ah that changes EVERYTHING then. if by committing to tech HBR now we get to run max gold later while everyone's going after the expensive techs, then the deal's a good one for us and we should take it. if that's the case actually that makes us and egypt the big winners.
we're way behind in expansion but sitting pretty in terms of GNP. if we do it this way round (i.e. provide our "expensive" tech upfront), we can run max gold after T62 while we hyper-expand, safe in the knowledge we get expensive techs fed to us as they're discovered, and then chop/whip rathauses when CoL is traded to us.
which means while other civs are sitting on 4 cities scrambling for beakers, we're expanding out to 6-7, laying down cottages, and running max gold to support expansion + the large amount of troops we'll need to run to discourage aggression/lend to allies. egypt will be doing the same. and if they tech CoL we know at least it's discovered relatively quickly (in fact he may well decide to delay it because it'll help us so much).
anyway like i said we can talk this over tonight. ilios as long as you confirm we have a pretty firm agreement to not owe anything after HBR and get maths, aesthetics, etc for free in return, then i think this is a slam-dunk deal for us.
we're way behind in expansion but sitting pretty in terms of GNP. if we do it this way round (i.e. provide our "expensive" tech upfront), we can run max gold after T62 while we hyper-expand, safe in the knowledge we get expensive techs fed to us as they're discovered, and then chop/whip rathauses when CoL is traded to us.
which means while other civs are sitting on 4 cities scrambling for beakers, we're expanding out to 6-7, laying down cottages, and running max gold to support expansion + the large amount of troops we'll need to run to discourage aggression/lend to allies. egypt will be doing the same. and if they tech CoL we know at least it's discovered relatively quickly (in fact he may well decide to delay it because it'll help us so much).
anyway like i said we can talk this over tonight. ilios as long as you confirm we have a pretty firm agreement to not owe anything after HBR and get maths, aesthetics, etc for free in return, then i think this is a slam-dunk deal for us.