[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Thanks for commenting Max, I'm glad you like the updates.

MC is still a priority to me. After extensive research of other games, I decided that it's extremely unlikely that it'll be built before t100. It's not valuable enough that I'll want it much sooner than I need to build it, and it takes little time to build. Forges aren't bad, but I wouldn't want MC earlier just to build forges earlier. My GP plan is to generate a great scientist first to use for an academy in my capital. I'm not that keen on crossbows, in my experience that work best in small doses combined with other units (in order to gain additional axe defense). Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, though That said, I'll probably be in quite a builder mentality for a long time in this game. My basic philosophy is that war doesn't pay off until you run out of room for peaceful expansion. For small border skirmishes you don't usually need high tech units, just many of whatever you have.

Given the above time frame, I can easily finish both Calendar and Currency before getting Metal Casting. I may also decide to go for Monarchy before MC. Do you have any suggestions for what I should prioritize? Also feel free to make requests for what I should provide screenshots and other information of, I plan on making small updates but I do want them to be highly informative.

[MaxPower]

I'm not that keen on crossbows, in my experience that work best in small doses combined with other units (in order to gain additional axe defense). Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, though

That is true when you have more powerful units like maces, phants or knights, but early in the game there's no counter for them (except lots of cats of course), just bring a couple of spears for HAs. Your PHI trait allows to get them in play faster than any other civ. Even if you commit yourself to a builder mentality you must consider the fact that you will be competing against Jowy for valuable resourses (gems, silver, ivory and bananas) and you may need powerful units to consolidate your claims or take them form jowy's hands. Machinery is a good military tech on its own right, and puts you closer to engineering, guilds and maces.

My GP plan is to generate a great scientist first to use for an academy in my capital.

PHI allows you to generate any FIRST great people in 17 turns max, just running a single specialist. This gives you a unique opportunity of getting one of those great people that are usually hard to get. I think an engineer or prophet for your shrine are better options. If you go GS first, then you need to run 34 turns to get a prophet or build an expensive cathedral just to get it faster. Later you can run dual scientist in any library to get your academy. In short, either a prophet or engineer are better than a scientist IMHO.

Given the above time frame, I can easily finish both Calendar and Currency before getting Metal Casting. I may also decide to go for Monarchy before MC. Do you have any suggestions for what I should prioritize? Also feel free to make requests for what I should provide screenshots and other information of, I plan on making small updates but I do want them to be highly informative.

Is Hinduism founded? If not, just because you are the first to Buddhism, I think you may have a shot at the oracle if you want to, even with all those IND civs around.

Well, I will put aside my daydreams about wonders, and say that IW is a high priority tech to get at this point, just to be sure your neighbors don't deny you iron. After that, I would go the calendar route (This time I won't suggest building the MoM) just to put the luxuries online. I think Monarchy is not that pressing if you can get Calendar in a timely manner. Even I would go currency then CoL, before monarchy.
Well, If you do that, the GE thing would be so delayed that it won't matter. Just get priesthood at some point and run the priest for the shrine.

[Catwalk]

That is true when you have more powerful units like maces, phants or knights, but early in the game there's no counter for them (except lots of cats of course), just bring a couple of spears for HAs. Your PHI trait allows to get them in play faster than any other civ. Even if you commit yourself to a builder mentality you must consider the fact that you will be competing against Jowy for valuable resourses (gems, silver, ivory and bananas) and you may need powerful units to consolidate your claims or take them form jowy's hands. Machinery is a good military tech on its own right, and puts you closer to engineering, guilds and maces.

My current tech plan is as follows:
Sailing => Mathematics => Calendar => Currency => Iron Working
I was keen on Monarchy earlier due to my happiness problems, but Calendar does go a long way towards fixing that. With elephants and Calendar resources, I'll have +4 in all cities and +1 in Buddhist cities. Iron Working is debatable, given how rich the contested area between me and Jowy is I think it needs to be a priority. I think I'll want either Priesthood + Monarchy or Metal Casting after Iron Working. Where would you slot in Metal Casting?

PHI allows you to generate any FIRST great people in 17 turns max, just running a single specialist. This gives you a unique opportunity of getting one of those great people that are usually hard to get. I think an engineer or prophet for your shrine are better options. If you go GS first, then you need to run 34 turns to get a prophet or build an expensive cathedral just to get it faster. Later you can run dual scientist in any library to get your academy. In short, either a prophet or engineer are better than a scientist IMHO.

It's a good point about being able to generate difficult to get specialists that way. However, I'd also be making far less use of my trait by getting my first great person much, much later. I'm not that impressed with prophets, especially early prophets. I get 4-5 gold in a city + a bit of culture and more spreads. Isn't that usually only worth it later on once you already have religion up in many places?

Is Hinduism founded? If not, just because you are the first to Buddhism, I think you may have a shot at the oracle if you want to, even with all those IND civs around.

Hinduism has been founded, and I estimate my Oracle chances to be tiny. Also, I need expansion more than tech right now IMO.

Well, I will put aside my daydreams about wonders, and say that IW is a high priority tech to get at this point, just to be sure your neighbors don't deny you iron. After that, I would go the calendar route (This time I won't suggest building the MoM) just to put the luxuries online. I think Monarchy is not that pressing if you can get Calendar in a timely manner. Even I would go currency then CoL, before monarchy.
Well, If you do that, the GE thing would be so delayed that it won't matter. Just get priesthood at some point and run the priest for the shrine.

I think I need Calendar rapidly in order to fix my pressing happiness problem. And yeah, Monarchy can probably wait.

[haphazard1]

Aiming for a forge-generated GE as the first specialist would mean a long delay in getting an academy going. MC is expensive, building a forge is expensive, then running the engineer takes time. Using a library to run two scientists can be done much, much sooner with guaranteed payoff in the academy.

For the less common GPs like GE and GP, I usually find it easier to try for them later at lower odds with a mixed gene pool. It does not always work of course, but you usually get one eventually. And as Catwalk notes, the prophet for a shrine is often more useful a bit later in the game anyway.

Crossbows...I rarely push for Machinery early enough to make using them as attackers at all viable. There are just too many other techs that usually take priority as I work to expand while keeping my economy stable: calendar, currency, CoL, a run through Aesthetics to grab for the great library/epics, etc.

Have you considered Priesthood on your tech path? Not for Oracle (unless you just feel like taking a risk), but for Buddhist temples? Somewhat expensive building, but the tech itself is quite cheap. Not sure I would delay heading towards Calendar for it, but it is an option for some more happiness.

[MaxPower]

It's a good point about being able to generate difficult to get specialists that way. However, I'd also be making far less use of my trait by getting my first great person much, much later. I'm not that impressed with prophets, especially early prophets. I get 4-5 gold in a city + a bit of culture and more spreads. Isn't that usually only worth it later on once you already have religion up in many places?

4-5 gold this early is in fact a big boost, and it will keep growing as you grow your empire and spread your faith. So far, you have plans for at least 10 cities and it's yield can be boosted by markets available at currency. On the other hand, The academy will reach its maximal boost at bureaucracy which is still far away, not to mention that it requires mature cottages to really shine.

Anyway, I agree that your priority tech right now is calendar. Also its prerequisites Math and sailing won't hurt you either.

[MaxPower]

Aiming for a forge-generated GE as the first specialist would mean a long delay in getting an academy going. MC is expensive, building a forge is expensive, then running the engineer takes time. Using a library to run two scientists can be done much, much sooner with guaranteed payoff in the academy.

For the less common GPs like GE and GP, I usually find it easier to try for them later at lower odds with a mixed gene pool. It does not always work of course, but you usually get one eventually. And as Catwalk notes, the prophet for a shrine is often more useful a bit later in the game anyway.

Crossbows...I rarely push for Machinery early enough to make using them as attackers at all viable. There are just too many other techs that usually take priority as I work to expand while keeping my economy stable: calendar, currency, CoL, a run through Aesthetics to grab for the great library/epics, etc.

Have you considered Priesthood on your tech path? Not for Oracle (unless you just feel like taking a risk), but for Buddhist temples? Somewhat expensive building, but the tech itself is quite cheap. Not sure I would delay heading towards Calendar for it, but it is an option for some more happiness.

I won't try to convince you anymore about the GE, but I think I still can make a case for the prophet. Priesthood is a cheap tech, temples are not that expensive, and running only 1 specialist won't stall your growth that much. In fact in 17 turns it uses 34 food, using the equivalence 1 food = 2 hammers, the total cost for a prophet is 68H. It yields 1Hpt and 1gpt, for a net cost of 51H and 17g of benefit.

Bottom line: for 51 hammers you get a real good wonder and 17g.

[Edit] The delay for generating a GS would be 8 turns. You will get it in 17 turns instead of 9. But as I pointed out before, the academy won't reach its glory days until much later. In fact, most of the capital cottages will (should) be worked by neighbour cities until they mature, thus not benefiting from the academy. There's still lots of land land to grab, so in the short-mid term you will be pushing expansion, which will drop down your break even science rate, making a shrine more appealing than an academy.
I'm not saying that a shrine is more powerful than an academy in the long run. A capital academy at bureaucracy with plenty of FIN mature riverside cottages is really a powerful stuff. But if you miss the opportunity of building the shrine while it is cheap, you may have a hard time to build it later. The shrine certainly pay for itself fast enough.

[MaxPower]

Catwalk, can you post some pics of your civ? so we can comment about what to do right now, instead of mid-long terms GPs stuff.

[Catwalk]

I'm usually the lurker who keeps trying to persude players to do something they don't want to do, so I appreciate the discussion

I agree that timing wise the prophet fits in better. That said, delaying Calendar, Mathematics and/or Currency by 3-4 turns to get Priesthood sooner will not be free. I need the happiness badly, I'm drowning in forests to chop for my new cities and Currency will be worth 12 cpt by that time.

That aside, the main question is how valuable a prophet is compared to a scientist. You have a good point that it makes sense to get "difficult" great persons early on while they're cheap. I still contend that this is offset by the prophet being worth less. I think an academy in my capital is worth more than a shrine both short-term and long-term. Do you want to venture a guess at how many free conversions I'll get out of the shrine?

[MaxPower]

I guess it is not hard to find out. Only need to use world builder to plant 7-8 cities, a holy city, and hit next turn something like 20-25 times with and without a shrine. I will look on this threat for a sandbox, if not I will try with a new map. The settings are normal size, toroidal, prince?
I know rel. spread chances depends on game speed, map size and distance/trade connection to holy city, but I'm not sure on other factors like landmasses, difficulty or city sizes.

[MaxPower]

I run a 20 turns run with and without shrine. I took the sandbox on post #2 of this thread (only turn 20!! nothing no current sandboxes, ouch). After only one attempt, the no shrine scenario got 2 spreads, and the shrine one got 4. I attached the saves, if you want to try for yourself.

Well...for some reason the site doesn't allow me to attach it. I will try to post it somehow later.