, thus leading to some serious spam by England's 5,954,328 ships cruising everywhere. <sigh>

Oh, and I built some stock exchanges, too, while I was building things.

And it would appear that tech paths WILDLY diverged... in 1540 I pick up Espionage and Steel along with Wines from Hiawatha for iron, horses, furs, and 800 gold. I could have also had Electricity, but the comp wants waaaaaaaay too much for it, and in 6 turns pull a 40 turn run on Electricity anyway. What's more, England seems to have picked up Combustion, so I buy it off Beth for 3100 gold.

And when Germany comes offering an MPP in 1545, I on a whim go to see what he wants to give me for my map:

Oh.

Germany truly is the ass end of this particular planet. If this ball of ice were Hoth, the Germans would be the equivilent of a band of naked, starving Ewoks. I hope anybody who pulled them can do better than being most of an age behind.

And then, suddenly, everyone was building ToE. Ruh-roh.

Look ma, a 40 turn science tech!

The ever-obliging French toss me SciMeth for 1700 gold and my map, and Seoul immediately switches off the prebuild to ToE. Hopefully I can pull it in 6 turns...

1595, I trade 900 gold, saltpeter, and furs to the French for Replacable Parts. Mass Production opens up, and I nab that for another 2300 gold. This is all about, oh, 10 turns before all my workers would've finished anyway, which brings up another point - I needed WAY more workers this game. Until I about doubled them, I was lagging way behind - too many mountains.

Oh, and I got screwed for rubber, too. Who EVER would've guessed?

Meanwhile, there are massive world wars raging everywhere, which probably helps me to get:

This throws me Flight and Atomic Theory, and I begin 40-turning Electronics. Battlefield Medicine comes in that same turn, for what little it's worth. Given that the world is suddenly in the comparative Dark Ages, the Eternal Infrastructure Christmas starts up again.

Hrm. Hiawatha had money. Emphasis on had.

And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Ghengis Chooses Unwisely.

Unwisely, I say. Unwisely.