Your favorite lightbulbs

[frob2900]

I'm guessing all answers to this be paper and/or education together with astronomy/printing press/chemistry, but I was wondering, are there any other tech bottlenecks you always save up great people for?


As for me:

-I sometimes leave out prerequisites for the optics/astronomy path so I can spend 2 great scientists to grab biology after scientific method.

-Whenever I play China I love to spend engineers (I try to get Pyramids/Hanging gardens in one city) on Machinery/Engineering for early Cho-Ko-Nu/Treb stacks.

-I sometimes trade with the AI to get Divine Right so my Great Artists (which ALWAYS appear with national epic for some reason, irrespective of how many scientists I run in parallell) will prefer to bulb something useful. I've gotten democracy cheap a few times with 2 great artists.

-On a few occasions I've left out fishing (when far from the coast and happiness resources), so a GS can bulb liberalism. The beakers generally fall just short of the full tech, allowing me to preresearch it so I can take it in one turn if I think an AI is about to get it.

-For some reason I never ever bulb anything with Merchants. I prefer the gold.

Finally, in my opinion the paper/education slingshot is just a slight bit overpowered. I hardly ever consider not doing it, it's just too good.

[ParadigmShifter]

Philosophy is good early on but I forget the requirements you need to have researched/not researched in order to get it.

[frob2900]

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[frob2900]

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[50_dollar_bag]

Philosophy requires Meditation and either Code of Laws or Drama. It's my most common lightbulb but it's pretty cliche.
My favourite is probably a Liberalism lightbulb, but I usually stumble on to it.

[ParadigmShifter]

If you research too much down the wrong path I think you can't bulb philo though... I had this problem in my last game. Although maybe I forgot meditation until it was too late. Anyway, I missed philo and taoism and then got tonked by knights because I was going for education instead of getting pikemen.

[cabert]

to lightbulb philo, you need to know mathematics, that's the only "requirement".

I like to lightbulb theology with a great prophet. It's on the liberalism path, if you do it right :
- oracle something useful, like CoL
- farm the city for scientists. If one of them happen to be a prophet (1/3 odds if you run 2 scientists), you get monotheism and lightbulb theology which opens paper! On average, you should have more scientists than prophets (more so if you also run scientists in other cities)

[jerVL/kg]

In a recent game I used a GM to lightbulb Civil Service, by researching CoL/MC but avoiding Mathematics, something I learned about on this very forum in fact I also used Merchants to lb Nationalism & Constitution (by avoiding Guilds), nice little cavalry beeline there.

Normally I'm pretty clueless as to what lightbulbs what; I do notice that everything tends to get sucked down the Liberalism pipeline, or so it seems.

[futurehermit]

Originally Posted by cabert

to lightbulb philo, you need to know mathematics, that's the only "requirement".

I like to lightbulb theology with a great prophet. It's on the liberalism path, if you do it right :
- oracle something useful, like CoL
- farm the city for scientists. If one of them happen to be a prophet (1/3 odds if you run 2 scientists), you get monotheism and lightbulb theology which opens paper! On average, you should have more scientists than prophets (more so if you also run scientists in other cities)

you also need medit and either col or drama.

philosophy is a great lightbulb and the usual liberalism route is phil-paper-ed-liberalism.

theology is a pretty standard and good lightbulb as well.

in vanilla, cs was a sweet lightbulb, but now it is next to impossible to lightbulb (can be done, but only with some difficulty).

my favourite lightbulb though is probably chemistry. nothing like rampaging very early with grens vs. a continent full of medieval units.

[svv]

I usually don't lightbulb, having other uses of my great people. My most frequent lightbulb is drama, which I do with the great artist I get if I hit music first.

I know, I know, everybody says drama is cheap, wait for nationalism. But I like doing drama because it helps me along toward liberalism.

[cabert]

Originally Posted by svv

I usually don't lightbulb, having other uses of my great people. My most frequent lightbulb is drama, which I do with the great artist I get if I hit music first.

I know, I know, everybody says drama is cheap, wait for nationalism. But I like doing drama because it helps me along toward liberalism.

you're better off researching drama, leaving music out and using one less GP.
An artist can also lightbulb monarchy or theology if needed.

[frob2900]

Nationalism can be a very good artist bulb, I've noticed

[obsolete]

Normally I'm pretty clueless as to what lightbulbs what; I do notice that everything tends to get sucked down the Liberalism pipeline, or so it seems.

I used to know at one point, but there have been changes since then, and I haven't bothered to lightbullb in ages. I sort of cringe when burning off great people (except for stupid artists).

If anyone has an UPDATED list for warlords for the paths, I should probably take a look to refresh my memory.

[OTAKUjbski]

(Philosophy)

[AnyKeyz]

What ?
You can have Liberalism with a lightbulb ?
What is the specific path ?

[Lord Chambers]

Does anyone like Philosophy for any reason other than that it obstructs the bulbing of Paper and Education?

[AnyKeyz]

I like philosophy because CPU never aim for it and it gives you a religion that can be great when you build the special religion building related to it

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah, the religion thing. Code of Laws is good to lightbulb early too.

[Lord Chambers]

You guys spread around a late religion like Taoism to reap the 1gold per city per turn (minimum of 40 hammers for each city) in a place you cannot choose? On what difficulty do you find this an attractive aim?

[aelf]

Quick OT question: How many Great People does it take to change a lightbulb?

Originally Posted by Lord Chambers

Does anyone like Philosophy for any reason other than that it obstructs the bulbing of Paper and Education?

Pacifism. Also, Philosophy is required for Liberalism and opens up Nationhood to be grabbed as the free tech.