The spinning wheel was a very late arrival (circa 1000AD) and shares basics with the barrow (wheel on a frame). Better: the spinning jenny (a multiwheel variant spinning 8 or more spools simultaneously). Drop spindles were very labour-intensive and cloth was ridic. expensive. https://twitter.com/DethVeggie/status/1287689372003979265

Spinning/weaving fabric is a critical technology—without it you don’t have sails. Making sails for a single Viking longship took the fleece from a thousand sheep for a year: https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/no-wool-no-vikings/

And spinning yarn by hand using drop spindles? Was all they had.

For some reason, the tech time line in Civ-type games never seems to take innovations in textiles or agriculture as seriously as the latest dakka-dakka/shiny!/dreadnought. When in fact they’re fundamental.