First Great Scientist, Academy or Philosophy?

[fenrus]

The race to Philosophy can be unpredictable. My last game, it was founded in 200AD, which is like turn 124.

I guess it's not imperative to get Taoism, I could save future Great Scientists for Education, Liberalism, Printing Press.

What do most people here do? Academy first and hope you can get Taoism or is the Academy 2nd priority?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by fenrus

What do most people here do? Academy first and hope you can get Taoism or is the Academy 2nd priority?

Note that I only play on low difficulty levels. Warlord currently, as I'm still learning the game.

Do you already "own" a religion? If not, do you want to?

Also, do you have one city that outputs a lot of science? Use the F1 city overview screen to find out, sorting the list according to science output. If you have a good science city, you should probably found an Academy there.

Generally, I tend to go for long-term rewards, i.e. I'll practically never use Great Persons to get techs, because I can invent any tech in 3-12 turns (unless I have too many cities and don't have Code of Laws yet to build Courhouses), and likewise I don't believe I've ever used a Great Engineer to complete a National or Great Wonder (except once to try it out), although I might actually do that if I believe I'm in a Wonder race with one of the AI civs.

Still, my point is that Great Persons are best "invested" into long-term return, such as becoming a Great Specialist in a city, or founding an Academy or Scotland Yard, or even starting or extending a Golden Age.

More skilled players may turn out to disagree, though.

[Silu]

The OPs question tends to arise often enough and there's no single answer except "it depends on the situation". However, a common solution is to make Academy with the first and get the second fast enough to bulb Philo This is very possible in most situations.

The benefit of Philo is usually not Taoism, it's huge tech trades and making AIs less likely to research Philo (they value it less after the religion is gone) to have an edge in the Lib race.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Silu

The benefit of Philo is usually not Taoism, it's huge tech trades and making AIs less likely to research Philo (they value it less after the religion is gone) to have an edge in the Lib race.

So there's no special effect to Philosophy, other than Taoism, that I've forgotten about? ISTR that in Civ 3 is initiated a Golden Age for some civs, maybe the Greeks...

In fact, what techs do give special effects?

Liberalism gives 1 free tech.
Facism gives 1 Great General.
Communism gives (IIRC) 1 Great Spy.
I think there's a rather late tech that gives 1 Great Scientist.

Others?

(I think stuff like extra trade routes and the ability of irrigation to spread from tile to tile, should either be ignored, or placed in its own separate category.)

[Silu]

Well there's Lib, and a free GP of each category except GProphet (Communism->Gspy, Music->GA, Physics->GS, Fusion->GE, Fascism->GG, Economics->GM).

Why the Philo bulb is so great (in the first place, before all this extra mumbojumbo I mentioned) is that it's the best exchange rate between a GP and trading power in the whole game. This is because Philo is an expensive tech for its time, and the diminishing returns on the GS bulb beaker formula aren't hit yet (i.e. it's bulbed completely instead of partially like Education, but not "too completely" so not much potential is wasted). There's an old example where a guy got ~15 techs from bulbing Philo, trading it, and brokering the things he traded with it.

[Sporknife]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

So there's no special effect to Philosophy, other than Taoism, that I've forgotten about? ISTR that in Civ 3 is initiated a Golden Age for some civs, maybe the Greeks...

In fact, what techs do give special effects?

Liberalism gives 1 free tech.
Facism gives 1 Great General.
Communism gives (IIRC) 1 Great Spy.
I think there's a rather late tech that gives 1 Great Scientist.

Others?

(I think stuff like extra trade routes and the ability of irrigation to spread from tile to tile, should either be ignored, or placed in its own separate category.)

Physics gives a gs, fusion(?) i think gives a ge. music gives a ga. i think thats it.

edit: also, in a normally expanding game, you should have your second gs by then.

[DigitalBoy]

Super specialist.

Seriously.

[Lyoncet]

Also depends on difficulty level and how many other civs are around you. If you're on warlord, trading actually benefits the AI more than it benefits you unless you can do some heavy brokering. In that case, unless you're going for Taoism or bulbing your way to Liberalism, academy and super specialists are probably your best bet. On Immortal, since the AI gets such a huge beaker bonus over the human player, bulbing for trades is often more solid of a strategy.

[Tristan_C]

Geography plays a role. If you're playing islands and some civs are out of contact with others, sometimes it makes sense for you to hog the religion (at a lower difficulty where isolated civs will be really backward), but usually it is better for you to let another civ found the religion to prevent a lovefest once everyone comes into contact. Isolated AIs who do not have one of the first three religions are going to be serious about getting philo. It is best to have as many religions as possible duking it out on each other. Philosophy is the religion of "last chance!" for a long time, techwise. If you're all set on religion, there's no point in racing them and neglecting other things.

Short version: if you're certain there are lonely AIs, you should strongly consider the academy.

[Ramesses-Rules]

As others have said, it depends on your situation. If you are the tech leader, then build the Academy and research it. If I am on an island, I might bulb it just to get state religion as fast as possible. That is a huge benefit for Ramesses.