I agree with putting our beakers into machinery at least temporairily.
I don't mind doing so for up to 4 turns, as we'll probably need to invest those Flasks even if we do get a Great Engineer.
That said, the evidence from the test game really points towards us either needing to:
a) self-tech Math
OR
b) wait a while until most of the AIs eventually learn Math before we can get it in trade
If we're leaning towards wanting Philosophy relatively early, then option a) is probably more appropriate, in which case I should just stick with 0% Research on Math.
I don't think making an alphabet for COL trade would be a problem. We don't need to found taoism-and it could actually be counterproductive if it spreads to one of our GP farms before Confunicism. I don't think the Chicken Iza is a problem either. At worst we spend one more turn bombarding the defences of his capital. If he invested those hammers in expnsion/units instead it would delay us for longer.
As I just outlined, my main motivation for suggesting Metal Casting as an alternative is to try and keep Feudalism, and hence Longbowmen, out of the hands of the AIs for as long as possible.
I really don't care about them building Chichen Itza, either.
All that we can do is wait to see what Willem has researched, and then possibly trade him Metal Casting, defintely trade him Code of Laws if he already has its pre-requisite techs, and possibly just wait for a second AI to learn Alphabet that may already know Code of Laws' pre-requisites.
For Maori to be useful in coper we would have to build at a minimum granary+lighthouse+Maori+barracks. With only 1 production tile I can't see how we can get all this built before we are ready to go to war as we will spend a lot of the intervening time in CS. In the circumstances, if we built this city I think whipping units here would probably be more efficient than Maori.
Furs would effectively give us +1whip in every city, and is a slightly stronger commerce site during our research phase so I still think we should build this city first, and copper later (if at all).
Okay, so that's one vote for Fur City as City #6 instead of Copper City being City #6.
While I agree that it is pretty much unlikely that we will complete Moai Statues before the end of the Great-Person-Generation time period, I don't think that this point really matters.
Unlike other Cities that are hiring Specialists during the Great-Person-Generation time period, this City will be growing, and it can be whipped, along with the other Cities, after we switch back into Slavery, probably even waiting for us to switch into Police State before whiping build items like Military Units for overflow Hammers going into Moai.
The only major difference between a non-whipping Fur City and a non-whipping Copper City would be that:
Fur City would work a Crab, while Copper City would work a Magical Fish (same Commerce but +1 Food for Copper City) and that Fur City would work a Fur (1 Food + 4 Commerce) versus Copper City working a Copper (2 Food plus 4 Hammers).
I'm not really convinced that these Fur Resources are going to make that much of a difference. In fact, it could easily be argued that Copper City, with its additional Food, could more quickly grow to Size 3, at which point it could hire a Caste-System-enabled Scientist for SIX Flasks, which would be valued at much more Science output than the eventual Fur City's slower growth to Size 3 and working of a second Fur.
If, of course, Fur City were to also hire a Scientist with its 3rd citizen, then Copper City would be the clear winner, as Fur City would get to Size 3 slower and would thus have less turns' worth of working said Scientist Specialist.
Therefore, the only major motivation, from my perspective, to settle Fur City in place of Copper City is the +1 Happiness.
We won't need that +1 Happiness just yet (not until after we switch out of Caste System and into Slavery and ONLY THEN after regrowing and whipping multiple times will we likely need this additional Happiness).
Therefore, if either of the two Cities is to be delayed, I'd rather delay the one that will contribute only relatively marginal gains in Commerce (and that's debateable because getting to a Scientist Specialist in Copper City several turns faster can help to make up for many of the turns spent working a Fur). That way, we'd focus on the City that would net us more production in our empire (Copper City), which is the true thing that our empire is lacking: production.
A bit more Commerce is a drop in a bucket. A bit more production is a good portion of our overall production.
I think we should consider building a warrior or two to explore the AI's lands after all immediately critical builds have been completed. This could make planning our conquests significantly easier. As we would need open borders to do this I would be inclined to open borders with all AI's before we revolt to Confunicism which could prevent us from doing so.
Okay, well the plan is already set to put "spare Hammers" into build items such as Warriors and Triremes. So, I think that your desire will be taken-care-of.
What you might not see is a Galley actually making its way to AIs' lands laden-down with a Warrior. We could, instead of building a Trireme in Stone City, build a Galley there, so that we'd have one Galley free to sail away with a Warrior, but this event (the completion of the Galley and the loading-up of a Warrior) wouldn't happen until the next turnset.
The current turnset only has us having a single Galley, and it is needed for domestic (local) distribution of units.
I think increasing the AI's research rate via open borders would actually be a good thing as it would enable us to trade for more techs.
I'm not really convinced. I can see gifting them all Math, but we don't want them to research MANY techs with a lot of bredth across the tech tree; we'd just like to see them research a few important techs with a reasonable amount of depth into the tech tree.
In other words, I think that we'd be happy for them to research Calendar (a post-Math tech) for us. We'd probably also be happy for them to research Construction for us.
Now, another point is that as soon as AIs get Calendar online, their empires take off massively. That's due to the influx of Happiness, which allows them to grow vertically quickly and seems to encourage them to grow horizontally quickly, too.
Thus, even gifting Math may not be a wise approach, as we'll just make the AIs stronger, more-spread out, and more able to whip additional units from their Cities when we come knocking on their doors.
Certainly, beyond the exception of these post-Math techs, I don't see us actually wanting the AIs to learn techs.
If the test game proves itself to be anywhere close to accurate, most AIs will know Iron Working before they even consider Research into Alphabet or Math. Thus, we also don't need to speed up Research in order for the AIs to go after Iron Working--they almost all had it at the START of the test runs (i.e. almost all of them had Iron Working by Turn 115).
Point A) I could be convinced to give away Math, as the techs that come after it could help us if we could get them in trade--although from the evidence of the AIs' unwillingness to trade around Math, it seems that a lot of AIs would have to know these techs before any of them would be willing to trade any of them around, particularly since we have apparently decided not to try and become Friendly with an AI in order to attempt to get around this Monopoly-tech-denial situation.
Point B) I am definitely convinced that we should give away Alphabet to any AI that learns Monarchy (which, from my perspective, is actually SLOWING the global tech pace, not hastening it, since on the following turn they'll get that tech anyway while another AI will get a second tech that we could prevent that second AI from getting).
Point C) But beyond those exceptions, I'd rather keep the AIs in the dark as much as possible, except when it comes to giving them a tech in order to get a tech back, such as trading-away Code of Laws or Metal Casting in exchange for Alphabet, which is a necessary evil.
By the way, welcome back!
), so we can certainly spare one.
