Cleopatra had just declared war on Rome, and was about to start a long process of conquest against the rest of the AI civs. It was against this backdrop that I entered the Industrial Age and the next few centuries played out. But first, the map from 350AD:
This map shows the already dominant position that Egypt possessed. Cleo's successful early war had stunted the growth of Persia, and now Rome was about to face the brunt of the Egyptian war machine. My cities were developing nicely, although I couldn't seem to get any luck in the area of culture flips. I had a ton of pressure on Avaris for the longest period of time, but it refused to flip to me. Overall though, I was in excellent shape in every way except militarily.
I acquired Metallurgy just a few turns later from Greece for Incense + 828g + 27gpt. I then traded Metallurgy to Persia for Economics and some chump change. While I had no chance to get Smith's, Economics is always useful to pick up since it doubles the effectiveness of placing cities on "wealth". At this point I decided to research Printing Press myself, since the AI civs had been ignoring it forever and I could get it in 7 turns without losing money. I discovered Printing Press in 470AD... only to discover that the AI civs had all acquired it as well. What horrendously bad luck, to have them research it and exactly the same time that I did! So after research a tech @1st civ costs, I was able to get nothing from it. What a lousy deal. Naturally I was behind in tech now, so I traded for Military Tradition from Egypt for 459g + 62gpt (ouch). Then I got Physics from Xerxes for Military Tradition + 13gpt. I was only two techs from the Industrial Age now, but still behind thanks to my failed research attempt.
The AI civs entered the Industrial Age in 500AD (well, except for backwards Gandhi). I pulled off one of my best deals in the game shortly thereafter in 530AD to join them in the next era. Noticing that Rome lacked Theory of Gravity, I acquried it from Greece for 1212g + 14gpt. Then I sent TOG + horses to Rome for Magnetism, the last tech I needed to enter the Indistrial Age. And the result that I saw was this:
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I drew the freebie tech of Steam Power! Wow, how unusual - and lucky for me. A quick diplo check revealed that Scientific Alexander had drawn the usual Nationalism and sent it around to other civs. Persia also had drawn Nationalism as well. I had a very expensive tech that NO ONE else had, and could sell for the extremely high 2nd civ prices. Thus I sent Steam Power to Persia for Nationalism + 24g + 15gpt. That's Persia paying me, not the other way around. Then I sent Steam Power to Alexander for 1253g + 14gpt, and to Cleo for Silks, Iron, Horses, and a ROP to go connect an Egyptian coal source so I could trade for it. Wow, what a turn! It was due somewhat to luck, true, but I was now caught up in tech and had the other civs paying me money instead of the other way around. Not too shabby.
As I hinted at above, I lacked coal in my territory. I also lacked iron, but I had already gotten some from Egypt in the deal that sent them Steam Power. Therefore I needed to go hook up a source of coal to trade for it; Egypt had multiple ones but of course only one was hooked up. I thus signed that ROP to get my workers into their territory and grab some coal. I hooked up a road on a coal source in 600AD and expected to trade for it... only to find that because worker actions are resolved between turns when the AI civs process their action, Egypt had traded that coal source away to Persia before I ever had the opportunity to trade for it. Grrr... That really wasn't fair. So I moved to my backup plan: hooking up a second coal source far to the west that was in no cultural borders at all. Thus I sent a worker over there to create a coal COLONY in 690AD:
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So I finally managed to acquire coal via a very remote coal colony far to the west. You can also see from this minimap how Rome was being slowly pushed back by Egypt. Meanwhile, I had constructed Wall Street in Nineveh as far back as 590AD. Some quiet turns on the tech front had allowed me to build up money and get out from old gpt payments. In 640AD Caesar was finally able to cough up some legitimate cash for Nationalism, which I had been considering gifting to him to help him fight off Egypt. I sold it to him for 91g + 58gpt. The money was starting to roll in now.
Due to super-slow tech progression, the shields that I had been saving up for Suffrage in Ur needed to go somewhere before they were wasted. In 710AD, Industrialization still had not been discovered yet (remember that Steam Power was discovered in 530AD). Rather than waste all those shields, I decided to trade for Free Artistry to kill any cascade that could jeopardize Theory of Evolution. Thus I traded Incense + 1626g to Greece for Democracy, and then 853g to them for Free Artistry. Ur swapped to Shakespeare and completed it on the next turn. As a side bonus, I was able to get ivory and spices from Rome for Democracy. I was thus pretty much assured of claiming all future wonders from this point.
In 740AD Greece finally discovered Industrialization. If I had known it would take so long, I would have researched it myself (but I couldn't have known that of course). No one else had the tech, but getting factories immediately outweighed the cost of buying the tech @2nd civ price. I thus bought it for 6645g, with no opportunities to broker it thereafter. Factories went up all over my territory, with a rushed factory and coal plant in Ur to ensure the building of Suffrage. The unfortunate result of this was that Greece was beginning to pull away from the other civs in tech, with Egypt fighting too many wars, Persia too small to keep full pace, and India still too backwards to make a difference. This made buying into the tech progression more difficult, but still doable in most cases.
Egypt expanded its cultural borders over my coal colony in 800AD. In order to get a source of coal back, I traded them Industrialization for silks, coal, and some change. Greece at this point had opened up a two-tech lead. Finally in 830AD Medicine was discovered by a civ other than Greece and I could swing some deals. I bought The Corporation from Greece @2nd for a pricey 4230g + 72gpt. Then I sent The Corporation to Egypt for Medicine in a straight-up deal. This brought me to the point illustrated in this 850AD picture:
It should be pretty clear from the minimap that Rome was just about finished. Cleo's rampage across the continent had gone almost unabated, as the production edge of possessing both the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's was too much for Rome to match. In an ordinary game, I probably would have united Greece and Persia against Egypt as soon as Cleo decided to attack Rome. But under the honorable restrictions of this game, that wasn't possible unless Cleo made an agressive action towards me. In my neck of the woods, you can see I was popping workers out of size 12 cities and working on factories everywhere else. Universal Suffrage was mine easily; I had rushed a factory and coal plant in Ur immediately and then started the wonder, easily giving me more production than the factory-less AI cities building it. Ur completed it in 900AD, which put me in line for me real goal of Theory of Evolution. Notice that I have some real defenders by this point as well, though some backline cities are still guarded by token warriors.
Fresh off her bloody conquest of Rome (which was reduced to some OCC action on an offshore island in 900AD), Cleo declared war on Persia in 910AD. Since Alexander had just signed a MPP with Egypt, he declared war on X-man as well. This was NOT good news; if you look back at the deals I made, you'll see that Persia had been a valuable trading partner with me who I could often use to make 2 for 1 tech deals. The elimination of Persia would be very bad news for me, and put Egypt even closer to a domination victory. But what could I do about it under the straightjacket of the honorable ruleset? The answer was not much. So I continued to watch helplessly as the cities of Persia were rolled up one by one over the next few turns.
Since research was moving SO slowly, I decided around 900AD to turn on research myself and go for Sanitation. After all, with Electricity still undiscovered and the tech pace in slow motion for a Deity game, that at least was a safe bet, right? I discovered Sanitation in 960AD a started a massive switch over to hospitals. And the brokering opportunities... didn't exist at all. For the second time, the AI civs had chosen to research the same tech and get it at the exact same time as me. All that I can say is that this was phenominally bad luck, to research another tech @1st civ cost in beakers and get nothing from it as a result. I ended up getting Communism for it from India, and about 50gpt for it from Persia, which meant nothing because Persia only had a few more turns yet to live. This was a very bad deal for me, thanks to some lousy luck.
Persia lost all of its cities in 980AD. But X-man lived on with a settler in a boat somewhere - and he was still paying me 50gpt! Ha ha ha! That money must have been coming out of thin air; I don't know how it was possible, but he was still paying it to me. Go Xerxes go! :) Unfortunately this was ended rather quickly by Alexander, who killed Greece in 1000AD.
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The expression on the foreign advisor's face is kind of how I was feeling at the time. I was pulling in tons of money and was completely caught up in tech. Unfortunately, Egypt was approaching the domination limit and the game was becoming seriously unbalanced. If I was going to win this game, it was going to be tricky to get a UN vote off before Egypt ran over the rest of the world. This set up an unusually dangerous endgame situation...
