[toast0]

You can absolutely jump economic steps. Many countries never got wide deployment of wired telephones, and never will. They skipped right to wide deployment of mobile phones. Many of those same countries skipped right past desktop computers in every home and laptops to replace desktops and have gone straight from limited computer access to the mobile phone replaces desktop computers.

You certainly don't need to hit all the economic steps, but using capital to reduce labor doesn't make sense when labor is much less expensive than capital.

[xupybd]

By economic steps I meant you have to generate enough capital to afford tractors. This is a good stepping stone.

[reverius42]

Those with excess capital could just, like, give them the tractors.

[xupybd]

You could but you might not have enough money to send enough tractors and infrastructure to have as big of an impact. If you were optimising for impact you might find that Scythes are a better return on your investment.