BtS SGOTM 11 - Welcome the Goddess

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 11 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

You are playing as Gandhi and, appropriately, your civilization is dedicated to the worship of the Goddess of Peace, Eldine, who will enter the world to bring in an era of everlasting happiness on the very day that you prove her righteousness to the world by securing a peaceful victory over the other civilizations. There is but one problem. Eldine is currently naked and must be clothed when she enters the world. In order to clothe her in a manner as befits a great Goddess, you must have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory. Your Holy books tell you that Eldine will use the fur as a portal through which to enter the world, and to demonstrate your devotion to her, you must have a welcoming party ready on the fur: Four great people (to symbolise Eldine's greatness) and four warriors (to symbolise the toil and labour as you raised Eldine's great civilization from a single settler). This will be no easy feat, since rumour has it that fur is so rare that only one unique supply exists, and that is heavily guarded by the most vile barbarians. Doubtless this was the result of meddling by the Devil Satan when the world was young and the Gods not paying sufficient attention.

Oh, and Eldine detests war and all its trappings. On the day she enters the world, she will question your brother and sister AI civs to ascertain how you have treated them, and will be distressed beyond belief should she discover that you have been excessively warlike towards them - in that case she will reject your civilization and look for more worthy worshippers.

Your aim in this game is to welcome in Eldine by securing a cultural or diplomatic victory that satisfies the following conditions:

• Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.
• All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.
• You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)
• You are running a state religion which has been spread to every one of your cities.
• No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

The winner of the competition is the team that secures the earliest (measured by date) cultural or diplomatic victory where all these conditions are satisfied on the turn of your victory. Obviously your game is forfeit should you lose the game or win by some other victory condition. If you win a cultural or diplomatic victory without satisfying all the conditions, your game will be listed and ranked within a secondary group for the amusement of other teams (especially if you do something silly that makes it impossible for you satisfy the conditions, like letting ivory become obsolete, or having fewer than 4 warriors when your tech becomes too advanced to let you build any more).

Timetable
The start files will be published on Friday, April 23 here. There will be one start file per team. Please ensure that you only download your own team file.

The finish deadline is August 23 2010. If any team has not finished by this date they will be deemed to have retired, and will not be eligible for any awards.

Starting Position
Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters

• Playable Leader/Civ - Gandhi of India
• Traits - Spiritual, Philosophical (starts with Mysticism and Mining)
• Unique Unit - Fast Worker (replaces Worker)
• Unique Building - Mausoleum (replaces Jail)
• Starting Era - Ancient
• Difficulty - Emperor
• Game Speed - Epic (750 turns)
• World size - Standard
• Rivals - Six
• Landform - Fractal
• Sea level - Medium
• Climate - Temperate
• Other settings - No goodie huts, No events
• Victory Conditions - All enabled

Notes

• Versions
  This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.19, using the HoF Mod BUFFY-3.19.003. This HoF Mod version is available here.
  
  If a later BtS patch, or BUFFY version, is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in the above versions before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.
  
  Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows game on their system.
  
• Awards
  Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the Fastest victory that meets the above stated conditions, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• Rules and Procedures
  Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
  All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Have fun

Hello! Just checking in. No time for my thoughts now, perhaps tomorrow I'll get to them.

BL just bought himself the first turnset!

Reference

Roster

Backwards Logic
Niklas: 1-36 || 60-81 || 132-136
Xcalibrator: 36-60 || 110-132 || 153-167 || 183-213 || 230-248 || 263-280 Retired
Renata: 81-94
CommandoBob
ChrisShaffer: 94-110 || 136-153 || 167-183 || 213-230 || 248-263
unkle
Methos

Information Links

Niklas's list of all relations modifiers from SGOTM7
spiceant's "Diplomatic Victory--Observations, Notes, and Tips"
TMIT's Guide to UN Victories
BTS 3.13 tech tree
CFC On-line Civilopedia
Civ4 SGOTM Progress page
Trade route rules and examples (see posts 76 and 80)
Barbarian spawning and behavior -- Note that new barbarian units can not spawn within a 2 tile radius (5x5 tiles) of ANY existing unit (including other barbs), even if tiles are fogged. Barb cites can appear in fogged tiles, though. Example screenie.
Victory condition details

Test games, Spreadsheets, Plans

Latest test game (T94, post 292)--With Niklas's tweaks--Not exact, but close
Test game (T81, post 268)--3 forests fixed
Test game (T60, post 213)
Niklas's spreadsheet, converted to read-only xls by Chris (turn36, post 171)--Verbal summary here--Oracle on T93
Test game (T36, post 136, with copper, with Niklas's BFC forest fix)
BL's test results, T24-85 (post 113)
Niklas's test results, T24-81 (post 99) and associated spreadsheet
Test game (T24, post 97)
Test game (T14, post 69)

Screenshots

T125 (post 413): Overview (with sugar island) and Fishenzia city screen.
T110 (post 379): Overview, closeups, and city screens.
T100 (post 364): Overview of ~entire continent plus city screens.
T81 (post 257): NW peninsula.
T60 (post 197): Capital city screen and big overview.
T36 (post 123): Aksum (and our copper) revealed, and another big overview showing more of the NE desert.
T24? (post 88): East of capital.
T10 (post 50): Capital vicinity, and big overview.

Current Status

See details through T132 in Our Excellent Adventure in post 6. (I got lazy and/or busy after that.)

Aug 8: Xcal played 263-280, then retired when diplomacy wasn't going according to plan. Main problem was that Justy was pulling too far ahead of Toku (our desired UN opponent) in population and Toku wouldn't take any of our cities as gifts. We could work around this but it would require warfare and an additional 20-30 turns. We'd been down to 2 players for a long time and it was becoming quite clear that other teams had finished ahead of us. Buddhism (Isa and Mehmed) never spread to us, Zara was Christian, and we and all the others were Hindu.
Aug 5: Chris played 248-263. Finished Radio, captured 3 of 4 barb cities (just the northernmost one left). Plan is to win around T280.
Late July: Xcal played 230-248. Finished SciMeth, finished Liberalism and took Physics, started 15-turn Golden Age, traded for Drama and Feudalism, teched Guilds, Banking, Economics (ran 2550-gold trade mission with GM), Electricity, started Radio. Finished exploring--no new land. Assembled 8 units to take main barb island, preparing to take northern barb island.
July 21: Chris played T213-230. Found fur on barb island (and another barb island up north), have Printing and Astro, 1 turn from Liberalism. Popped 2 GSci's, founded new city by whales, and reclaimed Goldlandia's fish.
July 16: Up to T213. Justy beat us to Notre Dame . But we have Optics to let us explore and could get Liberalism (taking Astronomy) in 3 turns if we wanted. I think we should milk it some more and try to take Physics.
July 12: Up to T200. 5 turns from Oxford, started Notre Dame. We need to think through our diplo plan.
July 7: We hit a rough patch there with manpower and are pretty much down to 2 players. But we're moving again...
June 15: Played thru T132. We have Alphabet, have met Sal and Isa, have a Great Sci.
June 9: Played through T110. We have 6 cities, just got Animal Husbandry, starting Fishing.
June 7: The Pyramids are completed in Deli on T100!
May 27: The Oracle is completed in Oraclia on T94! We choose CoL and Confucianism is founded in Oraclia.

Post Mortem

I think we had a good first 100 turns, but we should have attacked Zara and taken his GLH. Even with only 4 cities, Zara was a tech powerhouse with the GLH and after he founded his own religion and switched to that there was really no reason to let him live (except as our vassal). The winning teams also settled on the plains hill--we took 1 north of that and missed out on the early silver. We built the MoM but never capitalized on it--only ran 1 Golden Age. Building a Confucian shrine in Oraclia may have been a waste since Confusion never took off the way we hoped--better to settle in Deli or run a GA? We took Physics with Liberalism but could easily have delayed it to take the most expensive tech, Radio. We greatly underestimated the gold/hammer ratio for Universal Suffrage rushing on the UN (I thought it was 3, versus 12 in reality) so the UN was taking about 12 turns longer than expected--a Great Engineer would really have helped but we would have needed some luck to get that--getting one early from Deli with the Pyramids was our best shot--we missed the Hanging Gardens by a little but that was in a different city. If we'd known about the US rush cost I think we would have tried harder for an Engineer. Having Justy pull ahead of Toku in population was bad luck, and it's disappointing/surprising that Toku wouldn't take any of the former barb cities.

Our early game went well, and it's no coincidence that we had 4 or 5 active participants at that time. Having only 2 players for the last ~2/3 of the game certainly hurt, although I think we did pretty well considering our lack of experience/knowledge with the mechanics of diplomatic victories. The winning teams did a better job in the early game on where to plant cities. I'll have to really study that aspect of the game with Civ V!
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[size=-1]Checking in. And offering a big "Welcome back!" to all the returnees. We really missed you the past game or two and I'm hoping we can recapture the Smurkz magic.[/size]

Click to expand...

(hides)

[size=+2]Our Excellent Adventure[/size]

T0-36 (4000-3100 BC), Niklas--T36 pix and report: We send our warrior SW and see that the coastline is actually the shore of a lake. We want to save the plains hill for a mine (hoping for a metal resource) and send our settler E across the river. We're not thrilled with what we find but it's good enough so we settle there and start building a worker while researching Agriculture. Our warrior runs around and bumps into Zara. Niklas keeps playing to T36, when we discover Bronze Working and find copper in the BFC of our capital, Deli.

During this time, Niklas and BL run lots of test games trying to optimize production of the Oracle and Pyramids. Our general plan is to get the Pyramids for the +3 bonus and to enable Representation to fuel our specialist-led teching. The Oracle is always nice to have and will help culturally box in Zara to our east (planning to build our next city 5E of Deli in the river oxbow tile with the cows in its BFC). We plan to choose Code of Laws to enable unlimited scientists under Caste System (although Metal Casting is also an option). The Pyramids will go in Deli, helped along by settling in/near the stone tile up north. If all goes according to plan, we'll have 4 cities by T81, the Oracle on T93, and the Pyramids on T100.

We considered building the Oracle even earlier (T78), choosing Metal Casting for forges, quickly building a forge in Deli, and then running an engineer to pop a Great Engineer and rush the Pyramids on T103. Half a dozen test games (most with Zara and 5 Industrious AIs), however, show that we don't need to be in a huge rush for the Pyramids and have good odds of still getting the Oracle (on T93) before the AIs. We discuss the merits of Stonehenge and the Great Wall but choose to emphasize REXing instead, particularly since our tests show it's likely that either Henge or the Wall will likely fall to the AIs by turn 90.

T36-60 (3100-2500 BC), Xcalibrator--T60 pix and report: Carefully following Niklas's spreadsheet, we build another 2 workers and 2 warriors, chop forests, build mines, and road tiles toward the east to prepare for our first settler, due on T62. There are no surprises, other than having a new forest appear SSE of Deli (plus another one that grew earlier near the stone). We get Wheel (T46) and Masonry (T58).

T60-81 (2500-1975 BC), Niklas--T81 pix and turn log: We discover Meditation (T72) and Priesthood (T78); Priesthood comes 1 turn later than planned, delaying the Oracle start, because Zara didn't tech as expected, denying us that slight beaker-rate bonus. We found Oraclia (2W of eastern cows, T64), Estonia (river grass SW of stone, T71), and Argentina (2W of silver, T81), and fend off a couple barb warriors, while exploring to the tip of what turns out to be the NW (marble) peninsula. Niklas finds one or two more errors in our test game wrt forest placement, but since the Priesthood delay pushes back the Oracle to T94 it doesn't appear to delay us any more.

T81-94 (1975-1650 BC), Renata--Report: We discover Writing (T94?), complete the Oracle (T94), choose Code of Laws, found Confucianism in Oraclia (right where we were hoping, for its culture), and revolt to adopt our new religion! We lose one warrior to a barb but whip out 2 axes that should take care of that little problem. Renata discovers some more clams off the NW coast and unfogs a bit more land--very nice land--out west. We've put a few hammers toward the Great Wall in Oraclia (hoping for consolation gold to speed up Writing, but it'll still be useful later) and quite a few toward Stonehenge in Argentina.

T94-110 (1650-1250 BC), Chris--T110 overviews and city screens and reports at T96, T98, T100, T110: Confucianism spreads to Zara and he converts on T95. Stonehenge is also BIAFAL, 4 turns before we would have finished in Argentina, but we get 84 consolation gold. On T100 Deli finishes the Pyramids and we discover Pottery. A barb pops up on T98 and heads for Deli, but we deal with him by whipping an axe in Oraclia. Incensia is founded T107, Marblia (in the NW with the clams) on T110. We discover Animal Husbandry on T109 and start on Fishing, but with so many cities (6 now) our maintenance costs are getting quite high. We've now explored the whole continent and can see reachable land to our west, north, and east.

The near-term plan is to build a few more settlers, workers, and granaries, and grow Deli as quickly as possible so we can run scientists (since we'll soon be running close to 0% research because of city maintenance) to get Alphabet so we can trade techs with Zara and the other civs that we'll soon meet via workboat after we finish Fishing.

T110-132 (1250-700 BC), Xcal--Pix from T125, reports at T114, T125, T132. We revolt to Caste System and start running our first specialist (in Estonia). The Great Wall is BIAFAL after T110 (we get 29 gold ) and we discover Fishing on T113. We delay running scientists in Deli a few turns to ensure that Estonia pop its GP first (on T123), as a 100% Great Scientist that we then use for an academy in Deli. BTW, we've had enough espi points on Zara to see his research for awhile. He builds the Great Lighthouse on T115 and is doing quite well on teching. We found Fishenzia T116 by the western fish/pigs/cows/lakes and tentatively plan this to be our GP farm. Marblia builds a workboat that checks out the sugar island and continues east, meeting everybody's favorite religious fanatic, Isabella, on T131. The same turn we met Saladin in the west with another workboat. On T132 we finish Alphabet, get a Great Sci in Deli (#2), and ponder our trading strategy. We're running 6 scientists (4 in Deli) and making 54 bpt at 0% research and just breaking even on maintenance.

Plan: Research Math (for the chop bonus and to get the Hanging Gardens). Trade cleverly for techs. Grow our cities fast to help with maintenance and/or run specialists.

Checking in, with nothing really clever or wise or smart-alecky to say or post at this time.

Has anyone checked out the rules discussion thread for the this game?

Alright, my thoughts in some loosely organized way.

VC - My vote would be to plan cultural while cultivating diplomacy. We could go all conquest on everyone, but there's the diplo penalty we have to avoid (we can only declare war twice or something like that). There's some synergy here with our ruleset as we need four 'extra' Great People, and wonders like Parthenon, Statue of Zeus (huge culture boost + GA points while being pretty quick to build if Ivory is around) and Sistine Chapel appeal, not to mention the tech path we'd be taking for cultural cruises right by these wonders. I hope there's marble nearby...

On religion: Everyone has got to be in a state religion. Sounds to me like espionage will be useful here - we can force the leaders (if any) with free religion as their favorite civic out of it and into theocracy or pacifism or whatever we're in.

On warrior requirement: We'll probably need a bunch since we need four of them to 'greet' the goddess. Also means we'd have to delay hunting OR delay hooking up copper/iron. The later probably isn't the best choice... We'll have to keep an eye on our scouts and possibly build a 'cushion' so that if we lose one it's no big deal.

On settling location: There's going to be a bunch of people saying 'settle on the plains hill!' but there's probably a resource there I'd rather not bury as the start right now, outside of the forests, is rather hammer poor. I might consider moving the settler 1 E only because we know the three tiles we'd lose have no resources and we could pick up a hill or two for hammers.

On tech choice: There's two options, and I have a rough idea where the masses will vote for. Option one is the early religion route, shrine it with GP's from Oracle or Stonehenge or whatever and hope it spreads to our neighbors. The easier route is to go worker first and tech agriculture to get the corns hooked up. That option probably makes the most sense and doesn't rely on 'luck' to make the strategy work (luck here being the religion spread to the other civs). Two irrigated corn early is fairly powerful, powerful enough that I'd probably can the idea of an early religion now but I figured I'd throw it out there.

On resources: The rule specifically says the resource must be in all of our cities, so technically we could trade for them if settling them is not viable. Only the furs is the issue which we need to find and secure via our borders.

There was more, but I forgot. So I hope this is enough to get us started. Onto victory!

Checking in. Can't believe I signed up for this. No way do I have time to play Civ. That said, really looking forward to it. Just reviewed the last game and it looks like BL and XC deserve a huge thanks for keeping the Smurkz legacy alive. Let's take this one in for a medal.

There's no requirement that fur be in our borders - we could have 4 warriors, 4 great people and a SoD on the fur in a territory at war or in a friendly neighbor's territory with open borders. There is only one fur in the entire world... and probably only one of each other resource as well. I'd guess each one is in a different AI's territory, though one (probably fur) will be in the new world.

I would favor worker -> irrigated corn. Move worker NE and if nothing seen, settle in place. I agree with BL that we should not settle on the plains hill.

Well, I suppose I should clarify meaning there's only one source of fur period, so trading for it is (likely?) out, so therefore it has to be in our borders for the hookup. Note each of our cities must have access to it in some way shape or form. Agree with the warrior move NW - everywhere else is forested and will block LoS.

Ah, right.

Not sure about NW for the warrior - won't NE expose more stuff nearer the river? I don't think we'd want to build on the spot the warrior is occupying as it might be a resource.

Moving NE appears to have extended LoS blocked by forests. The tile 2N 1E appears to be forest and the tile E of that looks to be forest as well. If true, moving there doesn't reveal anything we don't already 'know.' We'll have a better idea once the save is released.

OK, makes sense.

I think moving the settler 1E is an interesting idea, if only because you all know how I love being contrary. Like BL I expect a lot of the teams to settle that plains hill, and I just know that DS has placed a resource there. The only benefit of settling in place over moving 1E is that it saves one turn, but I'm willing to gamble on the possibility that moving will give more interesting tiles.

An alternative would be to move 1S, similar reasoning as 1E but a different set of tiles lost/gained. My fog gazing skills say there's coast SW-SW, so moving 1S would give at least one coastal tile in the BFC, without the chance for a lighthouse. Hence I slightly favor 1E.

Researching Agri first should be a no-brainer. The benefits of a super-early religion are dubious at best. This is Monarch level, we will easily get one of the later ones, should we need it. And it's better that one of the AIs found and shrine an early religion that can then spread to us, let them do the work and waste the GP for it. But yes, it's good to have the option out there and actively discussed.

Musing a bit more in general - we are playing Gandhi, which means PHI+SPI. There's probably no better leader in the game for running an extreme specialist economy, something we've had plenty practice with in several games now. Pyramids, anyone? It's a lot of hammers without stone, but early Representation absolutely rocks. One possibility I think we should very seriously consider is a gambit with Oracle -> MC -> run Engineer spec -> GE for Pyramids.

Depending on who we share our world with, I would be more inclined to aim for Diplomacy than Culture. There are several reasons for this: Diplomacy is usually a lot faster, requires the use of far less GPs (4 extra is going to hurt a lot with culture), and doesn't require us to make a lot of early suboptimal choices (like going for religions).

Checking in. Nothing smart to say except I am glad to be back Heck I may even re-setup CiV at home, which I never thought I'd do any time soon...

Gandhi with Mids was one of my fav' c-c-c-combo, though it is quite unclear to me if Oracle->GE->Mids is doable. Though lots of forest there can also mean lots of chopping for Oracle, for sure.

I am in for 1E, delaying 1 turn is probably ok. My fear is that we find nothing (or worse), meaning that moving back W is another turn delay at least... Which does not go so well with ultra-early ORacle gambit.

1E won't show us anything except possible resource on forest, since all the tiles E are forest. And any resource we see will already be in the BFC. So it's just a gamble - are the three tiles 2NE-2E-2SE better than the three forest we can already see - and can already chop for the Oracle? And will we be gaining or giving up river spaces for later? If we chop all these trees, this city will be primarily grassland river with 2 corn - specialists galore.

1E will gain us unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, and (probably) hill. I doubt it is worth losing a turn.

I like the Oracle=>Mids gambit, but I think it means we need to settle in place and chop some trees.

I see that Chris is already sucked in, despite his protestations. Exxxcellent.

Warrior NW looks good--reveals the most tiles. I agree about not settling on the plains hill, but am not sure about moving 1E because we may lose a turn for nothing.

Using Oracle to nab MC to get a Great Eng sounds good, but the best odds we can hope for are only 60%, yes? 2 GPP (Prophet; 4GPP net with Philosophical) from the Oracle, and then 3 GPP (6 GPP net) from running an engineer, but we can only do that once the forge is built and we have enough population to run it--will be at least several turns before we can do that and meanwhile we're making 4GPP Prophet points toward the required 135. (It is 135 at Epic, right?) If it's 5 turns before we can run an eng then we'll have 68 Prophet points (48.6%) and 72 Engineer (51.4%) at 17 turns after building the Oracle. If it's 10 turns before the eng starts, then 80 Prophet and 60 Engineer (57/43%) after 20 turns. If we get a Prophet then we could try again at 60% odds for an Eng, but that'll take another 27 turns. So, 17-20 turns after building the Oracle we'll have around 47% odds for an Engineer. Around 45 turns post-Oracle, we'll have 1-0.53*0.40 = around a 79% chance of getting at least one Great Engineer. Not bad odds, but by that time we could have built the Pyramids manually, especially if we've settled the Prophet.

Edit: I agree about preferring a Diplo VC (though I will be largely useless for this). BTW, this is Emperor, not Monarch.

CB asked about the Rules thread. Here's what I've gathered:

* Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.

Click to expand...

That means every AI, including colonies that were granted independence. Barbs, however, can be wiped out. All the religious civics have a state religion except for Free Religion, which is enabled by Liberalism.

* All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.

Click to expand...

There's only 1 fur in the world, so we must have that fur in our cultural boundaries, or else have traded for it (very unlikely).

* You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)

Click to expand...

We can have other units in addition to the warriors and GPs. Great Generals can be used, but they cannot be attached to other units (making warlords). Likewise, GPs cannot be settled (making superspecialists).

* You are running a state religion which has been spread to every one of your cities.

Click to expand...

* No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.

Click to expand...

For this last one, we need to understand the rules for DoWing an AI that has vassals, or is a vassal, or has a defensive pact, or a permanent alliance. We can DoW the same 1 or 2 AIs multiple times. Barbs don't matter, of course.

Victory conditions are measured as they exist on the turn we get the "Smurkz wins a TBD victory!" message at the moment we submit that save. That is, we can fulfill the required VCs at any time on that turn, e.g., by moving units onto the fur tile, claiming that fur tile within our cultural borders, etc. as long as we don't hit "Enter" again.

I like 1E just to be gambling a bit! Fortune favors the bold!

There are two ways we can try the GE gambit:

• One is to run the engineer in the capital like in Xcal's calculations, in which case as Xcal points out we won't get better than ~55% odds on getting a GE. This is the fastest way to generate that GP, but with large uncertainty.
• The other possibility is to run the engineer specialist in a different city. Then the capital should not run an engineer, and we would count on the 6 GPP/t from the engineer in the second city to outrun the 4 GPP/t from the Oracle in the capital (assuming that's where we build it of course, but it seems very likely we would). It would take a second city 25 turns to generate the 150 GPP needed for that GE, and 38 turns for the Oracle to generate 150 GPP for a prophet. That gives us a window of 11 turns (yes, 11, can't you count? ) to get a forge up in the second city to run that engineer.
• There's also the chance of a hybrid approach - We can try for a fast GP in the capital at 55% odds in 15 turns, with a second city aiming for another GE at the 300 mark, which would take 50 turns total at 6 GPP/t. That's still early as far as Pyramids go, but it's unclear whether the benefits of possibly having our first GE 10 turns earlier outweigh the drawback of possibly generating a prophet first instead. But it would certainly be nice to have two early GPs, and if both are engineers it would be even more awesome.

Emperor, okay, that means less chance to nail the Oracle but still definitely doable. Since we start with the best two techs, Myst+Mining, we really only need to research Agri, BW, Med and PH, plus Wheel and Pottery (prereqs for MC) before/while building Oracle. Most of those are techs we would definitely want regardless, so there's not all that much to lose by trying. We'll probably lose any chance for Stonehenge, but I think it should be clear that Oracle/MC/Mids is preferable.

I think we should run some test games to see how early Oracle is likely to go. We have no idea who our opponents are so aim for the worst. We of course also need to spread-sheet our start, to see how fast we could have it up.