Not a lot to add ...
I'd personally 'stick to our guns' and hold out for a Metal Casting <> Alphabet trade, whip the Forge in Karakorum, and run an Engineer there to pop our next Great Engineer, which theoretically would set us up for The Great Library. This is my preference. If we want to self-research Archery in the meantime, that's fine by me.
Alternately, we can trade away Metal Casting for Maths + Iron Working, and run Scientists in Karakorum toward Construction. This should get us the tech' in around 15-ish turns. We'd run the risk of popping a Great Scientist, which would start to make The Great Library look very much like a distant hope, but it would at least give us the compelling option of a Karakorum Academy.
I think we should make a call on this (or other alternatives) one way or the other now.
I would prefer to see a dedicated Great Person Farm rather than using Karakorum because of the Bureaucracy civic, where the capital is handsomely rewarded for and (but not especially). Alternatives could be; to shift the capital, or we could just concede that we're not going to get much leverage out of Bureaucracy if we wanted to run loads of specialists in Karakorum (even though this is quite well Cottaged now). This city will probably yield a few more Great People anyway by virtue of its Wonders plus there'd be a chance that from time to time we could just want to run some specialists there in addition to working developed tiles.
My vote would probably be to have Uzbek earmarked for a Great Person Farm, convert Cimmerian into a unit pump, and have Karakorum as our Science Centre. I'd pair The Great Library and The National Epic in Uzbek, but wouldn't greatly object if The Great Library ended up in Karakorum instead, assuming we're still going to pursue this Wonder.
Pigswill - three and a half days since "got it" ... are you OK to put up a PPP soon?
I'd personally 'stick to our guns' and hold out for a Metal Casting <> Alphabet trade, whip the Forge in Karakorum, and run an Engineer there to pop our next Great Engineer, which theoretically would set us up for The Great Library. This is my preference. If we want to self-research Archery in the meantime, that's fine by me.
Alternately, we can trade away Metal Casting for Maths + Iron Working, and run Scientists in Karakorum toward Construction. This should get us the tech' in around 15-ish turns. We'd run the risk of popping a Great Scientist, which would start to make The Great Library look very much like a distant hope, but it would at least give us the compelling option of a Karakorum Academy.
I think we should make a call on this (or other alternatives) one way or the other now.
I would prefer to see a dedicated Great Person Farm rather than using Karakorum because of the Bureaucracy civic, where the capital is handsomely rewarded for and (but not especially). Alternatives could be; to shift the capital, or we could just concede that we're not going to get much leverage out of Bureaucracy if we wanted to run loads of specialists in Karakorum (even though this is quite well Cottaged now). This city will probably yield a few more Great People anyway by virtue of its Wonders plus there'd be a chance that from time to time we could just want to run some specialists there in addition to working developed tiles.
My vote would probably be to have Uzbek earmarked for a Great Person Farm, convert Cimmerian into a unit pump, and have Karakorum as our Science Centre. I'd pair The Great Library and The National Epic in Uzbek, but wouldn't greatly object if The Great Library ended up in Karakorum instead, assuming we're still going to pursue this Wonder.
Pigswill - three and a half days since "got it" ... are you OK to put up a PPP soon?