Well this is my first report for Realms Beyond, but I’ve spent a lot of time lurking and reading through the reports you guys have made. So far it looks like I was the only one to try for a diplomatic victory in this one. I'd also like to apologize for not including too much detail or any pictures, but it just completely skipped my mind while I was playing, so these are just my immediate memories from directly after completing the game. I'll try and remember to keep a log next time! Anyway, my thanks to T Hawk for sponsoring the game, cause it was a lot of fun.

I made a good few mistakes at the beginning. Not researching fishing at the start left my city cranking out useless warriors for a few turns after the initial worker build. To compound that, my worker was left sleeping on a hill for a few turns because I forgot to set him to work after I finished researching Bronze working. That caused me a bit of annoyance, and had it been a normal game I would have loaded the autosave.

Opening blunders aside, my initial strategy was to rapidly colonize the island so I would have my base set up for the rest of the game. I think that went quite well, with the specialists from Paris’s library keeping my sunk economy just enough in the running. I finished the 7 cities that would make up my little empire in 480bc, and got the Hanging Gardens up right at the same time for a nice little boost to population in all my new cities.

By this time the computer had contacted me, and I was able to see which victory condition to go for. They were all different religions, and I had founded none of my own, so diplomacy looked quite dicey. Then I had a little stirring in my head, and went to look at the civilopedia. Asoka’s favourite civic was Free Religion, while Rameses and Brennus liked Organized religion. Clearly if I wanted to get a diplomatic victory, I was going to have to choose the religion of one of either Brennus or Rameses and hope Asoka jumped ship from his Hinduism. Sure enough, the Confucianism of Rameses spread to me, and I converted. It was a pretty easy choice, since Asoka’s worst enemy was Brennus. Also, in looking at the land I think Asoka and the player had slightly less land, with the two religious civs having bigger continents. I guess I was lucky that Brennus went with a lot of farm improvements, because if rameses had been my opponent things might have gotten hairy.

My economy completely recovered by the AD years, and I was able to run my science up into 80-90%. I grabbed Notre Dame to help me with happiness issues, but otherwise didn’t build another wonder right into the modern period. Instead I just teched away, on a slightly meandering beeline to the United Nations. I won the race to liberalism by only a little, but economics and physics were both easy enough and I had Mass Media just after 1400. I held off on building the UN, since I was a few techs ahead, and Asoka wasn’t friendly yet. It completed in 1540, when I couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

By plying Asoka with wines and jewellery for the last few millennia, and with shameless cash bribes I’d helped our relations mount up. Unfortunately my banking on his civic preferences hadn’t worked out too well, and he only swapped out of Hinduism in the 1600’s. I won the UN victory in 1665. I don’t imagine that will stack up all too well, but it was certainly a fun experience.

Result: Diplomatic Victory 1665.

Focused on early expansion, early capital academy and CS slingshot. Pyramids and TGLibrary were built, all in Paris. City placement was identical to timmy's, not grabbing marble neither stone. Founded Confuccionism (shrine), Theology, Taoism and Islamism (shrine)
In modern times, focus on research improvements, mining inc and sid's sushi. Liberalism slinged Assembly Line. After that was just matter of pressing spacebar to achieve space victory on 1690AD.
My main mistake in the game was settling about 6 Great Scientists in the capital instead of building academies in the other cities. I noticed this only at the end, and then built the academies.
A curious fact i noticed around 1000AD: a great artist born and it would ligthbulb horseback riding! i have some screenshots, but i can't use relams beyond userfiles anymore due to some error.
It was a great game since i had never won by space, as the ending game is boring and monotone. Thanks to T-hawk for the game.

Adventure 35 – Mach Five

A cute filler game during the long slog that is Epic 24, this Always Peace game can be won by diplomacy, or space. Space is the ‘purer’ builder’s game so I decide on this as my victory. With an AI that understands neither the implications of AP, nor of no barbs then this is simple race to space against the other players; my own victory is surely inevitable With no tech trading, and no events, the game itself will be, well, less than eventful, so it’s a good choice to have a quick game and a small map.

Picking up the action 1 turn in, I switch to Fishing, and change to a WB when the tech is complete (BC 3860, according to the log date). Seems like the best move, as the only worker action would be to farm the lakeside wines. After Fishing, AH (3520) is next to get the hammers from those plains cows. Then it’s the ol’ Mining-BW 1-2 (3340-2980).

Initial scouting with the starting warrior has revealed a small island with a good few decent coastal locations, so Great Lighthouse looks interesting, as does Colossus, seeing as we get 3c from coast, and there’s not so many grasslands for cottages. The first settler heads for the fish/silver/horse site near the capital, founding Orléans in BC 2620. With Sailing learnt in BC 2720, it’s already connected to Paris.

Here’s a map showing my planned cities:






I can see that our sponsor has presented the player with a dilemma: Stone or Marble? I think Pyramids, HG, and Oxford will be of primary importance, so I choose Stone. Conveniently, choosing stone will also speed Maoi, thus improving an otherwise mediocre fishing village. To settle this site will require a galley, and I don’t see any extreme urgency for the stone, so I first settle further west, founding Lyons (crab/silver/wines) in BC1960.

Techs learnt in between city two and three: Pottery (2560), IW (2260), Masonry (2080), and Writing (1960).

I get something of shock in BC 1720 as I learn of a distant civilization circumnavigating the globe! So much for ‘no contact until Optics’ that I was planning on. In other foreign news, Oracle completed in 1840, and I assume CoL was taken as Confucianism was founded the same turn. Great Wall completed in 1720.

I meet Rameses’ and Brennus’ WBs in 1600, having completed Great Lighthouse on the inter-turn. Maths completed in 1600 as well, and MC (completed 1120) selected for cheap forges and happiness as much as for Colossus. Rheims (see below) is founded and Pyramids started:





With the aid of one chop, Pyramids are completed in Paris in 1060. Stupidly, I adopt HR rather than REP pure as REP would give more happiness by far, as well as the tech boost, so let’s have another Moving swiftly on, may I present Tours:





Currency completed in 880, and I get a Merchant in Orléans in 800: Coco Chanel settles is Paris Hanging Gardens in Paris in 760. Having discovered CoL, I switch to Rep and Caste in 720. With some good food sites, Rep Merchants will allow me to expand rapidly without crashing the economy. Start work on CS. Colossus joins GL in 680, and I meet Asoka in 560 via cultural contact. My galley is out exploring, but has so far only mapped some of Egypt’s coast.

More cities:










As you can see, I’m about to complete CS, and shortly afterwards I get a GE who, far the lack of anything better, gets settled in Paris as I’ve decided this is a pseudo-OCC game. NE goes in Paris (bien sur) in BC 40 (the only marble building I needed was cheap in BUR-capital). Academy in 1AD. Another GE settled in 260AD. Let’s have a look at Paris, shall we:




Artist spam should be fairly under control, even with the pollution from the Salon’s artist. Onwards to Liberalism: with the tech rejig at the end of the tree, I don’t think sandbagging is quite as strong as it was, and Asoka is pretty competitive, so I bag Electricity in 650AD. I think I revolted to FR but my screenshot is inconclusive :blush: Decided to grab the free Spy from the Commies (680); no idea whether that paid out…I’ll let T-Hawk do the maths


Get a GM in 770, who’s sent to Bibracte (cashed in 900 for 1407g). That’s how to make up for one lousy freakin’ musical from Broadway:





Actually, I’m sure it doesn’t really pay out, but doubling the happiness made me feel better

With Radio in hand, it was time for some backfill on the Medicine path: Guns (800), Construction (820), Eng (840), Chem (860), Bio (880), Medi (920). Va-va-voom, indeed. At this point, I now think it would have been wise to adopt Environmentalism, but I don’t think I did…hey-ho. Paris still had its forests, but already had NE and Oxford, so no Nat Park fun here

960 saw the first GA from Paris. Merde alors! He gets settled. With Steel completed on the same turn, I decide to put Ironworks in Tours. This is rubbish as Lyons, though having less hammers now, will be a better choice as it will benefit from a levee, and can build 3GD

Another GM cashed in 1040 for 1541g. Fridge was completed that turn, with Superconductors in 1080, and Genetics (and another GE) in 1140. The last one wasn’t strictly necessary, I just fancied entering the Future Age during the historical Dark Ages

Time to backtrack down the Feudalism path: Feud (1160), Guilds (1180), Banking (1210), Rep Parts (1220). The last tech being the goal to get those Parisian forests lumbermilled; the Banking path was rendered unimportant by 100% research due to cash bombs. More techs: Steam (1240), Rifling (1260 – no idea why), Rails (1280). Pretty obvious Steam-Rails combo. Now I have to get up to Democracy, as I actually had an angry citizen in Paris in 1280: quelle dommage! So, Nat (1300), Consti (1320), Demo (1340), Econ (1360). The latter tagged on the end for immediate Eman and FM switch. Another GE settled in Paris in 1360.

Arty (1380), Rocketry (1400), Corp (1420), Assembly (1440), Indy (1460), another GM bombed (1470 – 2077g). We have Alu, so time to get cracking with Apollo which is finished in Paris in 1500, where I settle another GS the same turn. Not much else to say about the game, as we’re onto parts. The only odd things I did was to go Fusion first to get the GE to complete 3GD in Lyons (1620), and complete the internet in Paris to get a whole bunch of annoying pop-ups: damned realistic this game, eh?

Spaceship launch in 16somethingorother…maybe 1695, and Asoka builds the UN soon afterwards:




Nice try, Mr No-Mates :neenernee



La Gloire:




















Corporations? *spit* :nono1: :nono1: :nono1: We French have no need for your stinking Anglo-Saxon scams! I fart in their general direction :thumbsdow

I remember playing the original Speed Racer Civ 3 epic, and was quite fond of it, despite losing out on a number of close wonder races, and I hoped for a similar experience with this Adventure. However I have found that while I like Civ 4 in general, I tend to lose sight of my goals in the middle game, which is why I haven't played nearly as many games as I have really wanted to. Still, this was a quick game and I kept my focus pretty well for it.

Going in I did some thinking about the setup. Remembering Epic 24, T-Hawk gave each nation one of each strategic resource. Because of that, I thought he would do the same for this Adv. Also, given that we start with a 330 turn Golden Age means that the Mausoleum and Taj Mahal are useless. It wasn't until I got into the game that I realized other aspects of this, namely double GPP and no anarchy.

My initial research went into Fishing to get the crabs online quickly, then animal husbandry for the cow. I swapped to a workboat in 3820 BC (turn 3) when Fishing was complete. Buddhism was FIDAL on turn 4 (Asoka) and Hinduism on turn 8 (Brennus). After AH I went to Mining, then Pottery. Early builds were worker (partial)>Workboat>finish worker> Workboat>Workboat. The workers first job was actually irrigating the wines.

Stonehenge was built on turn 13 (dunno who right offhand though), which reminded me about the Oracle. I decided to try to get it both for the free tech and for GPP. So I ran up the Mysticism>Meditation>Priesthood path next while pushing out my first settler after the third workboat. After that completed (on turn 26) I went onto the Oracle, while researching BW.

About this time I finally found the hut SE of Paris. Just got a Scout from it though. Judaism was founded about this time as well (Asoka again)

After BW, I went to Writing, thinking to use the Oracle for CoL, but when the Oracle was 1 turn away, with Writing 3 turns, I stopped and though for a few minutes. CoL would have given me a religion, but the GPP points would likely get me a prophet for Theology soon and I realized that, being industrious, Metal Casting and forges would likely be a better choice, so I went for that instead, finishing the Oracle in 2140 BC (turn 32).

Yes, I self built the Oracle in 6 turns . Wasn't this a fun Adventure?


After the Oracle I built another Settler (#2), then went Forge>Colossus. With this map, I figure all my cities would be on the coast, so the extra commerce will definitely help out. After Writing, I started researching IW, and met my first opponent which was Ramesses. We're close on score, which was a great relief to me for one major reason: this was my first game ever for Civ4 on Emporer difficulty .

When I finished IW I saw really for the first time that awful choice in the NE corner of stone, marble AND iron. I probably screwed it up, not realizing that I had to settle on either the stone or marble to get them, and instead settled on the Iron with my 4th city, Rheims. My 2nd city had gone next to the oasis and my 3rd in between the Horse, Silver, and another wine.

I was able to complete the Colossus on turn 45 and went onto another settler, being a little concerned about AI's possibly settling on my isle. Turn 46 saw the birth of my Prophet, and I had to quick run up the Poly>Masonry>Mono techs to use him to grab Theology. On turn 53 Ramesses got Confucianism, while I grabbed Christianity on turn 56, with Lyons as the holy city. By this time I had met Asoka, and finally I met Brennus on turn 57.

Turn 59 I noticed that no one had gotten the Pyramids yet so I put Paris on it. I had also founded Tours (#5) 1NE of the rice and Marseilles (#6) north of the river mouth around this time.

Turn 63 I popped a Merchat in Paris, which I used to grab Currency. I also swapped to Caste and Org Religion, with Christianity as my State religion. Since everyone had a different self founded State religion, I figured chances were extremely low for a Diplo victory, by anyone.

Got the pyramids in turn 67, and someone else got the Hanging gardens (again, not sure who). I intended to swap to Rep this turn but couldn't due to a recent switch, then promptly forgot to until I finished CS in turn 74. Then I made the swap along with Bur. On turn 71 I founded my last city Chartres beside the copper on the south coast.

Turn 76 I completed the Apostolic Palace in Paris. I did this more for the hammer bonus, and never spread Chr. outside my borders at all. I would later get both the University of Sankore (turn 81 in paris, via an engineer rush) and the Spiral Minaret (turn 92 in Rheims) to further boost my religious buildings.

I also got Philosphy in turn 81 (Holy City: Tours) and Divine Right in turn 86 (Holy City: Lyons). Popping Islam in Lyons I felt was incredible luck, since it was already a Holy City (Chr.), and Chartres had no religion yet! I immediately considered Islam my 2nd religion, over Taoism. I also got a Prophet for the Christion shrine on turn 93.

Because of my inexperience at this level I pushed for Liberalism quickly. I got it and the free tech on turn 95 (took Printing Press), just before ending my first game session.

A quick look at my Isle around this time:




To open my 2nd session I looked through the tech tree to see exactly which techs I would need for the spaceship. By my count I needed 34 more techs total, and I pretty much grabbed just those techs (only exception was an early run to Democracy, for Emancipation and the Statue). I also noticed at this time that I seemed to have more unhappiness than I should, then realized it was cause I never got around to building police . A quick chariot build in each affected city covered that problem.

Most of this period was simply building: monasteries, temples, libraries, forges, universities, grocers, etc. Whenever a city ran out of immediate needs to build, I usually set them onto research. I popped a Scientist on turn 104 and used him for an Academy in Paris then. I finished the Statue on turn 112, and swapped to Merc. the same turn, since all my rivals were in Merc. anyway. I then got an Engineer on turn 113, which I saved for Mining Inc. Turn 116, I got another Prophet which I used on the Islam shrine. I was able to found Mining inc. on turn 124, and put it in Lyons, along with my 2 shrines and eventually Wall Street as well. Moai and Iron Works both went into Chartres. This led to late game production like this:




Got another Engineer in turn 126, which helped research Combustion, and a Spy in turn 128, which was used on an Espionage mission to Ramesses, just for something to do with him. No point in saving him for a Golden Age in this game :rolleyes: . Then I got a Merchant in turn 134 which went to Lyons to found Sid's sushi (with the seafood here, it was a no brainer) and swapped to Free Market. Got another Scientist in turn 140, which I spent on helping Fission along.

I finished Broadway on turn 143 in Orleans, Rock and Roll on turn 145 in Rheims, and Broadway on turn 147 in Tours. On turn 150 I swapped to Free Speech and popped an Artist. I just merged him into Paris for the marginal science boost I think, along with another I got in turn 154. Turn 151 I started my Apollo program in Chartres, and the finished on turn 155. Then I put 5 cities on thrusters. Completed the 3 Gorges in Marseilles on turn 162 with the help of an Engineer the popped on turn 160. Prophet in turn 163 went for the Tao Shrine.

On turn 166, Brennus built the UN (I had ignored Mass Media completely). To my surprise, I was nominated and actually pulled both Rams' and Asoka's votes to become U.N.Sec. So on turn 170 I decided to take a shot at a Diplo Vic. but didn't get it, as I expected. Didn't really matter, as I was rapidly researching and building spaceship parts, and on turn 175 I launched, the same turn that Ram. and Bren. both finished their Apollos'.




Six turn later, Victory!




Asoka had also finished his Apollo one turn before I landed.

All in all, I was proud of how I did in this game and in keeping my focus. I thank you, T-Hawk, again for the Adv.

And for Comparison purposes, my list of techs and the turn I acquired them. I didn't keep track of dates though. Took too much time to write them all down :neenernee .
Fishing (3)
Animal Husbandry (9)
Mining (12)
Pottery (16)
Mysticism (18 )
Meditation (21)
Priesthood (24)
Bronze Working (29)
Metal Casting (32, Oracle)
Writing (33)
Iron Working (41)
Sailing (44)
Monarchy (52)
Polytheism (54)
Masonry (55)
Monotheism (56)
Theology (56, Prophet)
Mathematics (60)
Code of Laws (63)
Currency (63, Merchant)
Calender (67)
Civil Service (74)
Paper (77)
Philosophy (81)
Divine Right (86)
Aplhabet (87)
Education (91)
Machinery (92)
Liberalism (95)
Printing Press (95, Liberalism)
Feudalism (96)
Guilds (98 )
Nationalism (100)
Construction (101)
Constitution (103)
Democracy (106)
Compass (107)
Optics (108 )
Astronomy (109)
Banking (110)
Economics (112)
Corporation (114)
Engineering (115)
Gunpowder (116)
Chemistry (117)
Replaceable Parts (118 )
Steam Power (119)
Steel (121)
Railroad (124)
Assembly Line (126)
Scientific Method (127)
Combustion (129, assist from Engineer)
Biology (131)
Medicine (134)
Physics (136)
Electricity (138 )
Radio (140)
Refrigeration (142)
Superconductors (145)
Industrialism (148 )
Rifling (149)
Artillery (150)
Rocketry (151)
Plastics (154)
Fission (155, Assist by Scientist)
Satellites (157)
Laser (160)
Fiberoptics (163)
Fusion (165)
Composites (168 )
Genetics (170)
Ecology (172, last SS tech)
then just for fun:
Hunting (173)
Archery (174)
Horseback Riding (175)
Aesthetics (176)
Literature (177)
Drama (178 )
Music (179)
Flight (180)
and I was researching Computers at game end

Here's my shadow report, with comments from the sponsor. I'm going to be offline until late tonight but I'll catch up with all the reports then and tomorrow.

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv35/

Adventure 35 – an always peace builder challenge with a permanent Golden Age. Louis XIV is our chosen leader (Ind, Cre). No tech trading.

The permanent golden age gives most of the benefits of the spiritual, philosophical and financial traits to us (and the AI). Additionally, tiles with both hammers and coins are more valuable than normally (plains cottages, the wine, etc). Finally, the Mausoleum of Mausollos and the Taj are completely worthless (except for GA points :rolleyes: ) – I bet the AI will build them however.

Because I had a bit a “detail overload” from a certain RB Epic , I played this quick adventure very intuitively without too much micro. The basic plan was to focus on scientists for academies, hoping to avoid most other GPs. I made one very significant strategic mistake that probably cost a century of launch delay (more on that later).

Since I wanted to work the cows while building workboats, research started by focusing on Animal Husbandry:



A few scouting warriors quickly map out the Isle of Greater France – I think I can fit 9 total cities here:



Since all the cities are coastal I chopped the Great Lighthouse to completion in Silver+Horse city -- a nice wonder for this adventure

When a scouting workboat finally makes it around to reveal the last tile, a neat puzzle presents itself. Because of mountainous terrain either marble or stone can be hooked into out network, but not both {not exactly true, but I thought so at the time}. I’m going for the marble since I want to build the Great Library and the National Epic as quickly as possible in Paris.



That marble city would become a fantastic production cite with the Moai Statues (my Ironworks actually went here):



For Liberalism the classic Lib->Democracy sling rolled in:



A few spare Merchants help to keep the science slider high:



While my scientists build academies as planned:



I focused on getting the Kremlin for rush buying some infrastructure, which is normally a good plan – but not in this game. It was around this point that I realized my strategic blunder: because of the duel size map corporations are insanely powerful with just a handful of resources. If I could replay this map I would try to get a Great Engineer early and get Corporation + Railroads as soon as possible (maybe even with a Liberalism sling). I’m nearly certain that most of the games with an earlier launch time than me will have made better use of early corporations.

By the end of the game my corps were very powerful (one or two resources are coming from AI trades):



The two engines are timed with the ETA of Life Support:



And a space race victory (1710):



This game was a lot of fun, and played exactly as advertised (thanks T-Hawk ).

Generally I’ve been hoping that the average difficulty of RB games will increase, but this game was played nearly independent of any AI interactions (so no problems here).

Fun times. Hopefully I have a reasonable finish time -- but I suspect a launch around 1600 to be the fastest.

The report can be found at the standard location - www.kendter.com/adv35-1.htm

While publishing the report I can tell I lost a bit of focus. I think I could have beaten the reported date by at least 5 turns...

Here is my game - slower than all games reported. My late game tech rate was slow as I didn't build many cottages - left lots of forests in place.

http://ruffhi.atspace.com/Adv35-1.html

I'm thinking of going back to the opening save and creating an ALWAYS WAR variant. It might be interesting to play this again while having to battle the AIs invasion forces.

Thanks to T-Hawk for the game and set up.

I have been trying to improve my space races lately. This small game comes in handy to prctice somew more.

In the beginning, I started relatively wonder heavy": Pyramids, Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Great Library.

1000 BC looks like this:



in 1AD, all cities are founded and the last are starting to get productive:



Finally vicory arrives:




My tech path to victory:



It was real fun to play

I played through rather quickly and only took pictures instead of notes, so the report isn't going to be very detailed.

Opened with fishing and completed 1st WB before worker. First GA-silliness came when Stonehenge dropped at 3160BC - Yikes!

First settler went here:

Between Industrious and a lot of water tiles, early Metal Casting seemed like the best move and I Oracled it in 1960BC. Although hut map showed the way to India, Brennus was the first AI I actually met in 1600BC (he circumnavigated a couple of turns later). While this was in many ways a very good scenario design, I frankly didn't understand why we had 3 Spiritual AIs.

Beelined for Monarchy so I could abuse HR warriors (with none of its resources around, was an easy call to ignore hunting so I could still build the cheapest units), with some diversions for great lighthouse enabling techs (completed in 1300BC), then headed for CS. I took the locked-up Colossus once my borders had expanded to where I could get the copper, then just missed a very late shot at the Pyramids. I hadn't planned on them - with the GA, I thought that working tiles would generally pay off more - but wound up with Paris running out of things to build.

With a small amount of land, resource trades were very important:

Several more were made over the course of the game; later I wound up paying handsome GPT for corporation resources.

Last of my 7 cities was plunked down in 360BC. Here you can see all the locations at 1AD:

I chose "neither" in the stone vs. marble argument (nice touch there by the sponsor. I guess that it was good for my enjoyment of the game that I didn't learn that you could connect them with forts until reading haphazard's report). By the time I was going to put a city there I wasn't planning to build a lot more wonders with either resource, and founding in the location I did made better use of the terrain overall. What was odd is that I still needed 8 cities to build the FP, but with Paris centered I really didn't miss it.

Paris would eventually get Oxford and Nat'l Epic. Lyons would become by corporate HQ with Wall Street, which resulted in me having to put the IW in Tours, the 3rd-highest base production city In the end it was not a big deal as research was still the bottleneck.

Early Great Prophet settled, 2nd and 3rd were Merchants that was cashed in Thebes (it had built ToA). 4th scientist built academy in Paris, 5th on Education I think. There were a very large number of great people over the course of the game, built multiple academies and lots of trade missions, think I settled some late GEs as nothing better to use them on.

Chased up the "idea" branch as usual and Lib'd Democracy in 440AD. Tech speed was frightful as I next beelined towards Sushi, managed a tech per turn for about 10 consecutive ones and only Biology and Medicine took more than one. I probably could have sustained the streak longer but wasn't sure if there was a cap on beaker overflow, so ran a lower slider at some points (Of course, I couldn't trade for any of the techs like Construction or Feudalism either). Sushi founded in 880AD. On a tiny map, the corp gave huge benefits (4x normal, so 2 food per resource!) but also was hideously costly, something like 40 GPT after courthouse. Still worth it, but very different from normal maps where the corp's maintenance is usually about zero net after all the gold multipliers have been built in the HQ. I was fortunate to get an Engineer soon to allow Mining as well a few turns later. Corporate costs could be largely offset by building Wealth once cities topped off their improvements and could keep research at max; I hit another string of 1 tech per turn from Rifling to Plastics after the Superconductors/Genetics beeline. I decided that I was going too fast for the internet to be of much use so did not head for Computers early. This tech screen near the end shows that this was probably the right call:


More good luck in 1530 as a merchant is born - exactly the one I need to run a trade mission (without this, would have had to dial down research due to most cities building parts). With some micro I can line up the last parts very well and launch in 1590; without the 2nd engine it takes 7 turns for 1655 win date (turn 156).