The time of TANKS!
In theory that is.
Dutch research is massive. We monopolise a rather large ammount of techs only to sell them for huge gpt from the AI. Mass Production gave me plenty but the real cash cow was Mot Trans:
First up mister "I am very very rich":
86.94KB
fllowed by his neighbour "I am a little bit less rich but still very rich":
93.31KB
Please note I timed spices to these deals as that will make it far less likely they will declare war.
Of course there are 4 other civs, but they are on welfare at the moment as only teh Mongols gave me a measily 34 gpt for the knowledge of Tanks. I gave Egypt and America Mot Trans as well to prevent Beam getting it in a good deal.
Now what does this do for our economy my dear Minister Zalm? Well:
19.16KB
About 600 gpt will expire in 7 turns...just when the next tech comes in (though I do think someone will get it sooner...).
Domestic, we finished the FP in Rome!! This gave a solid MFG boost and made most Roman cities more productive. I bought Factories (hey, what else can I do with the money?) and most are on CH/lib/Uni now.
Also, most of the land is railroaded.
The core is "perfectionised". the 5 biggest cities have all improvements,yes that includes Cathedrals, but no colosseums. I have Police Stations too and in the event of a longer war I hope this will benefit me more then the few extra units I could have built instead. Fact remains that I need zero luxslider while Beam needs 20% last time I checked.
Small wonders include the Battlefield Med (very very good SW), Intel agency (with 10k in the vault we may be tempted) and the to be built Wall street (5th SE is not done yet).
140.97KB
Compared to:
66.74KB
I seem to have the upper hand...the only thing that could realy screw me is Beam's free tech, it could lead to all kinds of messy stuff and I don't want that. I do estimate however that I can research roughly 1.7 times his speed so any free tech can be caught up in say 25 turns (about 10 turns per tech in Modern era).
Another problem is that Byzantine Railways seem to be out of business...there must be an AI unit on that mountain. He used to get Iron from Egypt but some moron's cultural border stole that from Cleo (and Beam).
23.79KB
Also, Beam is trailing slightly at the moment but bagging either Flight or electronics will get him even easily. In the end I decided to give Beam Iron for several reasons, first, it will guarantee peace and since I am bigger the longer it takes the more powerful I will get. Second, if he lands Rocketry or fission he is one step closer to Nukes. He will be less inclined to nuke me when we trade (though this psycho factor is debatable)...
66.06KB
stay tuned.