A Golden Age just as we begin researching Communism! How appropriate! And how wasteful, given that my anarchy going into Communism is going to happen during the GA. Sigh. It was a tough call whether to pass on Newton's and get the Golden Age with Theory of Evolution instead, but I figured I'd rather use it to build the Factories and Hospitals than to get it when those are complete and there's nothing else to build.
I draw 5 turns of anarchy, could be worse.
In 1020 AD, the glorious Bolsheviks take power. Let's see what Communism looks like... Corruption is about one-third. I'm an absolute idiot and forgot I should have Courthouses built in all the cities ahead of time, before the revolution. I also should have used my 3,000 gold to cash rush improvements in the newer cities since now we can't do that.
You can see that Kiev is building a settler. This is just to keep around and merge back into the same city after its hospital gets built. Usually, I skim workers off maxed-out size-12 cities, but we can't here; and since there's nothing else to do with the population we may as well do that. Athens actually managed to put out three settlers in this way towards the end of the middle ages; and so it got to jump to size 18 as soon as its hospital was done.
I decide to trade around Communism in hopes of getting the idiot AIs to research something useful instead of Communism. But Babylon insists on being an idiot anyway:
I use the Golden Age production to research Medicine and then Sanitation, both before Steam Power. Hospitals are the huge improvement that we need in all the cities. Not only to let them grow larger, but because building a hospital gives a city permission to build a second worker. Steam Power will only be half as useful before hospitals as after.
Sanitation in 1110 AD, and every city on the mainland swaps to hospital (most were prebuilding with Police Stations.) Even the fishing cities that aren't size 12 yet -- they need the permission to build a second worker.
Steam Power next (I think somebody else did research it for me to trade for), and YES, we have coal - right under Odessa.
Babylon starts Smith's, but I'm not going to try. I realize another fact about Communism - there's no super cities. Usually I cash rush a factory and a coal plant in a city or two to try for the Industrial wonders, but we can't do that here and I'm not about to whip them. And anyway, who needs Smith's when I've already got extra gold coming out of my ears. :) The other civs are paying me gold for techs faster than I can use it up on deficit research.
And tiny Greece comes to me begging with a hilarious offer:
Steam Power, Industrialization, Electricity, Scientific Method. I didn't have a chance to do much prebuilding for Theory of Evolution, and I actually research Atomic Theory and The Corporation myself before it completes. The wonder gives me Electronics and Radio. I did get to prebuild for the Hoover Dam in Athens, and that completes on the next turn, in 1385 AD. Athens is actually by far my best city. It and Kiev are the only two of my cities that aren't half-full of water, and Kiev does have four lakes and a number of forests that still haven't been cleared. And Moscow is still churning out tons of beakers, with the Colossus, Newton's and Copernicus still stacked.
I notice that Corinth was guarded by nothing better than a warrior all this time! I draft an infantry.
And we all keep building up. No wars anywhere. I keep trading my new techs for tons of cash. The AIs actually take a while to get to Espionage, which they usually research quite a bit faster. I had been holding onto my cash to try some Propaganda, but as I'm building the Intelligence Agency, somebody researches Democracy and everybody revolts to it. Sigh.
Just for lack of anything else to do with 15,000 gold, I randomly investigate AI cities whenever I feel like it. I discover this:
We're over halfway through the Industrial Age and they're only now building Wall Street? Man, Monarch AIs suck. :)
When the core cities run out of things to build (including cathedrals and colosseums), I start sending infantry over to the pair of luxury colonies to disband to get them up to speed on hospitals, marketplaces, and soon research labs. We're an industrialized society, and we're now really Communist - so what better way to run the empire than the Communist ideal: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." My rich cities are giving up wealth to the newcomers. This scenario keeps running itself!
I keep researching in what's become a very boring game. Still no wars anywhere. Eventually, the Industrial Age comes to a close. India researches Flight while I finish Motorized Transport. We trade those techs, Modern Age in 1525 AD. I get Rocketry for free, and so does Babylon. Research set to Computers first, of absolute course - we need the Research Labs ASAP.
For some reason, Germany had kept falling behind on tech, despite being just as large as any of the other civs. I couldn't figure out why for the longest time, and then it hit me. I hadn't been selling my tech to Germany! They didn't have gold-per-turn to offer for the first few techs I sold, and then they were behind, so as I got new techs I skipped Germany as I made the rounds to sell it.
But now, I pull a little trick. I gift Germany about 10 techs to yank them up into the modern age, hoping that they'll get something besides Rocketry for free... and they do get Ecology! That definitely saves me about 6-7 turns of researching towards space. I trade them Rocketry for it. I consider trying the same for Greece, but he's even farther behind, and I don't want to give him the techs for tanks right on my doorstep.
OK. Four civs, who've never been at war since the ancient age, enter the Modern Age together. Let's have a space race!
