Civilization V: The Swedish Saga, part 2 (430 A.D. to 1702 A.D.)

I, spy

Winter, 1545 A.D.: Germany denounces the Swedes for their proselytizing. As with all of Germany's denunciations, there are few who actually care.

1550 A.D.: The Great Scientist founds the Academy of Birka.

Academies take up a tile, and at this point I'm using pretty much all of the ones around my first few cities. Birka, in the heart of the Westerlands, is surrounded by Tundra, though. There isn't much you can do with tundra tiles other than build trading posts, so it's the ideal location to plop down Great Person buildings.

1555 A.D.: The Swedes invent smooth-bore infantry firearms, and begin equipping their forces with them immediately. The designs are almost immediately stolen, however, by a spy of unknown origin.

The probability of stealing a technology is based on how much Science a city is producing. I currently have two major cities producing a ton of science -- Stockholm and Sigtuna -- and only one spy to defend. You can't build new spies, either. Every civ gets one on the turn that the first civ enters a new era. I guess it'll be fairly easy to figure out who the culprit is, as they should be the only other civ besides me with musketmen.

Elsewhere, a rigged election in Monaco leads to them withdrawing their support of Sweden.

Man, I am getting demolished in the espionage game here. The trouble is that spies only level up when they succeed at something, and none of mine have yet.

In other news, some civ I haven't met yet beat me to building the Tower of Pisa, which I believe marks the 3rd wonder this game I've had to cancel. I'm turning my tech path toward Chemistry, which will improve my production in all cities and hopefully keep that from happening again.

1560 A.D.: Sweden and Greece sign a research agreement.

I'm uneasy at this, since I don't really want to help Greece get more technologies. But everyone else is too poor at the moment, and it's better they make an agreement with me than anyone else.