Current mood:	crushed
Current music:	"Garage Logic" on AM 1500 KSTP, St. Paul/Minneapolis

Just to let you know...
Thanks all for the advice earlier about what I could do to keep from stagnating. Some of it helped, some of it caused problems entirely new to me.

I tried a new game with Germany, just to try some things out. I'm starting to think Germany was a poor choice, because, while I like the fact that they are militaristic and scientific, they don't really get any kind of military edge until they build panzers in modern times. As erislover made some great recommendations about having one city build settlers, and getting the strategic resources. I warred of an on with the Vikings throughout most of the game over horses, since I got them first. It turns out that's all I got, no iron, no saltpeter, nothing. My options were war with Rome, who was significantly stronger, or war again with Vikings, who was about evenly matched militarily...except they had iron. So as soon at we hit medieval times they started building berzerkers and pikemen and I was stuck with horsemen and spearmen. I did OK at first, being the instigator, but after I knocked down the first two cities, I got no further. And Persia was randomly decaring war on me off and on. They were in the lead and far away, so it was more of a nuisance.

Eventually, I started loosing a lot of units, made some alliances to try to get resources, but couldn't build the advanced unit fast enough because I decided to try building heavily on the military instead of building improvements. So corruption and waste became a really big deal all of a sudden. And then everybody stagnated scientifically all at the same time. And then I started to lose really bad. I haven't quite ridden all the way down to getting squashed yet, but it's not looking good for Bismarck.

So I think I'm getting abetter idea of what I need to do to stay competitive, thanks for all the advice. Incidentally, am I the only one who really doesn't like to just play until I lose, instead quitting when I start to lose all hope? Perhaps I shouldn't give up until the game is decided, I've had so many come-from-behind victories in the past; but the last couple games I've played, I just haven't seen any sign of things improving and have decided to try another game.