Super quickly (it's 3 AM in Finland and I need to still head home from work...) 
- I'm not really worried of being attacked either
- I'm worried that in 20-40 turns there is somewhere nearby a fight going on and we would like to either pile on someone and improve our position further or stop dtay or BGN getting too strong if they start gaining more and more land. And we can't.
- Currently our best offensive units are knights, that's something what players in the middle of the scoreboard can build already too. They won't really give us any unique chances or an edge that helps us win battles
- Building a real army and organizing it logistically into a right place does not happen fast at this point --> Getting fast all the relevant techs with saved money and whipping a round is not really enough IMO. It's a longer project
- The best way to prepare us for future battles is IMO to start building Galleons, those won't obsolete for a long time
- As discussed navy should become pretty damn important this game soon anyways
- If we want to postpone mil techs and still build an army, getting Rifling+Mil Trad later and spending some money for Cav upgrades is possible I guess, but I don't want to spend enormous amount of gold for upgrading both Galleys and Knights (as said, that sounds too slow as well)
As you can see, I vote for Astronomy bulb, then we can divert for the pure economic tech path if you wish. Some additional reasons:
- Using our Great Scientist for Astronomy does not delay Democracy/Corp too bad because we would not get help from a 2-man GA soon enough anyways and IIRC there is nothing we can bulb on our way to Demo (might be wrong here).
- Astro should be just a bulb + one turn of research (max 2)? Yeah, it affects our SoL ETA, but there is a fair chance that other reasons will decide that race (like that Great Engineer)
- I'm ok with delaying our next GA and getting it in e.g. ~30-50 turns. Reason 1: Our Mardoc+Azza gains are not yet fully consolidated and would not get the max out of GA yet. There are lots of tiles that we are not yet working. Reason 2: If we are not going to win this by Domination, having 2-man and 3-man GAs still in reserve might provide us the tools that we later need for a space/culture win attempt
- Getting Astronomy might force dtay to research it too and I would be happy to see his Colossus obsolete
- Let's settle Commodore's bounty island :P I like it from military base point of view as well.
- Observatory for Alfie is nice too, but this starts to sound too much like a desperate sales pitch. The big reason is the military/navy preparation for future.
Too tired to find more arguments to support my view :P
- I'm not really worried of being attacked either
- I'm worried that in 20-40 turns there is somewhere nearby a fight going on and we would like to either pile on someone and improve our position further or stop dtay or BGN getting too strong if they start gaining more and more land. And we can't.
- Currently our best offensive units are knights, that's something what players in the middle of the scoreboard can build already too. They won't really give us any unique chances or an edge that helps us win battles
- Building a real army and organizing it logistically into a right place does not happen fast at this point --> Getting fast all the relevant techs with saved money and whipping a round is not really enough IMO. It's a longer project
- The best way to prepare us for future battles is IMO to start building Galleons, those won't obsolete for a long time
- As discussed navy should become pretty damn important this game soon anyways
- If we want to postpone mil techs and still build an army, getting Rifling+Mil Trad later and spending some money for Cav upgrades is possible I guess, but I don't want to spend enormous amount of gold for upgrading both Galleys and Knights (as said, that sounds too slow as well)
As you can see, I vote for Astronomy bulb, then we can divert for the pure economic tech path if you wish. Some additional reasons:
- Using our Great Scientist for Astronomy does not delay Democracy/Corp too bad because we would not get help from a 2-man GA soon enough anyways and IIRC there is nothing we can bulb on our way to Demo (might be wrong here).
- Astro should be just a bulb + one turn of research (max 2)? Yeah, it affects our SoL ETA, but there is a fair chance that other reasons will decide that race (like that Great Engineer)
- I'm ok with delaying our next GA and getting it in e.g. ~30-50 turns. Reason 1: Our Mardoc+Azza gains are not yet fully consolidated and would not get the max out of GA yet. There are lots of tiles that we are not yet working. Reason 2: If we are not going to win this by Domination, having 2-man and 3-man GAs still in reserve might provide us the tools that we later need for a space/culture win attempt
- Getting Astronomy might force dtay to research it too and I would be happy to see his Colossus obsolete
- Let's settle Commodore's bounty island :P I like it from military base point of view as well.
- Observatory for Alfie is nice too, but this starts to sound too much like a desperate sales pitch. The big reason is the military/navy preparation for future.
Too tired to find more arguments to support my view :P