Kallikrates
Prince
So you have built the oracle. Certainly sometimes a sensible choice. But now your genepool is contaminated and you might pop a great prophet instead of the coveted scientist or engineer.
What are the best options? (instead of power word reload and hope for a better outcome) I am playing BTS immortal without enough dedication for optimal or power play but I am often bugged by such choices that rarely seem to be dealt with in typical strategy articles.
- golden age is often not so great in the BCs (no caste, philosophy or state religion yet, or at least not all three)
- religious building might be helpful in some games, but usually later on, again, a prophet as 1st or 2nd GPerson will be so early that even if one has a religion it might not have spread all that much.
- join city: This seems often the best choice, especially if one has the pyramids but even if not the 5 gold regardless of slider seem very nice early in the game
- bulb something: The help/peek in BUG in the science screen does seem to be incorrect here or I am too dense to read it properly. When I recently got a priest (2nd GP around 400-500 BC) it showed me monotheism followed by CoL. I did not have any religion yet and thought the option for caste would be nice, so I traded math for monotheism but then the bulb option suddenly was Theology a tech I almost always trade for around 500-1000 before starting to build cuirassiers... While Theocracy might also be nice for a war in the late BCs/early ADs (elepults or similar) it does not help much before the religion has spread. And one has rarely time to build prophets instead of units if one wants to go for a war at that stage.
And I am usually wary to adopt any religion early because of diplomacy. So what gives? Is early theology worse sacrificing 100s of turns of the joined extra priest bonus or the one time bonus of an early Golden Age
What are the best options? (instead of power word reload and hope for a better outcome) I am playing BTS immortal without enough dedication for optimal or power play but I am often bugged by such choices that rarely seem to be dealt with in typical strategy articles.
- golden age is often not so great in the BCs (no caste, philosophy or state religion yet, or at least not all three)
- religious building might be helpful in some games, but usually later on, again, a prophet as 1st or 2nd GPerson will be so early that even if one has a religion it might not have spread all that much.
- join city: This seems often the best choice, especially if one has the pyramids but even if not the 5 gold regardless of slider seem very nice early in the game
- bulb something: The help/peek in BUG in the science screen does seem to be incorrect here or I am too dense to read it properly. When I recently got a priest (2nd GP around 400-500 BC) it showed me monotheism followed by CoL. I did not have any religion yet and thought the option for caste would be nice, so I traded math for monotheism but then the bulb option suddenly was Theology a tech I almost always trade for around 500-1000 before starting to build cuirassiers... While Theocracy might also be nice for a war in the late BCs/early ADs (elepults or similar) it does not help much before the religion has spread. And one has rarely time to build prophets instead of units if one wants to go for a war at that stage.
And I am usually wary to adopt any religion early because of diplomacy. So what gives? Is early theology worse sacrificing 100s of turns of the joined extra priest bonus or the one time bonus of an early Golden Age