And, uh, sure they are.

"Flunkius."

"Yes Chief?"

"It's time for a new direction, wouldn't you say? I mean, there are sort of a lot of barbarians."

"Ah, yes Chief."

"So what say we stop building scouts, send some warriors scouting, and pull a few of the wise men out of the fields and stick them on researching something?"

"Ah, sounds like a plan, Chief."

So we do. And our warrior scout gets jumped by a couple of barbs, promotes with no hp loss, and pops hut number seven which gives us another warrior.

A very short time later...

I contact Abe, then proceed to ignore him for a turn in the hopes he'll sell contact with me to the Babs and Zulus and save me some pain. He sells me to the Zulu a couple turns later, but I continue holding off, in the hopes I can get the Babs, too, and save even more on tech buys.

In 1600 BC, I finally pull contact with the Babs, as I pop the last hut on the continent with, of all things, the settler sent to settle red dot, and pull a warrior to guard the city with.

And then it was time for the tech-buying extravaganza.

The Babs, it should be noted, are, well, not in the best of shape with only two cities. But they'll do. Dial 'em up, and start the trading process.

Alphabet for WM + 66 gold. Bronze working for 77 gold. Masonry for 92. Warrior Code for 74. Mysticism for 88. And at that point I'm down to gpt, which I keep for a bit in the hopes of getting Polytheism.

"Well Flunkius, I feel smarter now."

"Ah, yes Chief."

"Yet poorer, somehow. I wonder what they'll do with all that gold."

"Dunno Chief. Maybe they think it's money or something."

In 1500 BC, we trade for Writing. Embassies soon. I will in fact remember to build them this time.

In 1475, Abe starts on Sun Tzu's. Not bad. Not bad.

Come 1150 BC, our lands look about like this:

Note Miami and Seattle. Those can't be allowed. We'll do something about them, er, eventually.

And yes, my 40 turn run on the Wheel is about up. Sort of sad, really, but oh well.

And, uh, hrm.

Apparently installing Conquests, but playing PTW with the PTW CD has a few...issues. Nothing game-breaking, I hope.

In 1050, the Wheel comes in, and it turns out that we do in fact have horses. Two of them, in fact. This will work nicely.

Too, in 1050 Abe comes calling with the first demand.

"Want me to get the List, Chief?"

"Yes, Flunkius. And fetch me some blood to write with, too. And that bone pen we keep for these things."

In 1000 BC, we pay off Babylon for Polytheism, and start 40-turning Monarchy.

Some time later, the barbarian threat finally ends:

There's also been some major Pirates of the Caribbean action up by my tundra villages, wherein Abe's supergalley dominates entire fleets of barb galleys and goes elite.

And whatever else is going on, Babylon is on their last city. Yeowch. So we trade for Iron Working. And of course we don't have any, because, hey, would Sirian dig us this nice ditch and then put IRON in it? I think not.

In any case, there is much improving of the land, building of the military and such. And it's looking sort of good, except...

Ruh-roh.

Well, ve haf vays of extorting your tech, foolish AIs. Yes.